wide strait of centuries thought calls to thought and how Plutarch
has a higher position than is usually claimed for him in the
progress of the Greek intellect.

And, indeed, it seems that not merely the importance of Plutarch
himself but also that of the land of his birth in the evolution of
Greek civilisation has been passed over by modern critics. To us,
indeed, the bare rock to which the Parthenon serves as a crown, and
which lies between Colonus and Attica's violet hills, will always
be the holiest spot in the land of Greece: and Delphi will come
next, and then the meadows of Eurotas where that noble people lived
who represented in Hellenic thought the reaction of the law of duty
against the law of beauty, the opposition of conduct to culture.
Yet, as one stands on the [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
of Cithaeron and looks out on the great double plain of Boeotia,
the enormous importance of the division of Hellas comes to one's
mind with great force. To the north are Orchomenus and the Minyan
treasure-house, seat of those merchant princes of Phoenicia who
brought to Greece the knowledge of letters and the art of working
in gold. Thebes is at our feet with the gloom of the terrible
legends of Greek tragedy still lingering about it, the birthplace
of Pindar, the nurse of Epaminondas and the Sacred Band.

And from out of the plain where 'Mars loved to dance,' rises the
Muses' haunt, Helicon, by whose silver streams Corinna and Hesiod
sang; while far away under the white aegis of those snow-capped
mountains lies Chaeronea and the Lion plain where with vain
chivalry the Greeks strove to check Macedon first and afterwards
Rome; Chaeronea, where in the Martinmas summer of Greek
civilisation Plutarch rose from the drear waste of a dying religion