The light came fast now, and with my glass I could bring the hill-top near. I could make out the Parthenon--also the Temple of Victory, I thought, and those marble women who have seen races pass and nations crumble, and religions fade back into fable and the realm of shades. It was all aglow, presently--a vision! So many wonderful mornings, we have had, but none like this. Nor can there be so many lives that hold in them a sunrise on the Acropolis from the Bay of Phaleron.
I lost no time in getting on deck, but it seemed that everybody was there ahead of me. They were strung along the rail, and each one had his glass, or his neighbor's, and was pointing and discoursing and argufying and having a beautiful time. The Diplomat was holding forth on the similarity of modern and ancient Greek, and was threatening to use the latter on the first victim that came within range. The Patriarch, who is religious when he happens to think about it, was trying to find Mars Hill, where St. Paul preached; the Credulous One was pointing out to everybody Lykabettos Hill as Mt. Ararat (information obtained from the Horse-Doctor), while the Apostle and the Colonel were quarrelling fiercely over a subject which neither of them knew anything about--the rise of Christianity in Greece.
I got into a row myself, presently, with one of the boys, just because I happened to make some little classical allusion-- I have forgotten what it was now, and I didn't seem to know much about it then, from what he said. We were all stirred up with knowledge, brought face to face with history, as we were, and bound to unload it on somebody. Only the Music-Master wasn't. A little apart from any group, he stood clutching the rail, his face shining with a light that was not all of the morning, gazing in silence at his hill of dreams.
We went ashore in boats that had pretty Greek rugs in them, and took a little train on which all the cars were smoking-cars (there are no other kind in Greece), and we looked out the windows trying to imagine we were really in Greece where once the gods dwelt; where Homer sang and Achilles fought; where the first Argonauts set sail for the Golden Fleece. I wish we could have met those voyagers before they started. They wouldn't have needed to go then. They could have taken the Golden Fleece off of this crowd if they had anything to sell in that Argosy of theirs, and their descendants are going to do it yet. I know from the conversation that is going on behind me. The Mill and a lot of her boon companions are doing the talking, and it is not of the classic ruins we are about to see, but of the lace they bought in Malta and Gibraltar, and of the embroidery they are going to buy in Greece.