I cannot believe that the civilised world will remain satisfied with this dark outlook,--the monopoly of these factories of material discovery, where furnace and electric light replace the glorious rays of the Sun-God worshipped by the Greeks. There has generally been a great power of recovery in our race at large; and periods of decay have been followed by periods not only of renascence but of rejuvenescence. At all epochs when the world grew dull and desponding and the times were out of joint, we have the mystical tendency, the inclination to brush aside human joys and cares and to fix the mind on the Eternal, on the ineffable delights of communion with the Spirit of the Universe. That this tendency is alive even in modern America, cannot but be obvious to those who have studied the pathology of so-called Christian Science. The other tendency is the humanist, that which seeks to recover for us the joys and beauties of life, enhanced by art and protected by the refinement of a sound education. This was the aspect of human happiness which is most perfectly represented, so far as the world has yet run, by the Greeks, and hence the careful and minute study of their life must always appeal to those who desire the æsthetic reformation of modern society. Once and again the Greeks have exercised this vast and beneficent influence; is it vain to hope that even still it is not exhausted, but potent to cure the ills of man? Peradventure, the prophecy of our great and most Hellenic of poets may yet come true, with a fulfilment wider and deeper than even his large vision could compass:-- A brighter Hellas rears its mountains, from waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep! II GREEK POETRY