of personality, or of spiritual power in the stream, is
almost necessarily involved in such emotion; and prolonged [Greek:
charis], in the form of gratitude, the return of Love for benefits
continually bestowed, at last alike in all the highest and the simplest
minds, when they are honorable and pure, makes this untrue thing
trustworthy; [Greek: apiston emesato piston], until it becomes to them
the safe basis of some of the happiest impulses of their moral nature.
Next to the marbles of Verona, given you as a primal type of the
sculpture of Christianity, moved to its best energy in adorning the
entrance of its temples, I have not unwillingly placed, as your
introduction to the best sculpture of the religion of Greece, the forms
under which it represented the personality of the fountain Arethusa. But
without restriction to those days of absolute devotion, let me simply
point out to you how this untrue thing, made true by Love, has intimate
and heavenly authority even over the minds of men of the most practical
sense, the most shrewd wit, and the most severe precision of moral
temper. The fair vision of Sabrina in 'Comus,' the endearing and tender
promise, "Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium," and the joyful and proud
affection of the great Lombard's address to the lakes of his enchanted
land,--

"Te, Lari maxume, teque
Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino,"

may surely be remembered by you with regretful piety, when you stand by
the blank stones which at once restrain and disgrace your native river,
as the final worship rendered to it by modern philosophy. But a little
incident which I saw last summer on its bridge at Wallingford, may put
the contrast of ancient and modern feeling before you still more
forcibly.

89. Those of you who have read with attention (none of us can read with
too much attention), Moliere's most perfect work, 'The Misanthrope,'
must remember Celimene's description of her lovers, and her excellent
reason for being unable to regard with any favor, "notre grand flandrin
de vicomte,--depuis que je l'ai vu, trois quarts d'heure durant, cracher
dans un puits pour faire des ronds." That sentence is worth noting, both
in contrast to the reverence paid by the ancients to wells and springs,
and as one of the most interesting traces of the extension of the
loathsome habit among the upper classes of Europe and America, which now
renders all external grace, dignity, and decency impossib