Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/67

46 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. are lined with shell-fish ; all of which he will largely partake, in that in a relatively small volume they contain the largest amount of nutritive elements. Trained by a double necessity of climate and poorness of soil, in height this people will rarely surpass the right mean ; and very few of its men will reach the lofty stature which is of common occurrence with northern nations, accustomed as they are to a more substantial diet. Yet thanks to their avocations, most of which will be carried on in the air and light of day, thanks to the variety of services which will be required of their bodies in the eternal struggle whose main points we have described above, thanks to the selection in infancy of the fittest and the merciless discarding of the weak and deformed, though of medium stature this people will rejoice in strength and symmetry of limb. In despite of the continuous effort which Nature has laid upon the men of this race, they will be light-hearted, because called upon to spend their lives in resplendent light. Greece, which Virgil visited late in life, seems to have been in his mind when he described the Elysian Fields and the place assigned to the Blest in the following words — Purior hie campos ather et lumine vestit Purpureo . . . Of the countries lying around the Mediterranean, very few can match the Hellenic peninsula in the almost perennial serenity and brilliant azure of her sky. The stifling breath of the desert does not, as in Egypt, shroud the inhabitants for days in its whitish, dull atmosphere ; so thick is it as to be impervious to the sun's rays, shutting out from the vision all but the nearest objects ; when it reaches Hellas, the gritty particles it holds in suspension have been lost in its passage across the sea. Again, here, the rain season of spring and autumn is shorter, notably on the eastern coast, than in Tunisia and Algeria. At Athens there is scarcely a day in which flashes of sunshine, if but for a few minutes, do not force their way between the clouds. The marvellous transparency of the air invites the eye to sound the depths of the horizon ; it endows the visual sense with a reach and nicety which would be impossible in a country where all the outlines are bathed in vapours which repel his curiosity. The eye is trained and habituated to study distant forms, to