wanness of his smile--I could
have cast myself at the foot of the Parthenon and wept over the
personal disaster which befell me in that hour of realization.

I never again wish to go through such an agony of emotion. The
Acropolis made the whole of Europe seem tawdry. I felt ashamed of the
gorgeous sights I had seen, of the rich dinners I had eaten, of the
luxuries I had enjoyed. I felt as if I would like to have the whole of
my past life fall away from me as a cast-off garment, and that if I
could only begin over I could do so much better with my life. I could
have knelt and beat my hands together in a wild, impotent prayer for
the past to be given into my keeping for just one more trial, one more
opportunity to live up to the beauty and holiness and purity I had
missed. When I looked up and saw the naked columns of the Parthenon
silhouetted against the sky, bereft of their capitals, ragged,
scarred, battered with the war of wind and weather and countless ages,
all about me the ruins seemed to say, "Your appreciation is in vain;
it is too late, too late!"

I have an indistinct recollection of stumbling into the carriage, of
driving down a steep road, of having the Pentelikon pointed out to me,
of knowing that near that mountain lay Marathon, of seeing the statue
of "Greece crowning Byron," but I heard with unhearing ears, I saw
with unseeing eyes. I had left my heart and all my senses in the
Acropolis. I believe that one who had left her loved one in the
churchyard, on the way home for the first time to her empty house, has
felt that dazed, unrealizing yet dumb heartache that I felt for days
after leaving the Parthenon.

It grew worse the farther I went away from it, and for two months I
have longed for Athens, Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis. I wanted to
stand and feast my soul upon the glories which were such living
memories, All through Egypt and up the Nile my one wish was to live
long enough and for the weeks to fly fast enough for me to get back to
Athens. Now I am here for the second time, and for as long as I wish
to remain.

We came sailing into the harbor just at sunset. Such a sunset! Such
blue in the Mediterranean! Such a soft haze on the purple hills! How
the gods must have loved Athens to place her in the garden spot of all
the earth; to pour into her lap such treasures of art, and to endow
her masters with power to create such an art! The approach is so
beautiful. Our big black Russian ship cut her