ek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which
sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life;
acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like
feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast.
These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the
Greeks that no revolutions of time and circumstances have yet been able
to destroy them; nay, it may be asserted that even now, after centuries
of degradation, they have not been wholly extinguished in the
inhabitants of ancient Hellas."--"_Education of the Moral Sentiment
amongst the Ancient Greeks_." By FREDERICK JACOBS, p. 320.]

[Footnote 32: These are described by the modern historian and traveller
as lively, versatile, and witty. "The love of liberty and independence
does not seem to be rooted out of the national character by centuries of
subjugation. They love to command; but though they are loyal to a good
government, they are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties
are infringed. As there is little love of obedience among them, so
neither is there any toleration of aristocratic pretensions."--_Encyc.
Brit._, art. "Greece."]

The consciousness of power, the feeling of independence, the ardent love
of freedom induced in the Athenian mind by the objective freedom of
movement which his geographical position afforded, and that
subordination and subserviency of physical nature to man so peculiar to
Greece, determined the democratic character of all their political
institutions. And these institutions reacted upon the character of the
people and intensified their love of liberty. This passionate love of
personal freedom, amounting almost to disease, excited them to a
constant and almost distressing vigilance. And it is not to be wondered
at if it displayed itself in an extreme jealousy of their rulers, an
incessant supervision and criticism of all their proceedings, and an
intense and passionate hatred of tyrants and of tyranny. The popular
legislator or the successful soldier might dare to encroach upon their
liberties in the moment when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with
their genius, their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of
popular feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn
the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy, and
turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable from the
democratic spirit,