Note 3 — Chapter IX · Illusion.

To the ancients there were two seas,—the azure above, and that beneath. The imaginative child in its development passes all those dreamy coasts; sees in clouds mountains of snow on the horizon, and in the sunset luminous seas laving golden isles. When as yet to the young world the shining sun was Berchta, the white fleecy clouds were her swans. When she descended to the sea, as a thousand stories related, it was to repeat the course of the sun for all tribes looking on a westward sea. No one who has read that charming little book, ‘The Gods in Exile,’3 will wonder at the happy instinct of learning shown in Heine’s little poem, ‘Sonnenuntergang,’4 wherein we see shining solar Beauty compelled to become the spinning housewife, or reluctant spouse of Poseidon:—