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But when the prophets of ethical naturalism again and again announce that the great aim of all the discoveries of the evolution theory is to show us how far mankind has fortunately progressed; when their spirit of devotion is nourished by Göthe's Promethean word: "Hast thou not thyself accomplished all, thou holy glowing heart?" and even when Häckel prints as the leading motto of his "Anthropogeny" Göthe's poem "Prometheus"; when the struggle of selection is also elevated to a moral principle, and the life-task of an individual is limited to creating elbow-room for himself: then humility, indeed, is a virtue which a naturalist may acquire, not through his naturalism, but in spite of it; and the great naïveté with which, in books of that tendency, haughtiness and passion for glory are treated as something necessarily understood, and their own ego is glorified, is a much more logical result.
For the bad or young or untaught mower without tradition, the mower Promethean, the mower original and contemptuous of the past, does all these things: He leaves great crescents of grass uncut. He digs the point of the scythe hard into the ground with a jerk. He loosens the handles and even the fastening of the blade.
But the Promethean spark of patriotic devotion burned in the hearts of Secession women; and, resolved to dare all things in a cause so holy, a young lady of Washington, strong in heroic faith, offered to encounter any perils, and pledged her life to give General Beauregard the necessary information.
Though certain buildings have since been illuminated with excellent effect, it remains true that the corset, chewing-gum, beer and automobile sky signs of our Great White Ways indicate the height to which our imagination has risen in utilizing this Promethean gift in any but necessary ways.
Skale smiled upon him with the mighty triumph of the Promethean idea in his eyes. "The room," he muttered deeply and softly, "in which it lies waiting for you to claim it at the appointed time ... the room where you shall learn its color, become attuned to its great vibratory activity, see its form, and know its power in your own person." Again they looked long into one another's eyes.
To roam through the romantic vales of Italy surrounded at all turns by the sad memorials of its former magnificence the mighty ruins of its temples and palaces, and the mutilated remains of its statues and triumphal columns, conveying to the mind mournful images of the fallen fates of those who had for ages been its proud possessors; where the Mantuan bard first caught inspiration from the deathless muse; where Tully charmed the listening throng, whilst defending with mild persuasion the arts and the sciences he loved, and condemning in terrible denunciations the mad ambition that threatened the destruction of his country; to wander among its groves, and say, here Ovid, in lonely exile, soothed his sorrows with the melody of his heaven-inspired strain; here Petrarch wooed his much-loved Laura in sonnets soft as the affection that gave them birth; here Tasso made history and Jerusalem immortal by crowning them with the garlands of his Promethean genius; and here Ariosto, Dante, Metastasio, and a galaxy of poets and philosophers shed the splendour of their gifted imaginations on the expiring greatness of their country.
It comes to this, that if we wish to describe a man who does not seem to fit into any of the categories permitted by ordinary words, we are driven to refer him to some exemplar recognized in legend or history we talk of his being Epicurean, Voltairean, and so forth. Let us say, therefore, that Monsieur Thomas, like Pasteur, is of the Promethean type a seeker after verity, a light-bringer.
"What, my dear children, should we be, without the religious sentiment that is to us as a second sight, by which we see in all this beauty the hand of the Creator; by which we are permitted to join in this hymn of nature; by which, I may say, we are permitted to enter into the joy of our Lord? Without it we should be like those sheep, who are at this moment grazing on the verge of this sublime precipice, alike unconscious of all these wonders, and of their divine Original. This religious sentiment is in truth, Edward, that promethean fire that kindles nature with a living spirit, infuses life and expression into inert matter, and invests the mortal with immortality." Mrs.
I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished hair grown grey.
The spectacle recalls the opening lines of the great Promethean drama of the Greek poet. Truly we seem to have reached the limit of the world, the rocky Scythia, the uninhabited desert! The bright sunshine and balmy air hardly soften the unspeakable savagery and desolation of the scene, fitting background for the tragedy of the fallen Fire-giver.
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