Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/198



§ 47. what kind of literary stock did the Athenians start upon their career of literary production? Without some such stock-taking we cannot know much about their real losses and gains, for losses as well as gains the spirit of this ideal city commonwealth certainly experienced.

To such stock-taking the true literary artist—and he is the deepest sympathiser with Athenian feelings—is no doubt altogether opposed; and to mark the difference between scientific and artistic handling of Athenian history we have purposely used an expression which suggests an inartistic but truthful treatment. "Art," says Goethe, "is called art simply because it is not nature;" and wherever the artistic view of social and personal character prevails we may be prepared for a good deal of feigned history, a good many ideas claiming universal sway on account of their approaching the artist's standard of the beautiful. Theognis made the Muses and the Graces chant as the burden of their song—

and it has been well said that the lines express the essence of that Greek feeling for the beautiful which in Athens reaches its culminating point. But such a feeling,