Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Aegean, many a spot is there more
beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample; but there was one charm in Attica,
which in the same perfection was nowhere else.
The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plian of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift;
Boeotia, which lay to its immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it.
The heavy atmosphere of the Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was associated in popular
belief with the dullness of the Boeotian intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity,
clearness, ad salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its genius, did that
for it which eaerth did not; --it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape
over which it was spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged
country.