Ulysses; then, let the military
spirit that is in him, glowing against the Border forager, or the foe
of old Flodden and Chevy-Chase,[110] be made more principal, with a
higher sense of nobleness in soldiership, not as a careless
excitement, but a knightly duty; and increased by high cultivation of
every personal quality, not of mere shaggy strength, but graceful
strength, aided by a softer climate, and educated in all proper
harmony of sight and sound: finally, instead of an informed Christian,
suppose him to have only the patriarchal Jewish knowledge of the
Deity, and even this obscured by tradition, but still thoroughly
solemn and faithful, requiring his continual service as a priest of
burnt sacrifice and meat offering; and I think we shall get a pretty
close approximation to the vital being of a true old Greek; some
slight difference still existing in a feeling which the Scotch farmer
would have of a pleasantness in blue hills and running streams, wholly
wanting in the Greek mind; and perhaps also some difference of views
on the subjects of truth and honesty. But the main points, the easy,
athletic, strongly logical and argumentative, yet fanciful and
credulous, characters of mind, would be very similar in both; and the
most serious change in the substance of the stuff among the
modifications above suggested as necessary to turn the Scot into the
Greek, is that effect of softer climate and surrounding luxury,
inducing the practice of various forms of polished art,--the more
polished, because the practical and realistic tendency of the Hellenic
mind (if my interpretation of it be right) would quite prevent it from
taking pleasure in any irregularities of form, or imitations of the
weeds and wildnesses of that mountain nature with which it thought
itself born to contend. In its utmost refinement of work, it sought
eminently for orderliness; carried the principle of the leeks in
squares, and fountains in pipes, perfectly out in its streets and
temples; formalized whatever decoration it put into its minor
architectural mouldings, and reserved its whole heart and power to
represent the action of living men, or gods, though not unconscious,
meanwhile, of

The simple, the sincere delight;
The habitual scene of hill and dale;
The rural herds, the vernal gale;
The tangled vetches' purple bloom;
The fragrance of the bean's perfume,--
Theirs, theirs alone, who cultivate the soil,
And drink the