G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man writes about the ultimate and unspoken aim in mythology. He describes it rather appropriately as an almost indirect, semi-conscious search for that something that we all know is out there, but at times are not too sure where to look or what to look for. Mythology’s stories are a way to imagine what things might be like, knowing that there is some deep connection, not between the objects of mythology itself, but between the ideas and themes they conjure and reality itself.

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

Chesterton observes, quite accurately I might add, a type of experience an artist has when engaged in his craft. This “seeing through the veil” is something that at times can be articulated and at others remains just below the consciousness. I’ve never read any such treatment of this, but maybe I haven’t read enough.

Very deep things in our nature, some dim sense of dependence of great things upon small, some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power, some sacramental feeling of magic in material substances, and many more emotions past finding out, are in an idea like that of the external soul.

I’ll just let you think about this one. I think it is fantastic.

In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep levity about all the places found.

I love this duality in mythology’s quest. The doubt and desire collide as the myths attempt to grasp at what is behind the veil.