Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/132

 and therefore it may be said that we inevitably take an interest in the state of our own health, or feel attracted towards those conditions which go to constitute it. If, then, you will accept this position for the masculine portion or sex of your hermaphrodite, namely, that it is indispensable to the higher, the feminine portion, as the digestive organs are indispensable to the heart and brain, I will not quarrel with your statement about the downward attraction. It vouches for and explains itself in that relation; you need no longer be puzzled why the higher clings to the lower.

‘You will hardly suspect Mr Bristley’s niece of being a bibliolater, Lettie, therefore I need not fear being misunderstood when I express my belief that the reason why rationalists make light of and ridicule the wisdom contained in the Bible, is because they do not understand it. They will insist upon judging the book, or rather books, by the letter, whereas we are repeatedly told that the letter is exactly what it is not to be judged by: the letter killeth; the spirit, that is, the hidden meaning, giveth life. I am not going to treat you to a verbatim interpretation of any text, but it will aid our inquiry to outline what my uncle considers to be the esoteric purport of the myth of the Fall, which, taken in its literal sense, would, in common with all other biblical marvels, be a silly nursery tale. It will be difficult to make every term clear to you, but in speculations so deep, one must be content with faint sketches of the truth, seeing them for the present ‘through a glass darkly.’ The meaning of the myth we take to be briefly as follows,—

‘Out of the divine Unity, the eternal Womanhood, called by Solomon Wisdom, come forth by Her act the diversified world of nature. By the production last of all of the earthly image of the Eternal Wisdom, namely, woman in the flesh, the reason and object of creation stood explained. The last product was the image of the first origin. Woman was the