It had run
its course. There was nothing left but this feverish quest of variety.
It was in danger, after having gained such divine heights of invention,
of degenerating into prettinesses and affectation.
But how marvellously fine it was at last! One must see it, as in these
unequalled cloisters, half ruined, silent, and deserted, bearing with
something of conscious dignity the blows of time and the ruder wrongs of
men, to appreciate fully its proud superiority to all the accidents of
changing taste and modified culture. It is only the truest art that can
bear that test. The fanes of Paestum will always be more beautiful even
than the magical shore on which they stand. The Parthenon, fixed like a
battered coronet on the brow of the Acropolis, will always be the
loveliest sight that Greece can offer to those who come sailing in from
the blue Aegean. It is scarcely possible to imagine a condition of
thought or feeling in which these master-works shall seem quaint or
old-fashioned. They appeal, now and always, with that calm power of
perfection, to the heart and eyes of every man born of woman.
The cloisters enclose a little garden just enough neglected to allow the
lush dark ivy, the passionflowers, and the spreading oleanders to do
their best in beautifying the place, as men have done their worst in
marring it. The clambering vines seem trying to hide the scars of their
hardly less perfect copies.
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