DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0328
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
which hinders one’s habitually spontaneous attitude to things
and pricks one with doubt and uncertainty. Anywhere but
here one could bear to make just a slight concession; but
here one’s confidence is too unbounded.
All one’s undertakings, all one’s enthusiasms, obeyed the
tacit reservation that Greece was hors concours. I adore the
Greeks to the last possible degree, and yet I remain unmoved
by their indisputable masterpiece. Senility, I suppose:
sclerosis. Some foolish demon of obstinacy makes me
stubborn. That agoraphobia was doubtless a premonitory
pang. If the situation alone were to blame, the Theseum,
which lies below on a normal site and dates from practically
the same period and is almost completely preserved, would
arouse our unqualified enthusiasm. Up to the present we
have contented ourselves with a distant glance as we passed
by. Then it looked like a box with columns, and I made a
mental note to come again. Today I was taken there by
Fritz Thomas, who wanted to do me a good turn; he
pointed out its similarity to the Parthenon. This is very
close, as I might have noticed without Thomas’s help;
but it does not save the Theseum from being terribly
dismal. A box of a certain size and shape; but not a breath
of life in it.
Thomas smiled. The Theseum is the one perfectly
preserved temple of the best period, and in that respect
unique. He recommended me to be patient and try again.
You must look into it by degrees. Evidently the numerous
imitations had spoilt my relish for the originals. That would
pass in time.
Why do they always take one for a fool instead of talking
sense? Fritz Thomas, the son of old Thomas, is an archaeolo-
gist and considers the Theseum as a safely foregone con-
clusion. He has his father’s quiet and cautious tolerance.
His axioms go about as far as the year so-and-so. We had
come from the so-called Monument of Lysicrates with its
302
which hinders one’s habitually spontaneous attitude to things
and pricks one with doubt and uncertainty. Anywhere but
here one could bear to make just a slight concession; but
here one’s confidence is too unbounded.
All one’s undertakings, all one’s enthusiasms, obeyed the
tacit reservation that Greece was hors concours. I adore the
Greeks to the last possible degree, and yet I remain unmoved
by their indisputable masterpiece. Senility, I suppose:
sclerosis. Some foolish demon of obstinacy makes me
stubborn. That agoraphobia was doubtless a premonitory
pang. If the situation alone were to blame, the Theseum,
which lies below on a normal site and dates from practically
the same period and is almost completely preserved, would
arouse our unqualified enthusiasm. Up to the present we
have contented ourselves with a distant glance as we passed
by. Then it looked like a box with columns, and I made a
mental note to come again. Today I was taken there by
Fritz Thomas, who wanted to do me a good turn; he
pointed out its similarity to the Parthenon. This is very
close, as I might have noticed without Thomas’s help;
but it does not save the Theseum from being terribly
dismal. A box of a certain size and shape; but not a breath
of life in it.
Thomas smiled. The Theseum is the one perfectly
preserved temple of the best period, and in that respect
unique. He recommended me to be patient and try again.
You must look into it by degrees. Evidently the numerous
imitations had spoilt my relish for the originals. That would
pass in time.
Why do they always take one for a fool instead of talking
sense? Fritz Thomas, the son of old Thomas, is an archaeolo-
gist and considers the Theseum as a safely foregone con-
clusion. He has his father’s quiet and cautious tolerance.
His axioms go about as far as the year so-and-so. We had
come from the so-called Monument of Lysicrates with its
302