The statues that were reared to these women have long since vanished from the classic hills they graced, and their voices are heard only in the faintest of musical echoes. Most of them have fallen into eternal silence. That there were many others devoted to things of the intellect, but unknown to fame, it is fair to presume, as we see only those who look back upon us from the shining peaks of that far past, while the dark waters of oblivion have settled over the possible treasures of its sunny slopes and fragrant valleys. How many of our own women, with their myriads of books, lectures, and clubs, their university courses, their versatile intellects, and their unlimited freedom, are likely to be quoted two or three thousand years hence, and set in the firmament to live forever? To be sure, we stand upon a higher moral and social level, we have more knowledge, our field of action is broader, our ideals of virtue are higher, and we have privileges and pleasures of which they never dreamed. It is quite impossible to put ourselves on the simple plane of these women. The world has grown old and sophisticated; we have learned to classify ourselves, to choose our fields of knowledge, to consecrate our talents to what we call larger uses. Perhaps we never again can reach the lyrical heights of these children of passion, imagination, and song. Our triumphs are of another sort. But whatever intellectual distinctions we may attain, it is to this youth of the world that we must look for the apotheosis of love and beauty. It is needless to ask why we can point to no second Sappho. There is but one Parthenon. Broken and crumbling, it stands in its white majesty forever alone. The Hellenic spirit is as dead as the gods of Olympus. GLIMPSES OF THE SPARTAN WOMAN [Illustration: Decorative image] · Homeric and Spartan Types Compared · · Training of the Spartan Woman · · Her Education Superior to that of Men · · Her Executive Talent · · Her Heroism · · Agesistrata Cratesiclea Chelonis · · The Puritans of the Classic World · [Illustration: Decorative image]