Emerson at Home and Abroad

IN the "Morte d'Arthur" we see the knights gathered at the Round Table of Arthur, flower of kings. We find portrayed the splendour of the court, the tournaments, luxuries, gallantries of the knights and dames. But one day, while they sit at the table, there is a voice of thunder, then a sunbeam; as the stricken knights gaze the Sangreal floats in shrouded in white, and, when it has floated out again, each feels that he has tasted that which he most desires in this world. Then rose up all those knights and vowed that they would no more rest until they had found the Sangreal and seen it unveiled. King Arthur pleaded against their resolution, but they must leave him. Then they go about the world, wandering in many a wild place, righting wrongs, delivering imprisoned maidens, sitting at the feet of wise hermits, fighting down fiends, until at length Sir Galahad, just after he has casually helped a cripple, finds the unveiled Sangreal and ascends to heaven with it. The great British myth is repeated at intervals in history. There arrives a period in the progress of the people when their best heads discover the fictitious character of the rites to which they are sacramented, and when the best hearts

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