of beauty and the legends of its Gods. From all the learned education I
had had, I only extracted this one thing: an enthusiasm for ancient
Hellas and her Gods; they were my Gods, as they had been those of
Julian. Apollo and Artemis, Athene and Eros and Aphrodite grew to be
powers that I believed in and rejoiced over in a very different sense
from any God revealed on Sinai or in Emmaus. They were near to me.

And under these circumstances the Antiquities Room at Charlottenburg,
where as a boy I had heard Hoeyen's lectures, grew to be a place that I
entered with reverence, and Thorwaldsen's Museum my Temple, imperfectly
though it reproduced the religious and heroic life and spirit of the
Greeks. But at that time I knew no other, better door to the world of
the Gods than the Museum offered, and Thorwaldsen and the Greeks, from
fourteen to fifteen, were in my mind merged in one. Thorwaldsen's Museum
was to me a brilliant illustration of Homer. There I found my Church, my
Gods, my soul's true native land.


XVIII.

I had for several years been top of my class, when a boy was put in who
was quite three years older than I, and with whom it was impossible for
me to compete, so much greater were the newcomer's knowledge and
maturity. It very soon became a settled thing for the new boy always to
be top, and I invariably No. 2. However, this was not in the least
vexatious to me; I was too much wrapped up in Sebastian for that. The
admiration which as a child I had felt for boys who distinguished
themselves by muscular strength was manifested now for superiority in
knowledge or intelligence. Sebastian was tall, thin, somewhat disjointed
in build, with large blue eyes, expressive of kindness, and