on the hour at which, in these climates, sleep becomes necessary. In
Greece, if you have risen early in the morning, by noon, or soon after,
you are sensible of a sudden ebb of energy. The marrow seems to forsake
your bones, the volition your muscles. You may not feel common
sleepiness, but your skeleton demands instant release from its upright
effort. You ask to become a heap, instead of a pile, and on the offer of
the first accommodation, you fall like the disjointed column of Jupiter
Olympius, more fortunate only in the easier renewal of your
architecture. Such a fall, at this moment, the stiffest of us coveted.
Meanwhile, an ancient hag, from the inner recesses of the building, had
waited upon us, with copious chattering of her pleasure in seeing us,
and of the drawback which the brigands had offered to her little
business of serving the strangers who used to visit the convent before
Kitzos and others made them afraid. For, the convent no longer
containing monks, those who occupy it are glad to accommodate visitors
from Athens and elsewhere. And the hag brought some heavy mats and
quilts, and spread them on the floor of a little whitewashed out-house.
And on these the little two-year-old child and others of the party lay
down and slept. But "_e megale kyrie_"--meaning here the elder
lady,--said the hag, "cannot sleep on the floor. I have a good bed up
stairs; she shall lie there."
So up stairs mounted the _megale kyrie_, and found a quiet room, and a
bed spread with clean sheets in one corner. A rude chintz lounge, a
wooden chest, and an eight-inch mirror completed the furniture of this
apartment. Here, in the bed-corner, the Olympian column of _e megale_
fell, and barbarian sleep, sleep of the _middle ages_, at once seized
upon it and kept it prostrate. After a brief interval of Gothic
darkness, the column rose again, and confronted the windows commanding a
view of the court. On one of its wooden settles lay the young Greek
secretary in wholesome slumber. Not far from him rested the Greek
missionary, a graduate of Amherst, and a genial and energetic man. And
presently the two-year-old, waking, desires to waken these also, and
makes divers attempts against their peace, causing _e megale_ to descend
for their protection. On her way, in an outer passage, she encounters a
poor woman, lying on a heap of cedar boughs, and bewailing a bitter
headache. Dinner-time next arrives. The wooden tables are once more set
out with meat and fruit. We exert ourselves to give the feast a
picturesque aspect, and are not altogether unsuccessful in so doing. The
true feast, however, seems to consist in saying over to one's self,
"This is Greece--this is Hymettus. I am I, and I am here." And now the
greatest heat of the day being overpast, a ramble is proposed.
The young people, escorted by the missionary, climb half the steep
ascent of the mountain. _E megale_ and the secretary pause in the outer
court, to whose festivities a new feature is now added. Our friends, the
artisans, have feasted again, and little of the lamb remains save the
bones. They are singing and dancing as before, but a strange figure from
the mountain has joined them. He calls himself a shepherd, but looks
much like a brigand. He wears a jacket, fustanella, and leggings, of the
dirtiest possible white--a white which mocks at all washings, past and
future. He has taken the leadership of the coryphees, and now executes a
dance which is called the "Klepht." His sly movements express cunning,
to which the twinkle of his sinister eyes responds. Now he pretends to
be stabbed from behind; now he creeps cautiously upon a pretended foe.
His dancing, which is very quiet, fatigues him extremely; but before
making an end, he performs the feat of carrying a glass of wine on his
head through various movements, not spilling a drop of it. The artisans
are now intending to break up. They cork the bottles of wine and
vinegar, empty and repack the dishes. We have brought them some fruit
from our dessert. One of them makes a little speech to us, in behalf of
all, thanking for our interest in the freedom of Crete and in the
prosperity of their country. And "_Zeto! zeto!_" (live! live!) was the
pleasant termination of the discourse, to which we were obliged to
respond through the medium of a friendly interpretation.
Finally the day began to wane, and we to pack and embark. The bell of
the little church now made itself heard, and, looking in, we saw the
priest engaged in going through his service, while a very homespun
assistant stood at the reading-desk, wearing spectacles upon his nose,
and making responses through it. A circlet of tapers was burning before
the altar. One old woman or so, a peasant mother with her child,--these
were the congregation. The idea of the Greek as of the Catholic mass is,
that it effects a propitiation of the Divine Being; so the priest
performs his office, often with little or no following. As to those who
should attend, I believe that one pays one's money and has one's choice;
there is nothing absolute about it. And now _e megale_ bestows a
trifling largess upon the hag, who has also dined off the relics of our
feast. The books and work are gathered, the carriages summoned. Item,
our driver wore a Palicari dress, and took part, very lamely, in the
dances we witnessed. Farewell, Hymettus! farewell, shady convent, clear
and sparkling water! We kiss our hands to you, and cherish you in our
remembrance.
On our homeward way we soon passed the Athenian party, riding ten or
twelve in a one-horse cart, carrying with them for an ensign the pole on
which their lamb had been spitted. They saluted us, and we shouted back,
"_Eleutheria tis Kritis!_" Amen, simple souls! your instincts are wiser
than the reasons of diplomatists.
ITEMS.
My remaining chronicles of Athens will be brief and simple--gleanings at
large from the field of memory, whose harvests grow more uncertain as
the memorizer grows older. In youth the die is new and sharp, and the
impression distinct and clean cut. This sharpness of outline wears with
age; all things observed give us more the common material of human life,
less its individual features. In this point of view it may well be that
I shall often speak of things trivial, and omit matters of greater
importance. Yet even these trifles, sketched in surroundings so
grandiose, may serve to shadow out the features of something greater
than themselves, always inwardly felt, even when not especially
depicted. It is in this hope that I bind together my few and precious
reminiscences of Grecian life, and present them, inadequate as they
are, as almost better than anything else I have.
THE PALACE.
Armed with a permit, and accompanied by a Greek friend, we walked, one
bitter hot afternoon, to see the royal palace built by King Otho, it is
said, out of his own appanage, or private income. As an investment even
for his own ultimate benefit, he would have done much better in
expending the money on some of the improvements so much needed in his
capital. The salary of the King of Greece amounts to two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars; and this sum is sufficiently disproportionate to
the slender monetary resources of the kingdom, without the additional
testimony of this palatial monument of a monarch who wished to live like
a rich man in a poor country. The palace is a very large one. It not
only encloses a hollow square, but divides that square by an extension
running across it. The internal arrangements and adornments are mostly
in good taste, and one can imagine that when the king and queen held
their state there, the state apartments may have made a brave show. The
rooms now appear rather scantily furnished; the hangings are faded; and
one can make one's own reflections upon the vanity and folly of
ambitious expense, unperverted by the witchery of present luxury, which
always argues, "Yes, the peasants have no beds, but see--this arm-chair
is so comfortable!" Now, luxury was for the time absent on leave, and
we thought much of the peasant, and little of the prince. For the
peasant is a fact, and the prince but a symbol, and a symbol of that
which to-day can be represented without him; viz., the unity of will and
action essential to the existence of the state. This unity to-day is
accomplished by the cooperation of the multitude, not by its exclusion.
The symbol remains useful, but no longer sublime. No need, therefore, to
exaggerate the difference between the common symbol and the common man.
Fortify your unity in the will and understanding of the people, not in
their fear and imagination. And let the king be moderate in his
following, and illustrious in his character and office. So shall he be a
leader as well as a banner--a fact as well as a symbol.
While I thought these things, I admired Queen Amalia's blue, pink, and
green rooms, the lustres of fine Bohemian glass, the suite of apartments
for royal visitors, the ball-room and its marble columns, running
through two stories in height, and altogether well-appointed. "The court
balls were beautiful," said my companion, "and the hall is very
brilliant when lighted and filled." "Is the queen regretted?" I asked.
"Not much," was the moderate reply.
The theatre interested me more, with its scenes still standing. In the
same hall, at the other end, is a frame and enclosure for "tableaux
vivants," of which the court were very fond. The prettiest girls in
Athens came here, and _posed_ as Muses, Minervas, and what not. I have
the photograph of one, with her white robe and lyre. And this brings to
me the only good word I can say for Otho and Amalia, in the historic
light in which I view them. They were not gross, nor cruel, nor
sluttish. Their tastes and pleasures were of the refined, social order,
and in so far their influence and example were softening and civilizing
in tendency. The temporary prevalence of the German element has
introduced a tendency towards German culture. And while the Greeks who
seek commercial education very generally migrate to London or Liverpool,
the men most accomplished in letters and philosophy have studied in
Germany. All this may not have hindered the German patronage from
becoming oppressive, nor the German rule from becoming intolerable to
the people at large. But, with the examples of this and other ages
before one, one thanks a monarch for not becoming either a beast or a
butcher. Otho was neither. But neither was he, on the other hand, a
Greek, nor a lover of Greeks. Nor could he and his queen present the
people with a successor Greek in birth, if not in parentage. This
absence of offspring, which is said to have sorely galled the queen, was
really a weak point in their case before the people. To be ruled by a
Greek is their natural and just desire.
Europe, which has so little charity for their divergence from her
absolute standard, must remember that it is not at their request that
this expensive and uncongenial condition of a foreign prince has been
annexed to their system of government. The superstitions of the old
world have here planted a seed of mischief in the gardens of the new.
England finds it most convenient to be governed by a German; France, by
an Italian; Russia, by a Tartar line. What more natural than that they
should muffle new-born Greece in their own antiquated fashions? The
Greeks assassinated Capo d'Istrias for acts of tyranny from which they
knew no other escape. For, indeed, the head of their state was very
clumsily adjusted to its body by the same powers who left out of their
construction several of its most important members. An arbitrary
president was no head for a nation which had just conquered its own
liberty. A foreign absolute prince was only the same thing, with another
name and a larger salary. By their last resolution the Greeks have
attained a constitutional government. If their present king cannot
administer such a one properly, he will make room for some one who can.
To his political duties, meanwhile, military ones will be added. Greece
for the Greeks,--Candia, Thessaly, and Epirus delivered from the Moslem
yoke,--this will be the watchword, to which he must reply or vanish.
It is in the face of America that the new nations, Greece and Italy,
must look for encouragement and recognition. The old diplomacy has no
solution for their difficulties, no cure for their distresses. The
experience of the present century has developed new political methods,
new social combinations. In the domestic economy of France and England
these new features are felt and acknowledged. But in the foreign policy
of those nations the element of progress scarcely appears. In this,
force still takes the place of reason; the right of conquest depends
upon the power of him who undertakes it; and in the farthest regions
visited by their flags, organized barbarism gets the better of
disorganized barbarism. The English in India, the French in Algeria,
were first brigands, then brokers. Of these two, we need not tell the
civilized world that the broker plunders best.
Greece is a poor democracy; America, a rich one. The second commands all
the luxuries and commodities of life; the first, little more than its
necessaries. Yet we, coming from our own state of things, can understand
how the Greek values himself upon being a man, and upon having a part in
the efficient action of the commonwealth. Greece is reproached with
giving too ambitious an education to her sons and daughters. Her
institutions form teachers, not maids and valets, mistresses and
masters, not servants. But for this America will not reproach
her--America, whose shop-girls take music lessons, whose poorest menials
attend lectures, concerts, and balls. A democratic people does not
acquiesce either in priestly or in diplomatic precedence. Let people
perform their uses, earn their bread, enjoy their own, and respect their
neighbors; these are the maxims of good life in a democratic country.
"Love God, love thy neighbor," is better than "fear God, honor the
king." As to the sycophancy of snobs, the corruption of office, the
contingent insufficiency alike of electors and elected,--these are the
accidents of all human governments, to be arrested only by the constant
watchfulness of the wiser spirits, the true pilots of the state.
By the time that I had excogitated all this, my feet had visited many
square yards of palace, comprising bed-room, banqueting-room, chief
lady's room, chapel, and so on. I had seen the queen's garden, and the
_palmas qui meruit ferat_, and which she has left for her successor. I
had seen, too, the fine view from the upper windows, sweeping from the
Acropolis to the sea. I had exchanged various remarks with my Athenian
companion. New furniture was expected with the Russian princess, but
scarcely new enthusiasm. The little king had stopped the movement in
Thessaly, which would have diverted the Turkish force now concentrated
upon Crete, giving that laboring island a chance of rising above the
bloody waters that drown her. Little love did the little king earn by
this course. One might say that he is on probation, and will, in the
end, get his deserts, and no more. And here my friend has slipped some
suitable coin into the hand of the smiling major-domo, who showed us
over the royal house. Farewell, palace: the day of kings is over.
Peoples have now their turn, and God wills it.
THE CATHEDRAL.
In close juxtaposition with the state is the church. In America we have
religious liberty. This does not mean that a man has morally the right
to have no religion, but that the very nature of religion requires that
he should hold his own convictions above the ordinances of others. The
Greeks have religious liberty, whose idea is rather this, that people
may believe much as they please, provided they adhere outwardly to the
national church. The reason assigned for this is, that any change in the
form or discipline of this church would weaken the bond that unites the
Greeks out of Greece proper with those within her limits. This outward
compression and inward latitude is always a dangerous symptom. It points
to practical irreligion, an ever widening distance between a man's
inward convictions and his outward practice. Passing this by, however,
let us have a few words on the familiar aspect and practical working of
the Greek church as at present administered. Like other bodies politic
and individual already known to us, it consists of a reconciled
opposition, which, held within bounds, secures its efficiency. The same,
passing those bounds, would cause its annihilation. Like other churches,
it is at once aristocratic and democratic. It binds and looses. It is
less intellectual than either Catholicism or Protestantism; perhaps less
intolerant than either, so far as dogma goes. I still think it narrower
than either in the scope of its sympathies, lower than either in its
social and individual standard. Taken with the others, it makes up the
desired three of human conditions; but before it can meet them
harmoniously, it has a long way to go.
Refusing images, but clinging to pictures; allowing the Scriptures to
the common people, but discouraging their use of the same; with an
unmarried hierarchy of some education, and a married secular clergy of
none,--the Greek church seems to me to be too flatly in contradiction
with itself and with the spirit of the age to maintain long a social
supremacy, a moral efficiency. The department of the clergy last
mentioned receive no other support than that of the contingent
contributions of the people, paid in small sums, as the wages of
services better withheld than rendered. Exorcisms, benedictions, prayers
recited over graves, or secured as a cure for sick cattle,--these are
some of the sacerdotal acts by which the lesser clergy live. Those who
wish to keep these resources open must, of course, discourage the
reading of the New Testament, whose great aim and tendency are to
substitute a religion of life and doctrine for a religion of
observances. Congregations reading this book for themselves, no matter
how poor or ignorant in other matters, will ask something other of the
priest than the exorcism of demons or the cure of cattle.
Of the higher clergy, some have studied in Germany, and, reversing Mr.
Emerson's sentence, must know, one thinks, better than they build.
Orthodox their will may be, firm their adherence to the establishment,
strict their administration of it. But they must be aware of the limits
that it sets to religious progress. And so long as they cannot preach to
their congregations the full sincerity and power of their inward
convictions, their ministration loses in moral power,--the house is
divided against itself.
I visited the Cathedral of Athens but once. It is a spacious and
handsome church, in what I should call a modern Eastern style. It was
on Sunday, and mass was going on. The middle and right aisles were
filled with men, the left aisle with women. I do not know whether I have
mentioned elsewhere that in the Greek and Russian, as in the Quaker
church, men and women stand separately--stand, for seats are neither
provided nor allowed. I found a place among the women, commanding a view
of the high altar. The archbishop, a venerable-looking man, in gold
brocade and golden head-dress, went through various functions, which,
though not identical with those of the Romish mass, seemed to amount to
about the same thing. There were bowings, appearings and retirings, the
swinging of censers, and the presentation of tapers fixed in silver
candelabras, and tied in the middle with black ribbon, so as to form a
sheaf. These candelabras the archbishop from time to time took, one
under each arm, and made a step or two towards the congregation. The
dresses of the assistant priests were very rich, and their heads
altogether Oriental in aspect. One of them, with his gold-bronzed face
and golden hair, looked like pictures of St. John. The vocal part of the
performance consisted of a sort of chant, with responses intensely nasal
and unmusical. This psalmody, which is little relished by Greeks of
culture, is yet maintained, like the discipline, intact, lest the most
trifling amelioration should weaken the tie of Christian brotherhood
between the free Greek church and the church that is in bondage with her
children. To one familiar with the pretexts of conservatism, this plea
of union before improvement is not new nor availing. One laughs, and
remembers the respectabilities who tried to paralyze the American
intellect and conscience in order to save the Union, which, after all,
was saved only by the measures they abhorred and denounced. I had soon
enough of what I was able to hear and see of the Greek mass. As I stole
softly away, I passed a sort of lesser altar, before which was burning a
circular row of tapers. An old woman had similar tapers on a small
table, for sale, I suppose. I was invited, by gesture, to consummate a
pious act by the purchase of some of these, but declined, not without
remembering that I was some time since elected a lay delegate from a
certain Unitarian church to a certain Unitarian conference. This fact,
if communicated, would not have heightened my standing in the
approbation of the sisters who then surrounded me. "What, no candle?"
said their indignant glances. I was silent, and fled.
THE MISSIONARIES.
In the presence of the contradictions alluded to above, the position of
the Greek church and of American Protestant missionaries becomes one of
mutual delicacy and difficulty. The church allows religious liberty, and
assumes religious tolerance. Yet it naturally holds fast its own
children within its own borders. The Protestants are pledged to labor
for the world's Christianization. When they see its progress opposed by
antiquated usage and insufficient method, they cannot acquiesce in these
obstacles, nor teach others to revere them. Here we must say at once
that no act is so irreligious as the resistance of progress. Thought and
conscience are progressive. Christ's progressive labor carried further
the Jewish faith and tenets which were religious before he came, but
which became irreligious in resisting the further and finer conclusions
to which he led. "I come not to destroy, but to fulfil." Progress does
fulfil in the spirit, even though it destroy in the letter.
Protestantism acknowledges this, and this acknowledgment constitutes its
superiority over the Greek and Catholic churches. The sincere reader of
the New Testament will be ever more and more disposed to make his
religion a matter lying directly between himself and the Divine Being.
His outward conformity to all just laws and good institutions will be,
not the less, but the more, perfect because his scale of obligation is
an individual one, the spring and motive of his actions a deeply inward
one. Church and state gain in soundness and efficiency by every
individual conscience that functions within their bounds. Religion of
this sort leads away from human mediations, from confessions,
benedictions, injunctions, and permissions of merely human authority. It
confesses first to God, afterwards, if at all, to those whom its
confessions can benefit. It brings its own thought to aid and illustrate
the general thought. It cannot abdicate its own conclusions before any
magnitude either of intellect or of age.
The Protestant, therefore, would be much straitened within the Greek
limits. He is forced to teach those who will listen to him that God is
much nearer than the priest, and that their own simple and sincere
understanding of Christian doctrine is at once more just and more
precious than the fallacies and sophisms of an absolute theology. Such
teaching will scarcely be more relished by the Greek than by the Romish
clergy; yet the Protestant must teach this, or be silent.