No doubt it
is easy for us to discern the flimsiness of the logical foundation
on which such high hopes were built. But drowning men clutch at
straws, and we need not wonder that the Greeks, like ourselves, with
death before them and a great love of life in their hearts, should
not have stopped to weigh with too nice a hand the arguments that
told for and against the prospect of human immortality. The
reasoning that satisfied Saint Paul and has brought comfort to
untold thousands of sorrowing Christians, standing by the deathbed
or the open grave of their loved ones, was good enough to pass
muster with ancient pagans, when they too bowed their heads under
the burden of grief, and, with the taper of life burning low in the
socket, looked forward into the darkness of the unknown. Therefore
we do no indignity to the myth of Demeter and Persephone--one of the
few myths in which the sunshine and clarity of the Greek genius are
crossed by the shadow and mystery of death--when we trace its origin
to some of the most familiar, yet eternally affecting aspects of
nature, to the melancholy gloom and decay of autumn and to the
freshness, the brightness, and the verdure of spring.
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