The Caucasian Mountains and their Inhabitants. 115 



its universality and common aspect, we cease to prize, or 

 even heed. In the realms of poetry, music, painting, sculp- 

 ture, the sciences, history and romance, what fragrant flow- 

 ers, what glistening streams, what emerald banks, what 

 sunny slopes, what embowered paths, greet us as we ad- 

 vance. Every step has its compensating joys and smiles, 

 but like the inevitable sun and the stars, the eternal belt of 

 light that girds us as we walk, and envelops all our life, 

 they come as a matter of course, and their worth gains 

 nothing, let me repeat, by comparison, forgetting as we 

 do, the shadow that falls on the other half of the men- 

 tal world, the capable but dormant intellects of our fair 

 unfortunate sisters of the dreamy orient. 



Our memories are studded with priceless gems, our 

 soul-treasures are innumerable, and though the graces of 

 culture, the charms of knowledge are of ancient heritage, 

 they are no less precious. 



We have not fully comprehended the import of those 

 gods and goddesses that stood at the portals of the Gre- 

 cian temples. If it had all been engraven on their 

 pedestals, how long would it have taken each comer to 

 read it? Such a record was not needed. Each figure 

 was replete with a mute eloquence, felt and compre- 

 hended by all. Diana, Apollo, Mnemosyne, whose 

 children were song, memory, and meditation ; Clio with 

 her laurel wreath, her stylet and papyrus; Euterpe 

 crowned with flowers ; Erato with her lyre ; Calliope with 

 her book of gold. There, stood breathing ecstatic grace, 

 celestial harmony, wild fleet joy, placid empire, rapturous 

 sentiment, fountains of thought, feeling, mental fertility, 

 emotion, ravishing ideality, peace, concord. The wise 

 weighed well their actions in the marble scale of justice, 

 heard notes of harmony on the silent flute, and took sage 

 counsel from the book of gold. 



