The Cruise of the Branwen

CHAPTER XI ' ATHENS Le divin c'est l'immateriel, !'incomprehensible. Les dieux Grecs etaient des hommes beaux et forts. Voila pourquoi les statues Grecs ont une magnifique serenite animale. IT might well be thought, from what has gone before, that we left Athens without seeing any– thing but the Olympic Games which are the main excuse for the existence of this little book; and I have endeavoured, at least in these pages, to add nothing to the quantity of material already published by more competent authorities on subjects well known to every scholar and visited by every traveller. Yet it would be rank in– gratitude to pass over in utter silence some of the happiest hours I spent in Greece, under the guidance of Mr. Bosanquet, then head of the British School, who showed us all we ought to see, explained the difficulties we met, and left us to form our own opinions. The first striking building of classical antiquity we beheld were the few columns left of Hadrian's great Temple of Zeus, which rise immediately above the small stream of the Ilyssus, scarce a stride in breadth, where Oreithyia, daughter of 132