Various

“ I seemed to picture it all; the low-ceiled attic crowded with girls; the honest farmer and his strapping sons; hard-featured Molly milking her cows and feeding her poultry; young Luke Armstrong and his dog Rover, strolling down to Wheeler's Farm for a peep at his rosy-faced sweetheart. Many an evening I banished the insidious advances of homesickness by talking to Hannah of her home, and there were times when I almost envied the girl her wealth of home affection.
It seems to me that we lose a great deal in life by closing our ears and hearts to other people's interests ”

“ There was more thought of living than of dying that bright morning, as, following closely Prior John and the old earl, each knight with his hooded sacret perched on his hawking-glove, each lady with her merlin, they laughed and jested merrily, or whispered words of sweetness not for second ears ”

“ To bring you back to supper, of course; and why didn't I tell you before to stop? Because you would not have listened if I had when you were in such a rage, you tiresome, cross boy, you."
"I am not in a rage now, Fairy, only I am not going to wear a smock. But where is your hat? You will catch cold."
"Of course I shall; I feel rather chilly now. Do take me home, Jack, before it comes on bad," said the little hypocrite, who never caught cold by any chance.
"I'll go back to the house with you, Fairy, but I can't come in, you know. Father has turned me out."
"Oh, I know; John is as bad as you. ”

“ As Apollo is associated with the sun, so Athéné is associated with the dawn, which wakes men from their slumbers when there is work to be done. She is therefore the goddess of industry and work, which daylight brings to all mortals. Athéné was thus the goddess of industry in every form. Besides agriculture, she was the patroness of arts and artificers, of embroidery and spinning, and all kinds of women's needlework. ”

“ It mayn't be deep, but it is very rapid; you may be carried away with it," urged Charlie.
"Bah!" laughed Fairy, dipping her pretty feet into the cold water, and shrieking with delight.
"Well, wait a minute till I have taken off my shoes, and we'll go together. It will be up to our waists in the middle, I believe," said Charlie; and the next minute the two children were wading across the angry bourne, laughing and screaming with delight, as each step they took the stream ran stronger and deeper. ”

“ Jack's manner to Fairy was rather a puzzle to his mother, for while it was more deferential than the shepherd's and less familiar than Charlie's, who, when he was clean, Fairy allowed to be on brotherly terms with her, at the same time he assumed a tone of intellectual superiority which Fairy quite acquiesced in and seemed to think quite natural, and yet she ordered him about just as she did the other boys, and he was certainly never so happy as when in her presence and doing her bidding. ”

“ They must carry us to Athens, and, with them to lead us, we must travel back through the long ages to the world's golden youth in Greece—Greece, whose poetry speaks to us from wood, and cave, and ocean—whose mythic heroes are associated with the stars themselves. ”

“ Some girls simply exist: they never appear to be otherwise than poor, sickly plants, and fail to thrust out new feelers in the sunshine.
In those quiet evening hours when I had work to do for my children, and dare not indulge myself in writing to Aunt Agatha, or reading some deeply interesting book that Travers had procured for me that morning, Hannah's innocent rustic talk seemed to open a new door to my inner consciousness, to admit me into a fresh phase of existence. ”

“ Once or twice John Shelley—who had a great dread lest his eldest son should spend too much time over books, time which, unless the book was the Bible, the simple shepherd thought wasted—had suggested that Charlie should help Fairy, and Jack look after the sheep, but Fairy soon settled this; Jack could not follow the sheep in the evenings, and as for Charlie, he could read and write and do a little ciphering, but he hated books, and was no use to her at all. ”

“ Home can never be made happy without it. It is like the flowers that spring up in our pathway, reviving and cheering us. Let a man go home at night, wearied and worn by the toils of the day, and how soothing is a word dictated by a good disposition! ”

“ Shelley feared for her boy's happiness, for though Fairy was only a child in age and everything else, Jack was five years older, and already his mother dreaded lest his affection and admiration should develop into a stronger feeling, although, for she was very ambitious for her boy, if she could know that in the far future Fairy would respond to the feeling, hope, and not fear, would have been the feeling with which she watched them. ”

“ The young knights helping their downcast fair ones to alight, seemed each to put a like question in an undertone, pressing the gloved hands they were so loth to relinquish, even for an hour.
"If the bridegrooms be impatient, and the earl be willing, the bridal can precede the parliament," suggested the prior. "I am here, and Father Paul"—referring to his attendant priest—"can have his vestments and the chapel ready long ere noon. What say ye, Bellamont, and Lady Joan? And these fair maidens, Idonea and Avice, what say ye? Shall the church bind ye ere the bridegrooms go?" ”

“ We have by this time come to the space immediately over the main entrance to the temple, at the east end; and here we see the twelve gods of Greece ranged, six on each side, over the doorway, the presentation of the peplus dividing the two groups of gods. Amongst them sits Athéné, as described in Homer's "Odyssey."
"Like a fair virgin in her beauty's bloom," a tall and simple maiden; her armour is cast off, she does not even wear her helmet; a golden spear formerly rested by her side, and the snake, type of the native soil, coils round her arm like a delicate bracelet. ”

“ And, broken and damaged as they indeed have become by time and exposure, many without heads, or hands, or feet, yet we cannot gaze upon them and consider them attentively without feeling more and more impressed by their heroic proportions and stately attitudes. We may well feel that we are justified in this impression, when we learn that these sculptured fragments are the remains of what is universally considered to have been, when perfect, the finest work of the best masters at the time of the highest development of Greek art. ”

“ I shall never forget my shame one evening when she came into the nursery and found me writing a letter to Aunt Agatha with a dictionary beside me, for there was no trouble to which I would not put myself if I could only avoid paining those loving eyes.
"Why, miss," she exclaimed in an astonished voice, "that is what I am obliged to do when I write to father or Molly! Molly is a fine scholar, and so is Lydia; the hardest words never puzzle them."
I must confess that my face grew hot as I stammered out my explanation to Hannah. ”

“ We refer to the time of Plato and Socrates, when, under Pericles, "wisest of rulers," the arts of poetry and sculpture sprang into glorious perfection, and the great name of Pheidias rose.
This was the time of that great war when the Greeks, with Athens at their head, beat back the invading army of Persians, and preserved civilisation for Europe. In that war, Athens itself (with all its beautiful buildings, its theatres, its temples, even its very walls) was levelled to the ground by the invaders ”

“ For, just as Ephesus is known to have worshipped especially the great goddess Diana, so Athens devoted herself to the worship of Pallas-Athéné, the goddess of wisdom, the virgin daughter of Jove. She was one of twelve chief gods who were worshipped throughout Greece, but was held as more peculiarly the protecting deity of ancient Athens. A temple to this goddess had stood on the self-same spot before the war, which the Persians had destroyed. ”

“ At the head of the procession, with modest air and downcast eyes and slow and stately movement, walk the noble matrons and virgins of Athens, carrying small vases, and saucers called pateræ, for the libations which were to be used in the sacrifices. A marshal takes a roll from the foremost pair of maidens, probably the hymn which has been chanted on the way. ”

“ Nonsense! the only question is, are you going to drive your son, as good a son as man can have, away from his home to rack and ruin for the sake of a whim of yours? Times have changed since you were young; people don't do as they did. ”

“ The shepherd advanced a step towards the angry lad; but Fairy, trembling for the consequences, caught hold of John's arm and held him back, while Mrs. Shelley stood between her husband and Jack, who was shaking with suppressed passion. ”

“ Do, for goodness sake, drop it, John, and fetch the lad in to supper. You can't force a boy of his age as a child of twelve, and, after all, he does his work just as well without a smock as with one, so do let us have peace," said Mrs. Shelley, who had been arguing the vexed question with her husband during Jack's absence.
"That is not the point. The question is, who is to be master in this house, Jack or I?" said the shepherd, seating himself again. ”

“ There are many of these interesting prize-vases from various parts of the Greek world now to be seen in the Vase Room in the British Museum—links with the dead past.
The judges who awarded the prizes to the victors in the games sat within the temple, in a row, on a raised platform at the foot of the great statue of Athéné, which was considered, for perfect beauty of proportion and grand dignity of expression, one of the finest works of art ever conceived. ”

“ The building of this temple was commenced 445 B.C., soon after the happy termination of the Persian war, while peace and prosperity ruled in the land. It took ten years to complete, and was accordingly finished in 435 before the Christian era. The times were therefore pagan times; but a great wave of civilisation passed over the favoured land of Greece, to which all modern art and literature owes so much; and the worship of Athéné, the goddess of wisdom and activity, takes its place amongst the purest and most elevating of the heathen religions. ”

“ The people of Athens do not come empty-handed to their guardian patroness. They bring her a beautiful dress or shawl, called in Greek the peplos, which has been covered with richest embroidery by maidens selected from the noblest families. These Athenian girls have plied their needles daily for many months, in a room set apart within the precincts of the temple, where they have worked under the superintendence of the priestesses of Athéné. ”

“ With the Greeks, those most superstitious people, every fresh invention that led the way for the arts of civilisation was at once attributed to the inspiration of a god, thus "Athéné was said to have invented the plough and the rake, and to have created the olive tree"—that tree of so much importance in all Eastern countries, where the fruit is often an article of daily food, and the oil extracted from the olives is also serviceable for domestic purposes. ”

“ She was none the worse for her adventure, since Jack, in spite of all their entreaties, remorselessly led the culprits home at once, and, in answer to their fears that Mrs. Shelley would be very angry, only hoped she would, and was even cruel enough, as Fairy told him, to say it served them right when the culprits were sent to bed as soon as Mrs. Shelley heard what had happened.
It was at this bourne that Fairy now stopped Jack, panting, and exclaiming, "Oh, Jack, do stop; I am so hot and tired, I can't walk another step." ”

“ She protected the State from outward enemies, and, as the patron divinity, she maintained the authority of law and order in the courts of the assembly of the people. It was she who was believed to have instituted the Court of the Areopagus, the Court of Justice, at Athens. She was, moreover, good{102} and pure, a virgin deity whose heart was inaccessible to the passion of love.
Such are the many attributes of this beneficent goddess—ever young and ever strong, but thoughtful and serious—the beautiful, blue-eyed Athéné. Sometimes she is represented by artists in her warlike character ”

“ Then came the farmers from the Attic plains, the worthy countrymen who cultivated the olive orchards that yielded the special harvest of the country; they bear boughs of the tree that Athéné herself was supposed to have planted, the growth of which had so largely conduced to the prosperity of the land. Lastly, come the colonists from all the Athenian colonies, who were obliged to contribute sheep, oxen, and goats for sacrifice; these are accompanied by their officiating priests. ”

“ How many travellers from London, or Oxford, or Leicester, or Ashby-de-la-Zouch, to Derby, passing in all those centuries over Swarkstone Bridge, have paused to ask when, or why, or by whom it was there erected for their convenience?
Tradition is best preserved when crystallised in a story.
There were gay doings in the hall and the villages around Bellamont in the June of 1258, when a noble party of guests had assembled at the hall to share the festivities at the forthcoming marriage of the ladies Idonea and Avice, the twin daughters of Richard Earl Bellamont and his noble countess. ”

“ Shelley laid the cloth for supper, while Jack and Fairy discussed their plans for the next day.
"Where is father?" asked Jack, suddenly.
"Now coming in to supper; he is cross with you, you naughty boy, because you have not set the wheatear traps properly, and he only caught two dozen," said Fairy.
These wheatear traps are excavations in the turf, about a foot long, in the shape of a T. The birds run up the trenches and get entangled by the head in a noose. ”

“ Lady Joan left her housewifery, and was there in her lap-cloth (or apron) to receive them, with a face full of apprehension.
"There can be no hawking to-day, Joan," said her lord, "we must don harness and speed to Leicester. The king hath summoned a parliament to meet him at Oxford."
"Arm! A parliament! Do parliaments assemble in arms?" ”

“ The plays then written, the subjects of which were the popular Greek legends, still rank, for grandeur of sentiment and nobility of feeling, with the finest poetry the world has ever produced. This proves to us that the Greeks were a highly refined and cultivated people. The Greek influence in art and literature has left its own mark in civilising and elevating mankind ”

“ No power on earth shall induce me to wear a smock frock," said Jack, infusing all the scorn he could muster into the objectionable name of the still more objectionable thing.
It was some minutes before the shepherd could take in the full meaning of his son's words. He supposed there was some objection to this smock in particular, for as he wore a smock himself, and his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had done the same before him, it never occurred to him that Jack could object to smocks in general. Shepherds wore smocks ”

“ From this custom of burying treasured objects, many curious relics have come down to us, and from it do we derive much of our knowledge of antiquity. The sketch given against our initial-letter is from a vase found in the tomb of a Greek colonist at Cyrene, on the north coast of Africa. Our colonist, who laid his bones on the parched and sandy soil of Africa, had evidently, in his youth, been the proud victor in one of the chariot-races in Athens, for we see depicted on one side of the vase a chariot-race, while a figure of Athéné, as the "warrior maid," appears on the other ”