id eyes upon Telemachus than she
personally identified him. When the wife had spoken the words of
immediate insight and instinct, the wise husband sees the truth and
gives his reasons. When the fact has been told him, he can easily prove
it.

Supremely beautiful is this appearance of Helen in the Odyssey; she is
the completion of what we saw and knew of her in the Iliad. Now she is
restored to home and country, after her long alienation; still she has
lurking moments of self-reproach on account of her former deeds. Though
she has repented and has been received back, she cannot forget, ought
not to forget the past altogether. The conduct of the husband is most
noble in these scenes; he has forgiven her fully, never upbraiding,
never even alluding to her fatal act, excepting in one passage
possibly, in which there is a gentle palliation of her behavior: "Thou
camest to the place, moved by some divinity who wished to give glory to
the Trojans." The husband will not blame her, she acted under the
stimulus of a God. The fallen woman restored is the divinest of all
pictures; we wonder again at the far-reaching humanity of the old bard;
to-day she would hardly be taken back and forgiven by the world as
completely as she is in the pages of Homer. She is indeed a new Helen,
standing forth in the purest radiance within the shining palace of
Menelaus. Long shall the world continue to gaze at her there.

Telemachus is to see and to hear Helen; that is, indeed, one of his
supreme experiences. But it is not here a matter of superficial staring
at a beautiful woman; all that Helen is, the total cycle of her
spirit's history, is to enter his heart and become a vital portion of
his discipline. It is probable that the youth does not realize every
thing that Helen means and is; still he beholds her, and that in itself
is an education. Helen is not merely a figure of voluptuous beauty,
which captivates the senses; she bears in her the experience of
complete humanity; she has erred, she has transformed her error, she
has been restored to that ethical order which she had violated. All of
which the young man is to see written in her face, and to feel in her
words and conduct, though he may not consciously formulate it in his
thought. This is the true beauty of Helen, not simply the outer
sensuous form, though she possesses that too. She could not be the
ideal of the Greek world, if she were merely an Oriental enchantress;
indeed it is just