A Most Soulless Type

H. J. Rose, The Core of Mythology, in: Greece and Rome Journal, vol. I., No. 3, May 1932, p. 129:

And these stories [of mythology] should be studied unspoiled, that is to say, in their earlier forms, not much later than the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The stuff which passed for mythology in late times was an «elegant accomplishment» of the most soulless type. If, instead of saying that a man is valiant or a woman beautiful, one says that he is another Mars and she indistinguishable from Venus; if one avoids vulgar words like 'fire', 'water', and 'corn' in favour of Vulcan, Neptune, and Ceres; it soon becomes wearisome, as all well-worn artificialities of speech do, and more and more tasteless hyperboles and obscure allusions take all life and reality out of the style. It is not in this manner that the best of the Greeks used their traditional lore.