ls the chasm
before you; and out of the mist, things vast and gigantic,
things half human and things not half human, present themselves,
stirring your wonder, and withdraw leaving your imagination
athirst. "These men came forth from the confines of hell" ....
Who wrote of them had news, I think, of terrific doings in
Atlantis, when earth shook to the tread of giant hosts. I
confess that to me all things European, after this, look a little
neat and dapper. I look from the cliffs at the limit of things,
out over

.....the sunset bound of Lyonnesse,
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten people dwelt:

--it is not in this world; belongs not to this Fifth Race; but
is more ancient, fantasmal, and portentous.

Has it ever occurred to you that no body of men, no movement, no
nation for that matter, can choose for itself a symbol that does
not actually express it? The flags of the nations are all, for
those that can read them, the sign manuals of the souls of the
nations, wherein the status of each is written plain; though
those that chose the symbol, and those that glory in it, may have
no idea how they are thus revealing or exposing themselves.--No,
I am not going to speak of the Dragon; which, by all traditions,
was the symbol chosen for the monarchy set up by the fifth-century
Britons; nor to remind you--and yet it is worth remembering,--
that the Dragon is the symbol of the Esoteric Wisdom;--I am
going to speak of something else.--You take some form, some
picture; and it seems to you in some inexplicable way inspiring;
and you adopt it, and say _In hoc signo vincam._ Why? You
know nothing about symbolism; and yet, if you have any inner
life, those who understand symbolism can read your inner
life in you symbol. That is because symbolism is a universal
science, real, and with nothing arbitrary about it; and because
something in your subconsciousness wiser than you has directed
you choice, and means you to be expressed.

Take one of the most universal symbols of all: the Cross. In one
form or another we find it all over the world. In ancient Egypt,
where it is called the _Ankh,_ and is drawn as a capital T with a
circle above. There it symbolizes life in the largest sense.
The circle above stands for Spirit; the Tau or cross below, for
matter: thus it pictures the two in their true relation the one
to the other.--The C