From Naples we went to Athens, Dorothy wantin' to see Greece while she
was so nigh to it, and Robert Strong wantin' just what she did every
time. And Miss Meechim sayin' that it would be a pity to go home and
not be able to say that we had been to what wuz once the most learned
and genteel place in the hull world.
"Yes," sez Josiah, "I'd love to tell Elder Minkley and the brethern
I'd been there."
And Miss Meechim went on to say that she wanted to see the Acropolis
and the Hall of the Nymphs and the Muses.
And Josiah told me that "they wuz nobody he had ever neighbored with
and didn't know as he wanted to."
I guess Miss Meechim didn't hear him for she went on and said, "Athens
wuz named from Athena, the goddess Minerva."
And Josiah whispered to me "to know if it wuz Minerva Slimpsey,
Simon's oldest sister."
And I sez, "No, this Minerva, from what I've hearn of her, knew more
than the hull Slimpsey family," sez I. "She wuz noted for her wisdom
and knowledge, and I spoze," sez I, "that she wuz the daughter of
Jupiter."
Josiah said Jupiter wuz nobody he ever see, though he wuz familiar
with his name. And I'd hearn on him too when Josiah smashed his
finger or slipped up on the ice or anything, not that I wanted to in
that tone. Arvilly thought mebby she could canvass the royal family
or some on 'em, and Tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and I
spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars' Hill,
where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and their
worship of the Unknown God. As we sailed along the shores Dorothy
spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know
she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ
some poetry and drownded herself some time ago.
And Robert Strong talked a good deal to Dorothy about Plato and Homer
and Xenophon and Euripides, Sophocles, Phidias, and Socrates--and lots
more of them old worthies; folks, Josiah remarked to me, that had
never lived anywhere round Jonesville way, he knew by the names. And
Dorothy quoted some poetry beginning:
"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece."
And Robert quoted some poetry. I know two lines of it run:
"Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, O, give me back my heart."
But his eyes wuzn't on Athens at all. They wuz on Dorothy, and her
face flushed up as rosy a pink as ever Miss Sapho's did when she wuz
keepin' company.
After we left the boat we rode over a level plain with green trees by
the wayside till we reached Athens and put up at a good tarven.
Athens, "The eye of Greece," mother of arts and eloquence, wuz built
in the first place round the Acropolis, a hill about three hundred
feet high, and is a place that has seen twice as many ups and downs as
Jonesville. But then it's older, three or four thousand years older, I
spoze, and has had a dretful time on't since Mr. Theseus's day, take
it with its archons or rulers, kings and generals, and Turks, Goths
and Franks, etc.
But it become the fountainhead of learning and civilization, culture
and education of the mind and the body. In that age of health and
beauty, study and exercise, the wimmen didn't wear any cossets,
consequently they could breathe deep breaths and enjoy good health,
and had healthy little babies that they brought up first-rate as fur
as the enjoyment of good health goes, and Arvilly said she knew they
didn't drink to excess from the looks of their statutes.
Athens also claims to be one of the birthplaces of Homer, that good
old blind poet. Robert Strong talked quite a good deal about his
poems, the Iliad and the Odyssy or the return of Ulysses Odysses to
his native land.
Josiah paid great attention to it, and afterwards he confided to me
that he thought of writin' a Jodyssy or the return of Josiah to
Jonesville. He said when he recounted all his wanderin's and
tribulations on the road and at tarvens with starvation and tight
clothes and all the other various hampers he'd been hampered with he
said that it would beat that old Odyssy to nothin' and nobody would
ever look at it agin. "Why," sez he, "jest think how old that is, most
a thousand years B. C. It is time another wuz writ, and I'm the one to
write it."
But I shall try to talk him out of it. He said he shouldn't begin it
till our return to Jonesville, so Ury could help him in measurin' the
lines with a stick. And when I am once mistress of my own cook-stove
and buttery I have one of the most powerful weepons in the world to
control my pardner with.
I hain't no great case to carry round relics, but I told Josiah that I
would give a dollar bill quick if I could git holt of that old lantern
that Diogenes used to carry round here in the streets in broad
daylight to find Truth with. How I'd love to seen Mr. Diogenes and
asked him if he ever found her.
Josiah said he would ruther own his wash-tub that he used to travel
round in. And which he wuz settin' in when Alexander the Great asked
him what costly gift he could bestow on him. And all that contented,
independent creeter asked for wuz to have the king not git between him
and the sun.
He snubbed Plato, too; didn't want anything, only his tub and his
lantern and hunt round for a honest man, though I don't see how he got
round in it. But Josiah sez the tub wuz on castors, and he had a idee
of havin' our old washtub fixed up and go to Washington, D. C., in it
with our old tin lantern, jest to be uneek and hunt round there for an
honest man.
Sez I middlin' dry, "You may have to go further, Josiah." But I shan't
encourage him in it. And our wash-tub wouldn't hold him up anyway; the
hoops had sprung loose before I left home.
At the southwest of Athens is the Mount Hymettus. I'd hearn a sight
about its honey. Josiah thought he would love to buy a swarm of bees
there, but I asked him how could he carry 'em to Jonesville. He said
that if he could learn 'em to fly ahead on us he could do it. But he
can't.
The road west wuz Eulusas, the Sacred Way. And to the north wuz the
Academy of Plato, and that of Aristotle wuz not fur away. One day I
see there on an old altar, "Sacred to either a god or goddess." They
believed in the rights of wimmen, them old Pagans did, which shows
there is good in everything.
And how smart Socrates wuz; I always sot store by him, he wuz a good
talker and likely in a good many ways, though I spoze he and his wife
didn't live agreeable, and there might have been blame on both sides
and probable wuz. How calm he wuz when on trial for his life, and when
he had drunk the hemlock, sayin' to his accusers:
"I go to death and you to life; but which of the twain is better is
known only to Divinity."
And Mr. Plato; don't it seem as if that old Pagan's words wuz
prophetic of Christ when he spoke of an inspired teacher:
"This just person must be poor, void of all qualifications save
virtue. A wicked world will not bear his instructions and reproofs.
And therefore within three or four years after he begun to preach he
should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at last put to
death."
Hundreds of years after, Paul preaching the religion of Christ Jesus,
met the Epicurians and Stoics representing Pleasure and Pride. Strong
foes that religion has to contend with now. Then he addressed the
multitude from the Areopagus, Mars' Hill.
What feelin's I felt; how real and nigh to my heart his incomparable
sermon that he preached in that place seemed to be as I stood there. I
thought of how the cultured, beauty-loving nature of Paul must have
been affected by his surroundings as he stood there in the midst of
statutes and altars to Apollo, Venus, Bacchus. The colossial golden
figure of Minerva, holdin' in her outstretched right hand a statute of
victory, four cubits high. So big and glorious-lookin' Minerva wuz
that her glitterin' helmet and shield could be seen fur out to sea.
The statute of Neptune on horseback hurling his tridant; the temple to
Ceres and all the gods and goddesses they knew on and to the Unknown
God. Here Paul stood surrounded by all these temples so magnificent
that jest the gateway to 'em cost what would be ten million dollars in
our money.
Here in the face of all this glory he stood up and declared that the
true God, "Lord of heaven and earth dwelt not in temples made with
hands." And he went on to preach the truth in Christ Jesus:
repentance, remission of sin, the resurrection of the dead. Some
mocked and some put him off by saying they would hear him again of
this matter. They felt so proud, their glory and magnificence seemed
so sure and enduring, their learning, art and accomplishments seemed
so fur above this obscure teacher of a new religion.
But there I stood on the crumbling ruins of all this grandeur and art.
And the God of Paul that they had scorned to "feel after if haply they
might find him," wuz dominating the hull world, bringing it to the
knowledge of Christ Jesus: "The gold and silver and stone wrought by
many hands" had crumbled away while the invisible wuz the real, the
truth wuz sure and would abide forever. How real it all seemed to me
as I stood there and my soul listened and believed like Dionysos and
Damarus!
The market place wuz just below Mars' Hill, and I spoze the people
talked it over whilst they wuz buyin' and sellin' there, about a
strange man who had come preachin' a new doctrine and who had asked to
speak to the people. It sez, "His heart was stirred within him and he
taught them about the true God" in the synagogue and market-place. As
we stood there in that hallowed spot, Miss Meechim said:
"Oh, that I had been there at that time and hearn that convincin'
sermon, how glad would I have left all and followed Him, like Dionysos
and Damarus."
"Well, I d'no," sez Arvilly, "as folks are any more willin' now to let
their old idols of Selfishness and Mammon go and renounce the faults
and worship the truth than they wuz then."
Miss Meechim scorfed at the idee, but I pondered it in my own mind and
wondered how many there really wuz from Jonesville to Chicago, from
Maine to Florida, ready to believe in Him and work for the Millenium.
But to resoom. The Patessia is a beautiful avenoo, the royal family
drive there every day and the nobility and fashionable people. The
Greek ladies wear very bright clothing in driving or walking. The road
looks sometimes like a bed of moving blossoms.
As in most every place where we travelled, Robert Strong met someone
he knew. Here wuz a gentleman he had entertained in California, and he
gave a barbecue or picnic for us at Phalareum. A special train took
the guests to it. There wuz about thirty guests from Athens. The table
wuz laid in a pavilion clost to the sea shore covered with vines,
evergreens and flowers. Four lambs wuz roasted hull and coffee wuz
made in a boiler, choice fruits and foods were served and wines for
them that wanted 'em. It is needless to say that I didn't partake
on't, and Josiah, I'm proud to say, under my watchful eyes, refused to
look on it when it wuz red, and Arvilly and Robert Strong and Dorothy
turned down their glasses on the servant's approach bearin' the
bottles.
Everything wuz put on the table to once and a large piece of bread to
each plate. No knives or forks are used at a barbecue. We had
sweetmeats, rose leaf glyco, oranges and all kinds of fruit. The way
they roast a lamb at a barbecue--two large lambs are placed about four
feet apart, the lamb pierced lengthwise by a long pointed stick is
hung over the bed of live coals. They turn and baste it with olive oil
and salt and it is truly delicious.
One pleasant day we visited the King's country place. The dining room
wuz a pavilion in a shady spot under orange trees full of fruit and
blossoms surrounded with a dense hedge of evergreens, vines and
blossoms. There wuz walks in every direction bordered with lovely
flowers. The Queen's private settin' room is a pretty room, the
furniture covered with pink and white cretonne, no better than my
lounge is covered with to home in the spare room. And in a little
corner, hid by a screen of photographs wuz her books and writing desk.
The maids of honor had rooms in a little vine covered cottage near
by.
We of course went to see the ruins of the Parthenium, built by
Pericles and ornamented with the marbles of Phidias. It wuz finished
about four hundred and thirty years B.C. and cost about four millions
of our money. A great Bishop once said:
"This was the finest edifice on the finest site in the world, hallowed
by the noblest recollections that can stimulate the human heart."
It stands on the highest point of the Acropolis and wuz decorated by
the greatest sculptor the world ever saw. It stands on the site of an
older temple to Minerva. They thought a sight of that woman. It made
me feel well to see one of my sect so highly thought on though I did
not approve of their worshippin' her and I would never give my consent
to be worshipped on a monument, not for the world I wouldn't--no,
indeed!
Robert Strong wanted to go to see the ruins of the enormous temple of
Jupiter where chariot races were run and the Olympic games wuz fought
that Paul speaks of so many times in his letters to the churches.
But time wuz passin' fast away and we thought best to not linger there
any longer and we went directly from there to Vienna, a longer journey
than we had took lately, but Robert thought we had better not stop on
the way.
Vienna is a beautiful city. I d'no as I would go so fur as the
Viennesse myself and say it is the most beautiful in the world, but it
stands up high amongst 'em.
The beautiful blue Danube makes a curve round it as if it wuz real
choice of it and loved to hold it in its arms. I say blue Danube, but
its waters are no more blue than our Jonesville creek is pink. But
mebby if I wuz goin' to sing about the creek I might call it blue or
pink for poetical purposes.
We had rooms nigh to the river, the banks of which wuz terraced down
to the water, and laid out in little parks, public gardens full of
flowers and trees and flowering shrubs.
There are two massive stun bridges in this part of the city, and very
handsome dwellin' houses, churches, and the Swartzenburg palace. The
buildings are very handsome here, more lofty and grand looking even
than they are in Paris, and you know you would imagine that wuz the
flower of the universe, and I needn't mention the fact that I had to
gin into it that it goes fur beyend Jonesville.
The street called the Ring Strasse, I spoze because it curves round
some like a ring, is three milds long, and most two hundred feet wide.
And along this broad beautiful avenue there are six rows of large
chestnut trees. A track for horseback riders on one side, a broad
carriage driveway, two fine promenades, besides the walk.
Splendid buildin's rise up on each side of this grand street, and
parks and gardens abound. At intervals there are large roomy lawns,
covered with velvety grass, where easy seats under the trees invite
you to rest and admire the beauty around you, and the happy,
gayly-dressed throng passing and repassing in carriages, on horseback
or walkin' afoot, thousands and thousands on 'em, and everyone, I
spoze, a pursuin' their own goles, whatever they may be.
The first place we went to see wuz St. Stephen's Church. This is on a
street much narrower than the Ring Strasse. The sidewalks wuz very
narrer here, so when you met folks you had to squeeze up pretty nigh
the curbstun or step out into the carriage way; but no matter how
close the quarters wuz you would meet with no rough talk or
impoliteness. They wuz as polite as the Japans, with more intelligence
added.
St. Stephen's Cathedral is a magnificent Gothic structure, three
hundred and fifty-four feet long and two hundred and thirty broad, and
is full of magnificent monuments, altars, statutes, carving, etc.,
etc. The monument to the Emperor Frederic III. has over two hundred
figures on it.
Here is the tomb of the King of Rome, Napoleon's only son, and his ma,
Maria Louise. I had queer feelin's as I stood by them tombs and
meditated how much ambition and heart burnin' wuz buried here in the
tomb of that young King of Rome. I thought of how his pa divorced the
woman he loved, breakin' her heart, and his own mebby, for the
ambitious desire to have a son connected with the royalty of Europe,
to carry on his power and glory, and make it more permanent. And how
the new wife turned away from him in his trouble, and the boy died,
and he carried his broken heart into exile. And the descendant of the
constant-hearted woman he put away, set down on the throne of France,
and then he, too, and his boy, had to pass away like leaves whirled
about in the devastatin' wind of war and change. What ups and downs! I
had a variety of emotions as I stood there, and I guess Josiah did,
though I don't know. But I judged from his liniment; he looked real
demute.
The catacombs under this meetin'-house are a sight to see I spoze,
but we didn't pay a visit to 'em. Josiah had a idee that they wuz
built to bury cats in, and he said he didn't want to go to any cat
buryin'-ground. He said there wuzn't a cat in Europe so likely as
ourn, but he wouldn't think of givin' it funeral honors.
But he didn't git it right. It wuz a place where they buried human
bein's, but I didn't care anything about seein' it.
Robert got a big carriage, and we all driv over to the Prater, a most
beautiful park on an island in the Danube. The broad, flower-bordered
avenues wuz crowded with elegant carriages and beautiful forms and
faces wuz constantly passing hither and yon, to and fro, and the scene
all round us wuz enchantin'ly beautiful. We had a delightful drive,
and when we got back to the tarven we found quite a lot of letters
that had been forwarded here. Josiah and I had letters from
Jonesville, welcome as the voice of the first bird in spring, all well
and hopeful of our speedy meetin'; but Miss Meechim had one tellin' of
dretful doin's in her old home.
We'd heard that there had been a great labor strike out in California,
but little did we know how severe it had struck. Rev. Mr. Weakdew had
writ to Miss Meechim how some of the rebellious workmen had riz up
against his son in his absence. He told how wickedly they wuz actin'
and how impossible it wuz in his opinion to make them act genteel, but
he said in his letter that his son had been telegrafted to to come
home at once. He said Mudd-Weakdew always had been successful in
quelling these rebellious workmen down, and making them keep their
place, and he thought he would now as soon as he arrived there.
I know Arvilly and Miss Meechim had words about it when she read the
letter. Miss Meechim deplored the state of affairs, and resented
Arvilly's talk; she said it was so wicked to help array one class
aginst another.
"They be arrayed now," sez Arvilly. "Selfishness and Greed are arrayed
aginst Justice and Humanity, and the baby Peace is bein' trompled on
and run over, and haggard Want and Famine prowl on the bare fields of
Poverty, waitin' for victims, and the cries of the perishin' fill the
air."
Arvilly turned real eloquent. I mistrusted mebby she'd catched it from
me, but Miss Meechim turned up her nose and acted dretful high-headed
and said there was nothing genteel in such actions and she wouldn't
gin in a mite till that day in Vienna she had a letter that brought
her nose down where it belonged, and she acted different after readin'
it and didn't talk any more about gentility or the onbroken prosperity
of the Mudd-Weakdews, and I wuz shocked myself to hear what wuz writ.
As I say, Miss Meechim read it and grew pale, the letter dropped in
her lap and she trembled like a popple leaf, for it told of a dretful
tragedy. It wuz writ by a friend in Sacramento and the tragedy wuz
concernin' the Mudd-Weakdews. On hearin' of the strike, the
Mudd-Weakdews had hurried home from their trip abroad and he had tried
to quell the strike, but found it wouldn't quell. He had been shot at
but not killed; the shot went through his eyes, and he would be blind
for life. A deadly fever had broke out in the tenements on the street
back of his palace, caused, the doctors said, by the terrible
onsanitary surroundings, and helped on by want and starvation. The
families of his workmen had died off like dead leaves fallin' from
rotten trees in the fall. The tenements wuz not fur from the
Mudd-Weakdew garden where Dorris loved to stay, who had stayed at home
with a governess and a genteel relative during her parents' absence.
The garden wuz full of trees, blossoms and flowering shrubs, a
fountain dashed up its clear water into the air and tall white
statutes stood guard over Dorris in her happy play. But some deadly
germ wuz wafted from that filthy, ghastly place, over the roses and
lilies and pure waters, and sweet Dorris wuz the victim.
The clear waters and fresh green lawns and fragrant posies didn't
extend fur enough back; if they had her life might have been saved,
but they only went as fur as the sharp wall her pa had riz up and
thought safely warded his own child from all the evils of the lower
classes.
No, it didn't go fur enough back, and sweet Dorris had to pay the
penalty of her pa's blindness and selfishness. For what duz the Book
say? "The innocent shall suffer for the guilty."
Her broken-hearted mother followed her to the grave, and it wuz on
that very day, Mudd-Weakdew bein' shut up with doctors, that the
little boy wuz stolen. The discharged workman, whose little boy had
died of starvation, disappeared too. He wuz said to be half-crazy and
had threatened vengeance on his old employer. There wuz a story that
he had been seen with a child richly dressed, and afterwards with a
child dressed in the coarse clothing of the poor, embarking on a
foreign ship, but the clue wuz lost, so the living trouble wuz worse
to bear than the dead one.
The strike wuz ended, Capital coming out ahead; the workmen had lost,
and the Mudd-Weakdews had a chance to coin more money than ever out of
the half-paid labor and wretched lives of their men. They could still
be exclusive and foller the star of gentility till it stood over the
cold marble palace of disdainful nobility. But the wall of separation
he had built up between wealth and poverty had not stood the strain;
Deadly Pestilence, Triumphant Hatred and sharp-toothed Revenge had
clumb over and attacked him with their sharp fangs, him and his wife,
and they had to bear it.
I knowed it, I knowed that no walls can ever be built high enough to
separate the sordid, neglected, wretched lives of the poor and the
luxurious, pleasure-filled lives of the rich. Between the ignorant
criminal classes and the educated and innocent. You may make 'em
strong as the Pyramaids and high as the tower of Babel, but the
passions and weaknesses of humanity will scale 'em and find a way
through.
The vile air of the low lands will float over into and contaminate the
pure air of the guarded pleasure gardens, and the evil germs will
carry disease, crime and death, no matter how many fountains and white
statutes and posies you may set up between. Envy, Discontent and
Revenge will break through the walls and meet Oppression, Insolence
and Injustice, and they will tear and rend each other. They always
have and always will. Robert Strong, instead of buildin' up that wall,
spends his strength in tearin' it down and settin' on its crumblin'
ruins the white flowers of Love and Peace.
Holdin' Oppression and Injustice back with a hard bit and makin' 'em
behave, makin' Envy and Hatred sheath their claws some as a cat will
when it is warm and happy. He tears down mouldy walls and lets the
sunshine in. Pullin' up what bad-smellin' weeds he can in the gardens
of the poor, and transplantin' some of the overcrowded posy beds of
the rich into the bare sile, makin' 'em both look better and do
better. I set store by him. But to resoom: