Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/14

 More even than these things the Hellenes saw. For across lone hillsides, through busy fields, in sacred groves and flower-sweet meadows, radiant figures sped. And the simple folk catching glimpses of these flitting forms said one to the other, 'The gods have come to live among us. Their presence it is that makes the earth so fair, so wonderful.' As the years passed and the Hellenes grew older, sterner times came. Cities sprang up on hillsides and by river-*banks, and the gods were seldom seen. Men went to war, battles were lost and won.

But never, in victory or in defeat, did the people lose their early love of beauty, or that strange, dreamy sense of wonder, which from the beginning was ever plucking at their hearts.

They longed to fulfil their dreams of beauty, they wished to re-shape the world.

But, because the world was so great, so wide, they began with one of their cities, the one of which a poet sang,

'O rich and renowned and with violets crowned, O Athens the envied of nations.'

Here they built temples which became the wonder of the world, and in them they placed statues of the old gods of Hellas, beautiful statues wrought by master hands out of ivory and gold.

Poets and philosophers lived in Athens, too, and so literature and art spread the glory of Greece far and wide, moulding the thoughts and quickening the deeds of many peoples.

Before the glory of Greece faded, Europe had learned from her to follow truth, to love beauty.

This story tells but a small part of the wonder of this land, yet I hope that it will make you love her and wish to learn more about her.—Your friend,

MARY MACGREGOR.