There are no false strokes. There are no vacillations. There are no explanations. It marches onward with the iron feet of warriors. It is proud as the crests upon their helmets.
This sure, this masterly carving upon metal, which only Time is permitted to shade, is a lost art. It proceeded from a mental equipment different from that with which the modern artist works.
The old writers put down what they knew. The modern writers put down loosely, and sometimes eloquently, what they do not know. Always in the vague, weedy, word-garden of the present, I miss this unequivocating directness; clearness, firmness; this chiseled accuracy.
No roads have been so clear in my mind as the road the warriors of Cyrus traveled on the expedition which Xenophon recounts. No cities have been so firmly situated beside the roads, alluringly, so glowingly. No expanse of plain, of meadow or mountain, so reliably bounded. After the Latin and Greek historians ceased writing, it seemed suddenly to me that there were no roads left leading to Great Asia. A part of the world had fallen into space.
They did not say anything for effect. Space upon bronze was too precious to waste in filling in.
There are no vague foolishnesses. There are no indefinite horizons. Words were serious, expressive things. They were treated like gold, like silver. They did not throw them away.
They were majestic, these historians, like the Hebrew Prophets. They force respect. The vision I keep in my eye of them is something the same. They too were white robed, stately, brave, and eloquent.
I like the picture of the Persian princes,
Darii et Parysatidis duo fuere filii,