Shelley is deeply Indebted to Greece for his theory of art and philosophy of life. | As light, speeding from a distant planet, was once intercepted by a sufficiently delicate instrument and made to illuminate one of earth's cities, so the brilliancy of Greek culture, gleaming through the ages was caught by the responsive soul of Shelley and by him made to brighten the modern world with its beauty and its truth. | Shelley's power to so intercept and so transmit the "glory that was Greece" is primarily due to two causes -- his Greek education and his own natural endowment. | If one referred to Shelley's academic training only, to say that he was Greek by education, would not distinguish him from any English gentleman of his day; but the term here used will be extended to apply to all those interests which molded his life.
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