bays. The clouds seem colourless, and even joy is rather
sorrowful there; but fountains of fresh water spring out of the rocks,
and the eyes of the young girls are like the green fountains in which,
with their beds of waving herbs, the sky is mirrored.

"My forefathers, as far as we can trace them, have passed their lives
in navigating the distant seas, which thy Argonauts knew not, I used
to hear as a child the songs which told of voyages to the Pole; I was
cradled amid the souvenir of floating ice, of misty seas like milk,
of islands peopled with birds which now and again would warble, and
which, when they rose in flight, darkened the air.

"Priests of a strange creed, handed down from the Syrians of
Palestine, brought me up. These priests were wise and good. They
taught me long lessons of Cronos, who created the world, and of his
son, who, as they told me, made a journey upon earth. Their temples
are thrice as lofty as thine, O Eurhythmia, and dense like forests.
But they are not enduring, and crumble to pieces at the end of five or
six hundred years. They are the fantastic creation of barbarians, who
vainly imagine that they can succeed without observing the rules which
thou hast laid down, O Reason! Yet these temples pleased me, for I
had not then studied thy divine art and God was present to me in them.
Hymns were sung there, and among those which I can remember were:
'Hail, star of the sea.... Queen of those who mourn in this valley of
tears ...' or again, 'Mystical rose, tower of ivory, house of gold,
star of the morning....' Yes, Goddess, when I recall these hymns of
praise my heart melts, and I become almost an apostate. Forgive
me this absurdity; thou canst not imagine the charm which these
barbarians have imparted to verse, and how hard it is to follow the
path of pure reason.

"And if thou knewest how difficult it has become to serve thee. All
nobility has disappeared. The Scythians have conquered the world.
There is no longer a Republic of free citizens; the world is governed
by kings whose blood scarcely courses in their veins, and at whose
majesty thou wouldst smile. Heavy hyperboreans denounce thy servants
as frivolous.... A formidable _Panbaeotia_, a league of fools, weighs
down upon the world with a pall of lead. Thou must fain despise even
those who pay thee worship. Dost thou remember the Caledonian who half
a century ago broke up thy temple with a hammer to carry it away with
him to Thule? He i