they lie away from the track of pilgrims; and my father used to say that scholars themselves hardly imagine them to have any existence out of books. He was of opinion that a new and more glorious era would open for learning when men should begin to look for their commentaries on the ancient writers in the remains of cities and temples, nay, in the paths of the rivers, and on the face of the valleys and the mountains.”
“Ah!” said Bardo, fervidly, “your father, then, was not a common man. Was he fortunate, may I ask? Had he many friends?” These last words were uttered in a tone charged with meaning.
“No; he made enemies—chiefly, I believe, by a certain impetuous candour; and they hindered his advancement, so that he lived in obscurity. And he would never stoop to conciliate: he could never forget an injury.”
“Ah!” said Bardo again, with a long, deep intonation.
“Among our hazardous expeditions,” continued Tito, willing to prevent further questions on a point so personal, “I remember with particular vividness a hastily snatched visit to Athens. Our hurry, and the double danger of being seized as prisoners by the Turks, and of our galley raising anchor before we could return, made it seem like a fevered vision of the night—the wide plain, the girdling mountains, the ruined porticos and columns, either standing far aloof, as if receding from our hurried footsteps, or else jammed in confusedly among the dwellings of Christians degraded into servitude, or among the forts and turrets of their Muslim conquerors, who have their stronghold on the Acropolis.”
“You fill me with surprise,” said Bardo. “Athens, then, is not utterly destroyed and swept away, as I had imagined?”
“No wonder you should be under that mistake, for few even of the Greeks themselves, who live beyond the mountain boundary of Attica,