The course of the study of the spirit of historical criticism has not been a profitless investigation into modes and forms of thought now antiquated and of no account.  The only spirit which is entirely removed from us is the mediaeval; the Greek spirit is essentially modern.  The introduction of the comparative method of research which has forced history to disclose its secrets belongs in a measure to us.  Ours, too, is a more scientific knowledge of philology and the method of survival.  Nor did the ancients know anything of the doctrine of averages or of crucial instances, both of which methods have proved of such importance in modern criticism, the one adding a most important proof of the statical elements of history, and exemplifying the influences of all physical surroundings on the life of man; the other, as in the single instance of the Moulin Quignon skull, serving to create a whole new science of prehistoric archaeology and to bring us back to a time when man was coeval with the stone age, the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros.  But, except these, we have added no new canon or method to the science of historical criticism.  Across the drear waste of a thousand years the Greek and the modern spirit join hands.

In the torch race which the Greek boys ran from the Cerameician field of death to the home of the goddess of Wisdom, not merely he who first reached the goal but he also who first started with the torch aflame received a prize.  In the Lampadephoria of civilisation and free thought let us not forget to render due meed of honour to those who first lit that sacred flame, the increasing splendour of which lights our footsteps to the far-off divine event of the attainment of perfect truth.

LA SAINTE COURTISANE; OR, THE WOMAN COVERED WITH JEWELS

The scene represents a corner of a valley in the Thebaid.  On the right hand of the stage is a cavern.  In front of the cavern stands a great crucifix.

On the left [sand dunes].

The sky is blue like the inside of a cup of lapis lazuli.  The hills are of red sand.  Here and there on the hills there are clumps of thorns.

First man.  Who is she?  She makes me afraid.  She has a purple cloak and her hair is like threads of gold.  I think she must be the daughter of the Emperor.  I have heard the boatmen say that the Emperor has a daughter who wears a cloak of purple.

Second man.  She has birds’ wings upon her sandals, and her tunic is of the colour of green corn.  It is like corn in spring when she stands still.  It is like young corn troubled by the shadows of hawks when she moves.  The pearls on her tunic are like many moons.

First man.  They are like the moons one sees in the water when the wind blows from the hills.

Second man.  I think she is one of the gods.  I think she comes from Nubia.