11. Having got your Europe moated off into this manageable and comprehensible space, you are next to fix the limits which divide the four Gothic countries, Britain, Gaul, Germany, and Dacia, from the four Classic countries, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Lydia.
There is no other generally opponent term to 'Gothic' but 'Classic': and I am content to use it, for the sake of practical breadth and clearness, though its precise meaning for a little while remains unascertained. Only get the geography well into your mind, and the nomenclature will settle itself at its leisure.
12. Broadly, then, you have sea between Britain and Spain—Pyrenees between Gaul and Spain—Alps between Germany and Italy—Danube between Dacia and Greece. You must consider everything south of the Danube as Greek, variously influenced from Athens on one side, Byzantium on the other: then, across the Ægean, you have the great country absurdly called Asia Minor, (for we might just as well call Greece, Europe Minor, or Cornwall, England Minor,) but which is properly to be remembered as 'Lydia,' the country which infects with passion, and tempts with wealth; which taught the Lydian measure in music and softened the Greek language on its border into Ionic; which gave to ancient history the tale of Troy, and to Christian history, the glow, [Pg 63] and the decline, of the Seven Churches.
13. Opposite to these four countries in the south, but separated from them either by sea or desert, are other four, as easily remembered—Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Arabia.
Morocco, virtually consisting of the chain of Atlas and the coasts depending on it, may be most conveniently thought of as including the modern Morocco and Algeria, with the Canaries as a dependent group of islands.
Libya, in like manner, will include the modern Tunis and Tripoli: it will begin on the west with St. Augustine's town of Hippo; and its coast is colonized from Tyre and Greece, dividing it into the two districts of Carthage and Cyrene. Egypt, the country of the River, and Arabia, the country of no River, are to be thought of as the two great southern powers of separate Religion.
14. You have thus, easily and clearly memorable, twelve countries, distinct evermore by natural laws, and forming three zones from north to south, all healthily habitable—but the races of the northernmost, disciplined in endurance of cold; those of the central zone, perfected by the enjoyable suns alike of summer and winter; those of the southern zone, trained to endurance of heat. Writing them now in tabular view,
| Britain Gaul Germany Dacia |
| Spain Italy Greece Lydia |
| Morocco Libya Egypt Arabia, |
you have the ground of all useful profane history mapped out in the simplest terms; and then, as the fount of inspiration, for all these countries, with the strength which every soul that has possessed, has held sacred and supernatural, you have last to conceive perfectly the small hill district of the Holy Land, with Philistia and Syria on its flanks, both of them chastising forces; but Syria, in the beginning, herself the origin of the chosen race—"A Syrian ready to perish was my father"—and the Syrian Rachel being thought of always as the true mother of Israel.