in to appear in
another. Thine is the power to re-create thyself in the soul of man
with every epoch and in every country. Great is that discipline of
Telemachus, which we still to-day have to seek: he has seen Helen.

3. The preceding story was the Heroic Tale, which goes back to the
Past, especially to Troy, as the grand deed done by the united Hellenic
race, whereof the Iliad is a sample. But now we enter a new field, and
a new sort of composition, which, in default of a better name, we shall
call the Fairy Tale. Helen is not now present, nor is her struggle the
theme; Menelaus, the man, is to recount his experience in his return to
Hellas.

The story is inspired by the desire of Telemachus to know about his
father. As that father is not present the question arises, Where is he?
Menelaus will undertake to answer the question by a tale which shadows
forth the Distant and the Future--a prophetic tale, which casts its
glance through the veil of Time and Space.

A mythical figure appears, Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, who is to
foretell to the inquiring mortal what may be needful for his safety.
Not an Olympian God is Proteus, yet a supernatural shape standing
between man and deity and mediating the two, the human and the divine.
For it is Proteus who sends Menelaus back to the Gods whom he has
neglected and offended.

The Fairy Tale which we are now to consider, is not to be looked upon
as an allegory; it is a story with incident, movement, character, all
in their own right, and not for the sake of something else. But we must
not, on this account, imagine that it has no thought; in fact, the
Fairy Tale is just the way in which primitive peoples think. It has
thought, often the profoundest thought, which darts through it, not
steadily, but fitfully in flashes at the important links, like electric
sparks. This thought we are to catch and hold, and not rest satisfied
with the mere outer form of the story.

Persons we can always find who are strongly prepossessed against seeing
any meaning in the Fairy Tale, or in the Mythus. Modern usage of these
literary forms, doubtless, justifies such an opinion. Still we must
remember that Homer was not playing, but thinking with his Fairy Tale;
he had no technical terms, and almost no abstract language for
expressing thought; the day of philosophic reflection had not yet
dawned upon Greece. Homer has a great and deep thought to utter, but
his utterance is and must be mythical