Athenian society decayed at last, not at all because its
artists had reached the limit of human invention, or its
philosophers the necessary term of human thought, but because
the moral faculties and tastes which should have presided in
that society were not developed in proportion to the esthetic
and intellectual powers which added to its ornament. It was
outwardly like the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, of costly
ivory, overlaid with gold; but it was wood within; and the wood
rotted; that is all that can be said of it. Then the cunning of
the ivory, and the splendor of the gold, fell and were broken,
and the nations gathered the shining fragments.--RICHARD S.
STORRS.
(589)