t proper distances. The fabled
dolphin in its death could not have showed a more brilliant
succession of splendours waning into splendours through the whole
chord of prismatic colours. This sensitiveness of the Attic
limestone to every modification of the sky's light gives a peculiar
spirituality to the landscape. The hills remain in form and outline
unchanged; but the beauty breathed upon them lives or dies with the
emotions of the air from whence it emanates: the spirit of light
abides with them and quits them by alternations that seem to be the
pulses of an ethereally communicated life. No country, therefore,
could be better fitted for the home of a race gifted with exquisite
sensibilities, in whom humanity should first attain the freedom of
self-consciousness in art and thought. [Greek: Aei dia lamprotatou
bainontes habros aitheros]--ever delicately moving through most
translucent air--said Euripides of the Athenians: and truly the
bright air of Attica was made to be breathed by men in whom the
light of culture should begin to shine. [Greek: Iostephanos] is an
epithet of Aristophanes for his city; and if not crowned with other
violets, Athens wears for her garland the air-empurpled
hills--Hymettus, Lycabettus, Pentelicus, and Parnes.[1]
Consequently, while still the Greeks of Homer's age were Achaians,
while Argos was the titular seat of Hellenic empire, and the mythic
deeds of the heroes were being enacted in Thebes or Mycenae, Athens
did but bide her time, waiting to manifest herself as the true
godchild of Pallas, who sprang perfect from the brain of Zeus,
Pallas, who is the light of cloudless heaven emerging after storms.
And Pallas, when she planted her chosen people in Attica, knew well
what she was doing. To the far-seeing eyes of the goddess, although
the first-fruits of song and science and philosophy might be reaped
upon the shores of the AEgean and the islands, yet the days were
clearly descried when Athens should stretch forth her hand to hold
the lamp of all her founder loved for Europe. As the priest of Egypt
told Solon: 'She chose the spot of earth in which you were born,
because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that
land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was
a lover both of war and wisdom, selected and first of all settled
that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself.'
This sentence from the 'Timaeus' of Plato[2] reveals the
consciou