It was
a long, terrible time, a wandering not on the water, like the
sea-faring Hellene, but in the wilderness and desert, like the
sand-faring Semite. All the companions (but two) were lost, and the
leader also; moreover that leader was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians, but had to get out of it and away from it, and lead his
people into their own possessions. Much light Egypt with all its
darkness furnished to Moses and Judea; much to Menelaus and to Hellas.
So the two chief streams of human culture, the Greek and the Hebrew,
are traced back to the Egyptian source in the earliest books, or Bibles
of the two peoples themselves.

Moreover we find the form of the two grand experiences quite the same;
there is a going into Egypt, the land of dazzling riches and power and
civilization; there is the misfortune and trial in that land after a
time of prosperity, finally, there is the Return home, with many
wanderings and sufferings. Both peoples bring with them what may be
called the Egyptian idea, yet each transforms it into its own spirit
after its own fashion.

Still further we may follow this thought and behold it as universal.
The form of separation and return is fundamental in human spirit; this
is its inherent movement, and the shape which it imparts to the great
works of literature. The very destiny of man is cast into this mould;
there is, first, his estrangement, the fall from his high estate; then
is his return to harmony with the divine order. The Hebrew Bible begins
with the Fall of Man; that is the first chapter; the rest of the book
is his rise, and marks out the path of his Return which, of course,
shows many sinuosities. Such is the deepest fact of the human soul, and
to image it, there springs into existence the corresponding literary
form. Not that it was taken consciously by the poet or maker after much
ratiocination; he has to take it, if he sees the universe as it is.
This form is the form of the everlasting reality, of which he has the
immediate vision, it is also the form of very selfhood, of the Ego.

Though different in many things, the Odyssey and the Bible are both, at
bottom, Returns. They restore the man after alienation. Indeed we may
behold the same form as fundamental in all Great Literary Books--in
Homer, in Dante, in Shakespeare, in Goethe.

Many things connected with this catching and holding of Proteus are
suggestive, but they are the flash of the poet into the depths, and
m