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Maraton wandered back to the window, raised the curtain and once more looked out upon the scene which seemed to him that night so pregnant with meaning. His mind remained fixed upon the symbolism of the streets. He heard only the echoes of a somewhat prolonged exchange of questions and answers. Finally, Mr. Foley replaced the receiver and announced the conclusion of the conversation.
And these writers extended this method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and vessels within reach of all. Thus there was an uninterrupted course of pious teaching. Yves de Chartres tells us that priests instructed the people in symbolism, and from the researches of Dom Pitra we know that in the Middle Ages Saint Melito's treatise was popular and known to all.
The kiln charmed us, too, though we regretted that it did not explain itself quite so spontaneously as most of the other panels. "But symbolism ought not to be too obvious, you know," the painter argued. "There's a certain charm in vagueness. It makes you feel your way toward a work- of art. The more you think about this panel the more you find there.
Therefore, despite the fact that symbolism is capable of a universal interpretation, it would appear that the images projected by the magical power of the soul must have different significations with each of us, the meanings being in some mysterious way in agreement with the nature of the person who sees them.
Widely spread, as I have already said, was this reverence for the name of God; and, consequently, its symbolism, in some peculiar form, is to be found in all the ancient rites.
The objects or applications change, the powers remain almost the same. The symbolism of the material categories which depends on external things changes with them; but the symbolism of the functional categories, which reflects these powers remains constant. The types with their intro-determination belong to the functional categories; and so they picture the constant characters.
Nevertheless the book remains "a mysteriously holy companion with profound symbolism for us: we grip it in our hands, we hold it against our bodies, we look at it with admiration; its small size comforts us and its content impresses us; its fragility contains a density we are fascinated by; like man it fears water and fire, but it has the power to shelter man's thoughts from Time."
The old formula will not serve; but new formulæ are tardy in appearing; and habit and superstition cling to the past, and policy vindicates it, and statecraft upholds it forcibly as serviceable to order, till, from the combined action of folly, and worldliness, and ignorance, the once beautiful symbolism becomes at last no better than 'a whited sepulchre full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So it is now.
But although the allusions are rather casual and incidental, yet the symbolic theory is evidently recognized. Our own country has produced many students of Masonic symbolism, who have thoroughly grasped this noble thought, and treated it with eloquence and erudition.
According to the pagans, agate and carnelian stimulate, topaz consoles, jasper cures languor, hyacinth drives away insomnia, turquoise prevents falls or lightens the shock, amethyst combats drunkenness. "Catholic symbolism, in its turn, takes over the precious stones and sees in them emblems of the Christian virtues.
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