The Sea

— Mr.

Michelet must be on his guard, for all the sea gods of Antiquity are preparing to mistreat him. This is what Mr.

Taxile Delord teaches us, in a witty article published by the Siècle of last February 4. His language is worthy of the Orpheus in the Underworld, of the Parisian comic operas, as this sample testifies: Neptune, appearing suddenly at the door of the residence of Amphitrite, where the discontented had gathered, exclaims: “Behold the Neptune who was summoned.

You did not expect me now, dear Amphitrite; it is the hour of my siesta; but there is no way to close one's eyes, since the appearance of this devil of a book entitled La Mer - Google Books. I wished to peruse it, but it is full of frivolities; I do not know of what seas Mr. Michelet wishes to speak to us; for me, it is impossible to recognize myself in it. Everyone knows very well that the sea ends at the columns of Hercules. What can there be beyond?…

etc.”

It need hardly be said that Mr. Michelet triumphs all along the line. Now, after the dispersal of his enemies, Mr. Taxile Delord says to him: “Perhaps you will feel at ease to learn what has become of the sea gods, ever since the sea expelled them from its empire. Neptune does fish-farming in great quantity; Glaucus is a swimming instructor at the Ouarnier baths [a former bathhouse in Paris, situated on the Quai Voltaire]; Amphitrite is a receptionist at the Mediterranean baths in Marseille; Nereus has accepted a position as cook on the transatlantic ships; several tritons have died and others exhibit themselves at the fairs.”

— We do not guarantee the accuracy of the information given by Mr. Delord on the present situation of the Olympian heroes; but, in principle and without wishing it, he said something more serious than he intended to say.

Among the ancients the word god had a very elastic acceptation. It was a generic qualification applied to every being that seemed to them to rise above the level of Humanity. This is why they deified their great men. We would not find them so ridiculous had we not made use of the same word to designate the Sole Being, sovereign lord of the Universe. The Spirits, who existed then as today, manifested themselves there equally, and these mysterious beings also had to, according to the ideas of the time, and with even greater reason, belong to the class of gods. Looking upon them as superior beings, the ignorant peoples rendered them worship; the poets sang of them and sowed their history with profound philosophical truths, hidden beneath the veil of ingenious allegories, the whole of which formed pagan mythology. The common people, who generally see only the surface of things, took the figure literally, without searching out the depth of the thought, exactly like one who, today, would see in the fables of La Fontaine nothing but conversations of animals. Such is, in substance, the principle of mythology. The gods were, then, nothing but the Spirits or the souls of mortal beings, like those of our own days; but the passions that the pagan religion lent them do not give a brilliant idea of their elevation in the spiritist hierarchy, beginning with their chief, Jupiter, which did not prevent them from delighting in the incense that was burned upon their altars. Christianity stripped them of their prestige and Spiritism, today, has reduced them to their real value. Their very inferiority could subject them to several reincarnations on Earth. We could, then, among our contemporaries find some Spirits who once received divine honors, and who, for all that, would be no more advanced. Mr. Taxile Delord, who no doubt does not believe in this, certainly wished only to make a joke. But, without knowing it, he did not fail to say something perhaps truer than he thought, or, at least in thesis, that is not materially impossible. Thus, many people, imitating Mr. Jourdan, practice Spiritism in spite of themselves.