. The rulers of the Mediterranean. sed to come atChristmas-time, and who has stopped comingsince I left school. It is certainly worth while MODERN ATHENS 179 going all the way toGreece to see theHill of the Nymphs,and the very cavewhere Pan used tosleep in the hot mid-day, and to thrillover the four cross-roads and the high,gloomy pass wherethe Sphinx lay inwait for CEdipuswith her cruel clawsand inscrutablesmile. The story thatmust always strikeevery child as mostsad and unsatisfac-tory is the one whichtells us how the fa-ther of Theseus killed himself when his son camesailing back triumphant
. The rulers of the Mediterranean. sed to come atChristmas-time, and who has stopped comingsince I left school. It is certainly worth while MODERN ATHENS 179 going all the way toGreece to see theHill of the Nymphs,and the very cavewhere Pan used tosleep in the hot mid-day, and to thrillover the four cross-roads and the high,gloomy pass wherethe Sphinx lay inwait for CEdipuswith her cruel clawsand inscrutablesmile. The story thatmust always strikeevery child as mostsad and unsatisfac-tory is the one whichtells us how the fa-ther of Theseus killed himself when his son camesailing back triumphant, and so gallantly engagedin entertaining the beautiful Athenian maidenswhose lives he had saved that he forgot to hoistthe white sails, and caused his father to throwhimself off the high rocks in despair. This used to appeal to me as one of the mostpathetic incidents in history ; but as time woreon my sympathy for the father and indignationagainst Theseus passed away, and I forgot aboutthem both. But when they point out where the. GREEK SOLDIER IN THE NATIONAL(ALBANIAN) UNIFORM l8o THE RULERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN black sails were first seen entering the bay, andyou stand on the rock from which the peoplewatched for Theseus, and from which his fatherthrew himself down, you feel just as sorry, andyou rebel just as strongly against that morbidanticlimax, as you did when you first read thestory in knickerbockers. It seems almost too sadto be true. They had such a delightful way of mixing upthe histories of gods and mortals in those daysthat the imaginative person who visits Athenswill find himself gazing as gratefully and as open-eyed at the rocks in which the Centaur hid asat those from which Demosthenes delivered hisphilippics, just as in London the room at theCharter House where Colonel Newcome saidAdsum for the last time is much more realthan that room in Edinburgh in which Rizzio waskilled, or as the rock from which Monte Cristosprang, at the base of the Chateau dlf, is somuc
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherharper, bookyear189
