ly hidden by a peculiar haze that is
the color of the sky at that time; we are really looking at the mountain
through a portion of the sky. While in Athens I took a trip to the top
of Mount Pentelicus, which separates the plains of Athens on the south
from those of Marathon on the north. From the summit of this mountain we
have a most wonderful view of the archipelago of the AEgean Sea--a
beautiful map of blue water and brown islands that melt together in the
distance. At our feet lay the historic plains of Marathon, and in the
distance rose the snow-capped peaks of Mount Olympus. It is doubtful if
the world furnishes a more beautiful combination of ocean, island,
continent, and sky than can be seen from Mount Pentelicus. Myriads of
brown islands set in the bluest of water--graceful in outline and
multiform in shape--jutting headlands and land-locked harbors--strong in
color and outline in the immediate foreground, but gradually melting
together in the distance, the brown becoming bluer and the blue a softer
blue till the whole is lost on the horizon in a sky that shades back to
the zenith in an ever-changing azure that for purity of tone baffles all
description.

What wonder that a people born under such skies and whose eyes have
feasted on such beauties in nature should conceive and execute such a
masterful work of art as the Parthenon! While the variation of
landscape, the stretch of water filled with islands, and the mountains
capped with eternal snow were a prominent part of the picture, it was
the sky with its beautiful color-tones that after all gave it its
wonderful charm.

The skies in a northern latitude are colder and grayer, due to the fact
that nearly always there is a certain degree of condensation of moisture
existing, which, while it does not take the form of a cloud, still gives
a toning to the sky.

There is no doubt but that the color-tones of the sky have an influence
upon the character and temperament of the people who live under them.
Under semi-tropical skies the poetic nature is more strongly appealed
to, and a man is more likely to be controlled by his dreamy imaginings
than his cold calculations. We find this latter characteristic
prevailing to a greater or less extent among the people who live under
colder and sterner skies. If all these qualities or influences could be
combined in the right way, the race would be stronger intellectually and
in other ways. It is always dangerous to a race o