Book II - Wilbourhall.org

m.] STYLE OF THUCYDIDES. Iviireality of the descriptive passages. In the story ofthe plague is contained the essence of the classicalspirit. It is hard to realise that the writer had himselfsuffered from the awful disease, and that the manhe had reverenced as the pattern of every politicalvirtue had been killed by it He completely suppresseshis own feelings while he rouses pity andterror in his readers. The exterior is cold as marble ;and yet there is throbbing life beneath. The solemnpathos of the tale, alternately repelling and attracting,draws us on almost in spite of ourselves, wherever thewriter chooses to lead us. He seems passionless asfate. For us modems, there is too much intellect andtoo little feeling in all that he says; sometimes heseems to be actually mocking humanity with its ownfeebleness. But we must remember that this chillinginsensibility is, after all, superficial rather than realIt springs from that idealisation of man which ischaracteristic of all Greek art, of Greek prose quiteas much as of Greek sculpture and tragedy. If fatemars the divine body of man, it is not for man torebel, but to bear with patience.If men are as gods,they must suffer nothing to break their perfect repose'for the gods approveThe depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.'Grief is noble, but despair is impotent Asingle word in Lucretius' imitation, querella, inplace of Thucydides' TaXaiTrttipia, illustrates thepeculiar attitude of the Greeks towards physicalsuffering. It is often argued from the events of thewar and Thucydides' account of them that the Greekcharacter was brutal and callous to pain; but that