. The near East; Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople. nique, giving it a charm whichsets it apart from all other buildings. To find thisyou must go to the southwest, to the beautiful Porchof the Caryatids, which looks toward the are six of these caryatids, or maidens,standing upon a high parapet of marble and sup-porting a marble roof. Five of them are white, andone is a sort of yellowish black in color, as if she hadonce been black, but, having been singled out fromher fellows, had been kissed for so many years bythe rays of the sun that her original hue had becomechanged, bri
. The near East; Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople. nique, giving it a charm whichsets it apart from all other buildings. To find thisyou must go to the southwest, to the beautiful Porchof the Caryatids, which looks toward the are six of these caryatids, or maidens,standing upon a high parapet of marble and sup-porting a marble roof. Five of them are white, andone is a sort of yellowish black in color, as if she hadonce been black, but, having been singled out fromher fellows, had been kissed for so many years bythe rays of the sun that her original hue had becomechanged, brightened by his fires. Four of the maid-ens stand in a line. Two stand behind, on each sideof the portico. They wear flowing draperies, theirhair flows down over their shoulders, and they sup-port their burden of marble with a sort of exquisitesubmissiveness, like maidens choosing to perform agrateful and an easy task that brings with it no lossof self-respect. I once saw a great English actress play the part of 74 THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE NIKE AT ATHENS. IN AND NEAR ATHENS a slave girl. By her imaginative genius she suc-ceeded in being more than a slave: she became apoem of slavery. Everything ugly in slavery waseliminated from her performance. Only the beautyof devoted service, the willing service of love,—andslaves have been devoted to their masters,—wasshown in her face, her gestures, her attitudes. ]\Iuchof what she imagined and reproduced is suggestedby these matchlessly tender and touching figures; sosoft that it is almost incredible that they are made ofrnarble, so strong that no burden, surely, would betoo great for their simple, yet almost divine, cour-age. They are watchers, these maidens, not alertly,but calmly watchful of something far beyond ourseeing. They are alive, but with a restrained lifesuch as we are not worthy to know, neither fullyhuman nor completely divine. They have some-thing of our wistfulness and something also of thatattainment toward wdiich we str
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidneareastdalm, bookyear1913
