Paul Morrissey

Little Gods; Squirrel
embroidery and beadwork on linen
12 in. diameter

To consider the idea of “little gods”, I will offer an excerpt from the book Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater.

The names of that great populace of “little gods,” dear to the Roman home, which the pontiffs had placed on the sacred list of the Indigitamenta, to be invoked, because they can help, on special occasions, were not forgotten in the long litany—Vatican who causes the infant to utter her first cry, Fabulinus who prompts her first work, Cuba who keeps her quiet in her cot, Domiduca especially, for whom Marius had through life a particular memory and devotion, the goddess who watches over one’s safe coming home. The urns of the dead in the family chapel received their due service. They also were now something divine, a goodly company of friendly and protecting spirits, encamped about the place of their former abode—above all others, that father, dead ten years before, of whom, remembering but a tall, grave figure above him in early childhood, Marius habitually thought as a genius a little cold and severe.

© Paul Morrissey