followed, have been following ever since; and now, life half
over, it seems to me, as in my childhood, that every thought
of which man is susceptible, is intimated there. In those
young years, indeed, I did not see what I now see, but loved
to creep from amid the Roman pikes to lie beneath this great
vine, and see the smiling and serene shapes go by, woven from
the finest fibres of all the elements. I knew not why, at that
time,--but I loved to get away from the hum of the forum, and
the mailed clang of Roman speech, to these shifting shows of
nature, these Gods and Nymphs born of the sunbeam, the wave,
the shadows on the hill.

'As with Rome I antedated the world of deeds, so I lived in
those Greek forms the true faith of a refined and intense
childhood. So great was the force of reality with which these
forms impressed me, that I prayed earnestly for a sign,--that
it would lighten in some particular region of the heavens, or
that I might find a bunch of grapes in the path, when I went
forth in the morning. But no sign was given, and I was left a
waif stranded upon the shores of modern life!

'Of the Greek language, I knew only enough to feel that the
sounds told the same story as the mythology;--that the law
of life in that land was beauty, as in Rome it was a stern
composure. I wish I had learned as much of Greece as of
Rome,--so freely does the mind play in her sunny waters, where
there is no chill, and the restraint is from within out; for
these Greeks, in an atmosphere of ample grace, could not be
impetuous, or stern, but loved moderation as equable life
always must, for it is the law of beauty.