For it is curiously true that a town will retain for hundreds of years the spirit of its founders. Men may flock in and overwhelm it in numbers, but the original subtile spirit, be it good or bad, absorbs the newcomers. In this lies the immortal glory of the pioneer.
All is silent now. The hillock lies as ever beholding the infinite glory of the smoking mountain, the violet vivid sea, the far-flung island coast where headland after headland sweeps outward in majestic successive distances, and between are sheltered bays, sickle-shaped, untenanted and pure.
Anemones and violets nod in the sea winds growing in the very cella of the temple. Sheep polish the marble pillars with their fleeces as they pass, or leave white woolly wisps upon the brambles in the market place for birds to gather for their nests.
But who knows whether the godlike young Sicilians who here still tend their flocks may not show us, shadowed and dulled with ignorance, some gesture of Eëtíon’s beauty, some glow of Eleutheria’s grace?
THE END