midday
There they are . The extreme definiteness with which they stand , now a brilliant white , again yellow , and in some lights red , imposes ideas of durability , of the emergence through the earth of some spiritual energy elsewhere dissipated in elegant trifles . But this durability exists quite independently of our admiration . Although the beauty is sufficiently humane to weaken us , to stir the deep deposit of mud -- memories , abandonments , regrets , sentimental devotions -- the Parthenon is separate from all that ; and if you consider how it has stood out all night , for centuries , you begin to connect the blaze -LRB- at midday the glare is dazzling and the frieze almost invisible -RRB- with the idea that perhaps it is beauty alone that is immortal . Added to this , compared with the blistered stucco , the new love songs rasped out to the strum of guitar and gramophone , and the mobile yet insignificant faces of the street , the Parthenon is really astonishing in its silent composure ; which is so vigorous that , far from being decayed , the Parthenon appears , on the contrary , likely to outlast the entire world . `` And the Greeks , like sensible men , never bothered to finish the backs of their statues , '' said Jacob , shading his eyes and observing that the side of the figure which is turned away from view is left in the rough . He noted the slight irregularity in the line of the steps which `` the artistic sense of the Greeks preferred to mathematical accuracy , '' he read in his guide-book .