The Cruise of the Branwen

PREFACE the deeper associations of national and historic character which were so richly and permanently aroused by the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. Here in this England of to-day we may not have found it possible, even with the assistance of the very elect, to organise the international competitions in sculpture, painting, architecture, music, or literature which the arch-priest of the revival dreamt of in its earliest days ; and here in modern England, though we can imitate the songs of Pindar more closely than the inhabitants of Pindar's home, we cannot yet equal the match– less marbles of Praxiteles or Myron which the gatherings on the Altis of Olympia in Elis long ago evoked. But we may at least remember that the ancient Games of Greece were only ruined by the pro– fessionals of the late Roman Empire ; that there was once a time when athletic energy did not imply limited liability companies, when first-rate games did not depend on gate-money for their existence, when statues like the bronze horseman of George Frederick ,vatts were not almost alone in their embodiment of what physical perfection might mean to men and nations. As I have shown in some of the following pages, there is a close connection between the highest development of our senses and the appeal of all the highest art; but it is not to this that I would draw attention here. I wish now to point out simply that these new Olympic Games are en– larging our horizon in other ways than merely x