Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/410

 The danger lies, as is brilliantly expressed by Nietzsche, in isolation in one's self:

"Solitude surrounds and embraces him ever more threatening, ever more constricting, ever more heart-strangling, the terrible Goddess and Mater sæva cupidinum."

The libido taken away from the mother, who is abandoned only reluctantly, becomes threatening as a serpent, the symbol of death, for the relation to the mother must cease, must die, which itself almost causes man's death. In "Mater sæva cupidinum" the idea attains rare, almost conscious, perfection.

I do not presume to try to paint in better words than has Nietzsche the psychology of the wrench from childhood.

Miss Miller furnishes us with a further reference to a material which has influenced her creation in a more general manner; this is the great Indian epic of Longfellow, "The Song of Hiawatha."

If my readers have had patience to read thus far, and to reflect upon what they have read, they frequently must have wondered at the number of times I introduce for comparison such apparently foreign material and how often I widen the base upon which Miss Miller's creations rest. Doubts must often have arisen whether it is justifiable to enter into important discussions concerning the psychologic foundations of myths, religions and culture in general on the basis of such scanty suggestions. It might be said that behind the Miller phantasies such a