Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/168

 might share to its own fulness in the large serenity of the ageless world-soul.

I recalled Mrs. Potts's paper on "The Lesson of Greek Art," which had enriched two columns of the Argus after its reading to the ladies of the Literary and Home Study Club. It seemed to me that the Greeks must have divined this important secret of the vegetable world—the secret of ageless time—and that therein lay the charm of them; that spirit of ever freshening joy which they chiselled and sang into tangible grace for us of a later and heavier age.

At the moment I was on the porch, waiting for my coffee, and my thought seemed to be shared by Jim, my bony young setter, who, being but a scant year old, had not yet forgotten the lesson of Greek art. Over the grassy stretch before the porch he chased robins tirelessly, though with indifferent success. His was a spirit truly Greek. I knew it by reason of his inexhaustible enthusiasm for this present sport after a year's proving that chased birds will rise strangely but expertly into air that no dog can climb by any device of whining, leaping, or straining.

Living on into the Renaissance, I saw that Jim would be taught the grievous thing called wisdom—would learn his limitations and to form habits tamely contrary to his natural Greek likings. Then would he honorably neglect rabbits and all fur, cease pointing droves of pigs, and quit the silly chase of robins. Under check-cord and spike-collar he would become a fast and stylish dog, clean-cut in his bird work,