GREECE AND ITS YOUNG KING.
ATHENS, November 9th.
If the best proof of our fondness for a place be that we leave it with
regret, few cities will stand higher in our remembrance than Naples,
from which we turned away with many a lingering look, as we waved our
adieus to our friends, who answered us from the deck of the Franklin.
Never did the bay look more beautiful than that Monday afternoon, as
we sailed away by Capri and Sorrento, and Amalfi and the Bay of
Salerno. The sea was calm, the sky was fair. The coast, with its rocky
headlands and deeply indented bays, was in full sight, while behind
rose the Apennines. The friends were with us who were to be our
companions in the East, adding to our animation by their own, as we
sat upon the deck till the evening drew on. As the sun went down, it
cast such a light over the sea, that the ship seemed to be swimming in
glory, as we floated along the beautiful Italian shores. A little
before morning we passed through the Straits of Messina, between
Scylla and Charybdis, leaving Mount Etna on our right, and then for an
hour or two stood off the coast of Calabria, till we ran out of sight
of land, into the open sea of the Mediterranean.
Wednesday found us among the Ionian islands, and we soon came in sight
of the Morea, a part of the mainland of Greece. We had been told to
watch, as we approached Athens, for sunset on the Parthenon; but it
was not till long after dark that we entered the harbor of the Piraeus,
and saw the lights on the shore, and our first experience was
anything but romantic. At ten o'clock we were cast ashore, in
darkness and in rain; so that instead of feeling any inspiration, we
felt only that we were very wet and very cold. While the
commissionaire went to call a carriage, we waited for a few moments in
a cafe, which was filled with Greek soldiers who were drinking and
smoking, and looked more like brigands than the lawful defenders of
life and property. Such was our introduction to the classic soil of
Greece. But the scene was certainly picturesque enough to satisfy our
young spirits (for I have two such now in charge), who are always
looking out for adventures. Soon the carriage came, and splashing
through the mud, we drove to Athens, and at midnight found a most
welcome rest in our hotel.
But sunrise clears away the darkness, and we look out of our balcony
on a pleasant prospect. We are in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, facing
the principal square, and adjoining the Royal Palace, in front of
which the band comes to play under the King's windows every day.
Before us rises a rocky hill, which we know at once to be the
Acropolis, as it is strown with ruins, and crowned with the columns of
a great temple, which can be no other than the Parthenon.
Turning around the horizon, the view is less attractive. The hills are
bleak and bare, masses of rock covered with a scanty vegetation. This
desolate appearance is the result of centuries of neglect; for in
ancient times (if I have read aright), the plain of Athens was a
paradise of fertility, and where not laid out in gardens, was dense
with foliage. Stately trees stood in many a grove besides that of the
Academy, while the mountains around "waved like Lebanon." But nature
seems to have dwindled with man, and centuries of misrule, while they
have crushed the people, have stripped even the mountains of their
forests.
But with all the desolateness around it, Athens is to the scholar one
of the most interesting cities in the world. Its very ruins are
eloquent, as they speak of the past. We have been here six days, and
have been riding about continually, seeking out ancient sites,
exploring temples and ruins, and find the charm and the fascination
increasing to the last.
The Parthenon has disappointed me, not in the beauty of its design,
which is as nearly perfect as anything ever wrought by the hand of
man, but in the state of its preservation, which is much less perfect
than that of the temples at Paestum. Time and the elements have wrought
upon its marble front; but these alone would not have made it the ruin
that it is, but for the havoc of war: for so massive was its structure
that it might have lasted for ages. Indeed, it was preserved nearly
intact till about two centuries ago. But the Acropolis, owing to the
advantages of its site (a rocky eminence, rising up in the midst of
the city, like the Castle of Edinburgh), had often been turned into a
fortress, and sustained many sieges. In 1687 it was held by the Turks,
and the Parthenon was used as a powder magazine, which was exploded by
a bomb from the Venetian camp on an opposite hill, and thus was
fatally shattered the great edifice that had stood from the age of
Pericles. Many columns were blown down, making a huge rent on both
sides. It is sad to see these great blocks of Pentelican marble, that
had been so perfectly fashioned and chiselled, now strown over the
summit of the hill.
And then, to complete the destruction, at the beginning of this
century, came a British nobleman, Lord Elgin, and having obtained a
firman from the Turkish Government, proceeded deliberately to put up
his scaffolding and take down the friezes of Phidias, and carried off
a ship-load of them to London, where the Elgin Marbles now form the
chief ornament of the British Museum. The English spoilers have indeed
allowed some plaster casts to be taken, and brought back here--faint
reminders of the glorious originals. With these and such other
fragments as they have been able to gather, the Greeks have formed a
small museum of their own on the Acropolis. In those which preserve
any degree of entireness, as in the more perfect ones in London, one
perceives the matchless grace of ancient Greek sculpture. There are
long processions of soldiers mounted on horses, and priests leading
their victims to the sacrifice. In these every figure is different,
yet all are full of majesty and grace. What a power even in the
horses, as they sweep along in the endless procession; and what a
freedom in their riders. The whole seems to _march_ before us.
But many of the fragments that have been collected are so broken that
we cannot make anything out of them. We know from history that there
were on the Acropolis five hundred statues (besides those in the
Parthenon), scattered over the hill. Of these but little remains--here
an arm, or a leg, or a headless trunk, which would need a genius like
that of the ancient sculptor himself to restore it to any degree of
completeness. It is said of Cuvier that such was his knowledge of
comparative anatomy, that from the smallest fragment of bone he could
reconstruct the frame of a mastodon, or of any extinct animal. So
perhaps out of these remains of ancient art, a Thorwaldsen (who had
more of the genius of the ancient Greeks than any other modern
sculptor,) might reconstruct the friezes and sculptures of the
Parthenon.
But perhaps it is better that they remain as they are--fragments of a
mighty ruin, suggestions of a beauty and grace now lost to the world;
and which no man is worthy to restore.
Even as it stands, shattered and broken, the Parthenon is majestic in
its ruins. Until I came here I did not realize how much of its effect
was due to its _position_. But the old Greeks studied the effect of
everything, and thus the loftiest of positions was chosen for the
noblest of temples. As Michael Angelo, in building St. Peter's at
home, said that he "would lift the Pantheon into the air," (that is,
erect a structure so vast that its very dome should be equal to the
ancient temple of the gods,) so here the builders of the Parthenon
lifted it into the clouds. It stands on the very pinnacle of the hill,
some six hundred feet above the level of the sea, and thus is brought
into full relief against the sky. On that lofty summit it could be
seen from the city itself, which lies under the shadow of the
Acropolis, as well as from the more distant plain. It could be seen
also from the tops of the mountains, and even far out at sea, as it
caught and reflected back the rays of the rising or the setting sun.
Its marble columns, outlined against the blue sky of Greece, seemed
almost a temple in the clouds.
This effect of position has been half destroyed, at least for those
living in Athens, by the barbarous additions of later times, by which,
in order that the Acropolis might be turned into a fortress, the brow
of the hill was surmounted with a rude wall, which still encircles it,
and hides all but the upper part of the Parthenon from view. In any
proposed "restoration," the first thing should be to throw down this
ugly wall, so that the great temple might be seen to its very base,
standing as of old upon the naked rocks, with no barrier to hide its
majesty, from those near at hand as well as those "beholding it afar
off."
But, for the present, to see the beauty of the Parthenon, one must go
up to the Acropolis, and study it there. We often climbed to the
summit, and sat down on the steps of the Propylaea, or on a broken
column, to enjoy the prospect. From this point the eye ranges over the
plain of Athens, bounded on one side by mountains, and on the other by
the sea. Here are comprised in one view the points of greatest
interest in Athenian history. Yonder is the bay of Salamis, where
Themistocles defeated the Persians, and above it is the hill on which
the proud Persian monarch Xerxes sat to see the ruin of the Greek
ships, but from which before the day was ended he fled in dismay. To
such spots Demosthenes could point, as he stood in the Bema just below
us, and thundered to the Athenian people; and by such recollections
he roused them to "march against Philip, to conquer or die." A mile
and a half distant, but in full sight, was the grove of the Academy,
where Plato taught; and here, under the Acropolis, is a small recess
hewn in the rock which is pointed out as the prison of Socrates, and
another which is called his tomb. This inconstant people, like many
others, after putting to death the wisest man of his age, paid almost
divine honors to his memory.
Like the Coliseum at Rome, the Parthenon is best seen by moonlight,
for then the rents are half concealed, and as the shadows of the
columns that are still standing fall across the open area, they seem
like the giants of old revisiting the place of their glory, while the
night wind sighing among the ruins creeps in our ears like whispers of
the mighty dead.
When our American artist, Mr. Church, was here, he spent some weeks in
studying the Parthenon and taking sketches, from which he painted the
beautiful picture now in the possession of Mr. Morris K. Jesup. He
studied it from every point and in every light--at sunrise and sunset,
and by moonlight, and even had Bengal lights hung at night to bring
out new lights and shadows. This latter mode of illumination was tried
on a far grander scale when the Prince of Wales was here a few days
since on his way to India, and the effect was indescribably beautiful
as those mighty columns, thus brought into strange relief, stood out
against the midnight sky.
But if the Parthenon be only a ruin, the memorial of a greatness that
exists no more, fit emblem of that mythology of which it was the
shrine, and of which it is now at once the monument and the tomb,
there is something to be seen from this spot which is not a reminder
of decay. Beneath the Acropolis is Mars Hill, where Paul stood, in
sight of these very temples, and cried, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive
that in all things ye are too superstitious" [or, as it might be more
correctly rendered, "very religious"]; "for as I passed by, and beheld
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN
GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God
that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of
heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands" [here we
may believe he pointed upward to the Parthenon and other temples which
crowned the hill above him]; "neither is worshipped with men's hands,
as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and
breath, and all things." That voice has died into silence, nor doth
remain upon the barren rock a single monument, or token of any kind,
to mark where the great Apostle stood. But the faith which he preached
has gone into all the world, and to-day the proudest dome that
overlooks the greatest capital of the modern world, bears the name of
St. Paul; and not only in London, but in hundreds of other cities, in
all parts of the earth, are temples consecrated with his name, that
tell of the Unknown God who has been declared to men, and of a faith
and worship that shall not pass away.
It is a long leap in history, from Ancient to Modern Greece; but the
intervening period contains so much of sadness and of shame, that it
is just as well to pass it by. What need to speak of the centuries of
degradation, in which Greece has been trampled on by Roman and Goth
and Turk, since we may turn to the cheering fact that after this long
night of ages, the morning has come, and this stricken land revives
again? Greece is at last free from her oppressors, and although the
smallest of European kingdoms, yet she exists; she has a place among
the nations, and the beginning of a new life, the dawn of what may
prove a long and happy career.
It is impossible to look on the revival of a nation which has had such
a history without the deepest interest, and I questioned eagerly every
one who could tell me anything about the conditions and prospects of
the country. I find the general report is one of progress--slow
indeed, but steady. The venerable Dr. Hill, who has lived here nearly
forty-five years, and is about the oldest inhabitant of Athens, tells
me that when he came, _there was not a single house_--he lived at
first in an old Venetian tower--and to-day Athens is a city of fifty
thousand inhabitants, with wide and beautiful streets; with public
squares and fountains, and many fine residences; with churches and
schools, and a flourishing University; with a Palace and a King, a
Parliament House and a Legislature, and all the forms of
constitutional government.
Athens is a very bright and gay city. Its climate favors life in the
open air, and its streets are filled with people, whose varied
costumes give them a most picturesque appearance. The fez is very
common, but not a turban is to be seen, for there is hardly a Turk in
Athens, unless it be connected with their embassy. The most striking
figures in the streets are the Albanians, or Suliotes, whose dress is
not unlike that of the Highlanders, only that the kilt, instead of
being of Scotch plaid, is of white cotton _frilled_, with the legs
covered with long thick stockings, and the costume completed by a
"capote"--a cloak as rough as a sheepskin, which is thrown
coquettishly over the shoulders. These Highlanders, though not of pure
Greek blood, fought bravely in the war of independence, meriting the
praise of Byron:--
"O who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?"
The interior of the country is less advanced than the capital. The
great want is that of _internal communication_. Greece is a country
made by nature both for commerce and for agriculture, as it is a
peninsula, and the long line of coast is indented with bays, and the
interior is very fertile; and if a few short roads were opened to
connect the inland valleys with the sea, so that the farmers and
peasants could send their produce to market, the exports of the
country might soon be doubled. One "trunk" road also is needed, about
a hundred miles long, to connect Greece with the European system of
railroads. The opening of this single artery of trade would give a
great impulse to the industry of the country; but as it would have to
cross the frontier of Turkey, it is necessary to have the consent of
the Turkish Government, and this the Greeks, though they have sought
it for years, have never been able to obtain.
But the obstacles to improvement are not all the fault of the Turks;
the Greeks are themselves also to blame. There is a lack of enterprise
and of public spirit; they do not work together for the public good.
If there were a little more of a spirit of cooperation, they could do
wonders for their country. They need not go to England to borrow money
to build railroads. There is enough in Athens itself, which is the
residence of many wealthy Greeks. Greece is about as large in
territory as Massachusetts, and has about the same population. If it
had the same spirit of enterprise, it would soon be covered, as
Massachusetts is, with a network of railroads, and all its valleys
would be alive with the hum of industry.
This lack of enterprise and want of combination for public ends, are
due to inherent defects of national character. The modern Greeks have
many of the traits of their illustrious ancestors, in which there is a
strange compound of strength and weakness. They are a mercurial and
excitable race, very much like the French, effervescing like
champagne, bubbling up and boiling over; fond of talk, and often
spending in words the energy that were better reserved for deeds. They
have a proverb of their own, which well indicates their readiness to
get excited about little matters, which says, "They drown themselves
in a tumbler of water."
A still more serious defect than this lightness of manner, is the
want of a high patriotic feeling which overrides all personal
ambition. There is too much of party spirit, and of personal ambition.
Everybody wants to be in office, to obtain control of the Government,
and selfish interests often take the precedence of public
considerations; men seem more eager to get into power by any means,
than to secure the good of their country. This party spirit makes more
difficult the task of government. But after all these are things which
more or less exist in all countries, and especially under all free
governments, and which the most skilled statesmen have to use all
their tact and skill to restrain within due bounds.
But while these are obvious defects of the national character, no one
can fail to see the fine qualities of the Greeks, and the great things
of which they are capable. They are full of talent, in which they show
their ancestral blood, and if sometimes a little restless and
unmanageable, they are but like spirited horses, that need only to be
"reined in" and guided aright, to run a long and glorious race.
I have good hope of the country also, from the character of the young
King, whom I had an opportunity of seeing. This was an unexpected
pleasure, for which I am indebted to the courtesy of our accomplished
Minister here, Gen. J. Meredith Reed, who suggested and arranged it;
and it proved not a mere formality, but a real gratification. I had
supposed it would be a mere ceremony, but it was, on the contrary, so
free from all stiffness--our reception was so unaffected and so
cordial--that I should like to impart a little of the pleasure of it
to others. I wish I could convey the impression of that young ruler
exactly as he appeared in that interview: for this is a case in which
the simplest and most literal description would be the most favorable.
Public opinion abroad hardly does him justice; for the mere fact of
his youth (he is not yet quite thirty years old), may lead those who
know nothing of him personally, to suppose that he is a mere
figure-head of the State, a graceful ornament indeed, but not capable
of adding much to the political wisdom by which it is to be guided.
The fact too of his royal connections (for he is the son of the King
of Denmark, and brother-in-law both of the Prince of Wales and of the
eldest son of the Czar), naturally leads one to suppose that he was
chosen King by the Greeks chiefly to insure the alliance of England
and Russia. No doubt these considerations did influence, as they very
properly might, his election to the throne. But the people were most
happy in their choice, in that they obtained not merely a foreign
prince to rule over them, but one of such personal qualities as to win
their love and command their respect. Those who come in contact with
him soon discover that he is not only a man of education, but of
practical knowledge of affairs; that he "carries an old head on young
shoulders," and has little of youth about him _except its modesty_,
but this he has in a marked degree, and it gives a great charm to his
manners. I was struck with this as soon as we entered the room--an air
so modest, and yet so frank and open, that it at once puts a stranger
at his ease. There is something very engaging in his manner, which
commands your confidence by the freedom with which he gives his own.
He welcomed us most cordially, and shook us warmly by the hand, and
commenced the conversation in excellent English, talking with as much
apparent freedom as if he were with old friends. We were quite alone
with him, and had him all to ourselves. There was nothing of the
manner of one who feels that his dignity consists in maintaining a
stiff and rigid attitude. On the contrary, his spirits seemed to run
over, and he conversed not only with the freedom, but the joyousness
of a boy. He amused us very much by describing a scene which some
traveller professed to have witnessed in the Greek Legislature, when
the speakers became so excited that they passed from words to blows,
and the Assembly broke up in a general melee. Of course no such scene
ever occurred, but it suited the purpose of some penny-a-liner, who
probably was in want of a dinner, and must concoct "a sensation" for
his journal. But I had been present at a meeting of the Greek
Parliament a day or two before, and could say with truth that it was
far more quiet and decorous than the meeting of the National Assembly
at Versailles, which I had witnessed several months before. Indeed no
legislative body could be more orderly in its deliberations.
Then the King talked of a great variety of subjects--of Greece and of
America, of art and of politics, of the Parthenon and of
plum-puddings.[9] Gen. Reed was very anxious that Greece should be
represented at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. The King
asked what they should send? I modestly suggested "The Parthenon,"
with which Greece would eclipse all the world, unless Egypt should
send the Pyramids! Of course, it would be a profanation to touch a
stone of that mighty temple, though it would not be half as bad to
carry off a few "specimen bricks" as it was for Lord Elgin to carry
off the friezes of Phidias. But Gen. Reed suggested, what would be
quite practicable, that they should send plaster casts of some of
their greatest statues, which would not rob _them_, and yet be the
most glorious memorial of Ancient Greece.
The King spoke very warmly of America. The relations of the two
countries have always been most cordial. When Greece was struggling
single-handed to gain her independence, and European powers stood
aloof, America was the first to extend her sympathy and aid. This
early friendship has not been forgotten, and it needs only a worthy
representative of our country here--such as we are most fortunate in
having now--to keep for us this golden friendship through all future
years.
Such is the man who is now the King of Greece. He has a great task
before him, to restore a country so long depressed. He appreciates
fully its difficulties. No man understands better the character of the
Greeks, nor the real wants of the country. He may sometimes be tried
by things in his way. Yet he applies himself to them with
inexhaustible patience. The greater the difficulty, the greater the
glory of success. If he should sometimes feel a little discouraged,
yet there is much also to cheer and animate him. If things move rather
slowly, yet it is a fact of good omen that they move _at all_; and
looking back over a series of years, one may see that there has been a
great advance. It is not yet half a century since this country gained
its independence. Fifty years ago Turkish pachas were ruling over
Greece, and grinding the Christian population into the dust. Now the
Turks are gone. The people are _free_, and in their erect attitude,
their manly bearing and cheerful spirits, one sees that they feel that
they are men, accustomed for these many years to breathe the air of
liberty.
With such a country and such a people, this young king has before him
the most beautiful part which is given to any European sovereign--to
restore this ancient State, to reconstruct, not the Parthenon, but the
Kingdom; to open new channels of industry and wealth, and to lead the
people in all the ways of progress and of peace.
It will not be intruding into any privacy, if I speak of the king in
his domestic relations. It is not always that kings and queens present
the most worthy example to their people; and it was a real pleasure to
hear the way in which everybody spoke of this royal family as a model.
The queen, a daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, is
famed for her beauty, and equally for the sweetness of her manners.
The whole nation seems to be in love with her, she is so gentle and so
good. They have four children, ruddy cheeked little creatures, whom we
saw riding about every day, so blooming and rosy that the carriage
looked like a basket of flowers. They were always jumping about like
squirrels, so that the King told us he had to have them fastened in
with leather straps, lest in their childish glee they should throw
themselves overboard. In truth it was a pretty sight, that well might
warm the heart of the most cold-blooded old bachelor that ever lived;
and no one could see them riding by without blessing that beautiful
young mother and her happy children.
There is something very fitting in such a young king and queen being
at the head of a kingdom which is itself young, that so rulers and
people may grow in years and in happiness together.
I know I express the feelings of every American, when I wish all good
to this royal house. May this king and queen long live to present to
their people the beautiful spectacle of the purest domestic love and
happiness! May they live to see Greece greatly increased in population
and in wealth--the home of a brave, free, intelligent and happy
people!
FOOTNOTE:
[9] This is not a jest. The King said with perfect truth that the
chief revenue of Greece was derived from the plum-puddings of England
and America, the fact being that the currants of Corinth (which indeed
gives the name to that delicious fruit) form the chief article of
export from the Kingdom of Greece--the amount in one year exported to
England alone, being of the value of L1,200,000. The next article of
export is olive oil.