ATLEE ON HIS TRAVELS
On board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer in which he sailed from
Constantinople, Joseph Atlee employed himself in the composition of a small
volume purporting to be _The Experiences of a Two Years’ Residence in
Greece_. In an opening chapter of this work he had modestly intimated to
the reader how an intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of
modern Greece, great opportunities of mixing with every class and condition
of the people, a mind well stored with classical acquirements and
thoroughly versed in antiquarian lore, a strong poetic temperament and the
feeling of an artist for scenery, had all combined to give him a certain
fitness for his task; and by the extracts from his diary it would be seen
on what terms of freedom he conversed with Ministers and ambassadors, even
with royalty itself.
A most pitiless chapter was devoted to the exposure of the mistakes and
misrepresentations of a late _Quarterly_ article called ‘Greece and her
Protectors,’ whose statements were the more mercilessly handled and
ridiculed that the paper in question had been written by himself, and the
sarcastic allusions to the sources of the information not the less pungent
on that account.
That the writer had been admitted to frequent audiences of the king, that
he had discussed with his Majesty the cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth,
that the king had seriously confided to him his belief that in the event
of his abdication, the Ionian Islands must revert to him as a personal
appanage, the terms on which they were annexed to Greece being decided by
lawyers to bear this interpretation--all these Atlee denied of his own
knowledge, an asked the reader to follow him into the royal cabinet for his
reasons.
When, therefore, he heard that from some damage to the machinery the vessel
must be detained some days at Syra to refit, Atlee was scarcely sorry that
necessity gave him an opportunity to visit Athens.
A little about Ulysses and a good deal about Lord Byron, a smattering of
Grote, and a more perfect memory of About, were, as he owned to himself,
all his Greece; but he could answer for what three days in the country
would do for him, particularly with that spirit of candid inquiry he could
now bring to his task, and the genuine fairness with which he desired to
judge the people.
‘The two years’ resident’ in Athens must doubtless often have dined with
his Minister, and so Atlee sent his card to the Legation.
Mr. Brammell, our ‘present Minister at Athens,’ as the _Times_ continued
to designate him, as though to imply that the appointment might not be
permanent, was an excellent man, of that stamp of which diplomacy has
more--who consider that the Court to which they are accredited concentrates
for the time the political interests of the globe. That any one in Europe
thought, read, spoke, or listened to anything but what was then happening
in Greece, Mr. Brammell could not believe. That France or Prussia, Spain
or Italy, could divide attention with this small kingdom; that the
great political minds of the Continent were not more eager to know what
Comoundouros thought and Bulgaris required, than all about Bismarck and
Gortschakoff, he could not be brought to conceive; and in consequence of
these convictions, he was an admirable Minister, and fully represented all
the interests of his country.
As that admirable public instructor, the _Levant Herald_, had frequently
mentioned Atlee’s name, now as the guest of Kulbash Pasha, now as having
attended some public ceremony with other persons of importance, and once
as ‘our distinguished countryman, whose wise suggestions and acute
observations have been duly accepted by the imperial cabinet,’ Brammell
at once knew that this distinguished countryman should be entertained at
dinner, and he sent him an invitation. That habit--so popular of late
years--to send out some man from England to do something at a foreign Court
that the British ambassador or Minister there either has not done, or
cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had invested Atlee in Brammell’s
eyes with the character of one of those semi-accredited inscrutable people
whose function it would seem to be to make us out the most meddlesome
people in Europe.
Of course Brammell was not pleased to see him at Athens, and he ran over
all the possible contingencies he might have come for. It might be the old
Greek loan, which was to be raked up again as a new grievance. It might be
the pensions that they would not pay, or the brigands that they would not
catch--pretty much for the same reasons--that they could not. It might
be that they wanted to hear what Tsousicheff, the new Russian Minister,
was doing, and whether the farce of the ‘Grand Idea’ was advertised for
repetition. It might be Crete was on the _tapis_, or it might be the
question of the Greek envoy to the Porte that the Sultan refused to
receive, and which promised to turn out a very pretty quarrel if only
adroitly treated.
The more Brammell thought of it, the more he felt assured this must be the
reason of Atlee’s visit, and the more indignant he grew that extra-official
means should be employed to investigate what he had written seventeen
despatches to explain--seventeen despatches, with nine ‘inclosures,’ and a
‘private and confidential,’ about to appear in a blue-book.
To make the dinner as confidential as might be, the only guests besides
Atlee were a couple of yachting Englishmen, a German Professor of
Archæology, and the American Minister, who, of course, speaking no language
but his own, could always be escaped from by a digression into French,
German, or Italian.
Atlee felt, as he entered the drawing-room, that the company was what he
irreverently called afterwards, a scratch team; and with an almost equal
quickness, he saw that he himself was the ‘personage’ of the entertainment,
the ‘man of mark’ of the party.
The same tact which enabled him to perceive all this, made him especially
guarded in all he said, so that his host’s efforts to unveil his intentions
and learn what he had come for were complete failures. ‘Greece was a
charming country--Greece was the parent of any civilisation we boasted.
She gave us those ideas of architecture with which we raised that glorious
temple at Kensington, and that taste for sculpture which we exhibited near
Apsley House. Aristophanes gave us our comic drama, and only the defaults
of our language made it difficult to show why the member for Cork did not
more often recall Demosthenes.’
As for insolvency, it was a very gentlemanlike failing; while brigandage
was only what Sheil used to euphemise as ‘the wild justice’ of noble
spirits, too impatient for the sluggard steps of slow redress, and too
proud not to be self-reliant.
Thus excusing and extenuating wherein he could not flatter, Atlee talked on
the entire evening, till he sent the two Englishmen home heartily sick of a
bombastic eulogy on the land where a pilot had run their cutter on a rock,
and a revenue officer had seized all their tobacco. The German had retired
early, and the Yankee hastened to his lodgings to ‘jot down’ all the fine
things he could commit to his next despatch home, and overwhelm Mr. Seward
with an array of historic celebrities such as had never been seen at
Washington.
‘They’re gone at last,’ said the Minister. ‘Let us have our cigar on the
terrace.’
The unbounded frankness, the unlimited trustfulness that now ensued between
these two men, was charming. Brammell represented one hard worked and
sorely tried in his country’s service--the perfect slave of office,
spending nights long at his desk, but not appreciated, not valued at home.
It was delightful, therefore, to him, to find a man like Atlee to whom he
could tell this--could tell for what an ungrateful country he toiled,
what ignorance he sought to enlighten, what actual stupidity he had to
counteract. He spoke of the Office--from his tone of horror it might have
been the Holy Office--with a sort of tremulous terror and aversion: the
absurd instructions they sent him, the impossible things he was to do, the
inconceivable lines of policy he was to insist on; how but for him the king
would abdicate, and a Russian protectorate be proclaimed; how the revolt
at Athens would be proclaimed in Thessaly; how Skulkekoff, the Russian
general, was waiting to move into the provinces ‘at the first check my
policy shall receive here,’ cried he. ‘I shall show you on this map; and
here are the names, armament, and tonnage of a hundred and ninety-four
gunboats now ready at Nicholief to move down on Constantinople.’
Was it not strange, was it not worse than strange, after such a show of
unbounded confidence as this, Atlee would reveal nothing? Whatever his
grievances against the people he served--and who is without them?--he would
say nothing, he had no complaint to make. Things he admitted were bad, but
they might be worse. The monarchy existed still, and the House of Lords
was, for a while at least, tolerated. Ireland was disturbed, but not in
open rebellion; and if we had no army to speak of, we still had a navy, and
even the present Admiralty only lost about five ships a year!
Till long after midnight did they fence with each other, with buttons on
their foils--very harmlessly, no doubt, but very uselessly too: Brammell
could make nothing of a man who neither wanted to hear about finance or
taxation, court scandal, schools, or public robbery; and though he could
not in so many words ask--What have you come for? why are you here? he said
this in full fifty different ways for three hours and more.
‘You make some stay amongst us, I trust?’ said the Minister, as his guest
rose to take leave. ‘You mean to see something of this interesting country
before you leave?’
‘I fear not; when the repairs to the steamer enable her to put to sea, they
are to let me know by telegraph, and I shall join her.’
‘Are you so pressed for time that you cannot spare us a week or two?’
‘Totally impossible! Parliament will sit in January next, and I must hasten
home.’
This was to imply that he was in the House, or that he expected to be, or
that he ought to be, and even if he were not, that his presence in England
was all-essential to somebody who was in Parliament, and for whom his
information, his explanation, his accusation, or anything else, was all
needed, and so Brammell read it and bowed accordingly.
‘By the way,’ said the Minister, as the other was leaving the room, and
with that sudden abruptness of a wayward thought, ‘we have been talking of
all sorts of things and people, but not a word about what we are so full of
here. How is this difficulty about the new Greek envoy to the Porte to end?
You know, of course, the Sultan refuses to receive him?’
‘The Pasha told me something of it, but I confess to have paid little
attention. I treated the matter as insignificant.’
‘Insignificant! You cannot mean that an affront so openly administered
as this, the greatest national offence that could be offered, is
insignificant?’ and then with a volubility that smacked very little of want
of preparation, he showed that the idea of sending a particular man, long
compromised by his complicity in the Cretan revolt, to Constantinople, came
from Russia, and that the opposition of the Porte to accept him was also
Russian. ‘I got to the bottom of the whole intrigue. I wrote home how
Tsousicheff was nursing this new quarrel. I told our people facts of the
Muscovite policy that they never got a hint of from their ambassador at St.
Petersburg.’
‘It was rare luck that we had you here: good-night, good-night,’ said Atlee
as he buttoned his coat.
‘More than that, I said, “If the Cabinet here persist in sending
Kostalergi--“’
‘Whom did you say? What name was it you said?’
‘Kostalergi--the Prince. As much a prince as you are. First of all, they
have no better; and secondly, this is the most consummate adventurer in the
East.’
‘I should like to know him. Is he here--at Athens?’
‘Of course he is. He is waiting till he hears the Sultan will receive him.’
‘I should like to know him,’ said Atlee, more seriously.
‘Nothing easier. He comes here every day. Will you meet him at dinner
to-morrow?’
‘Delighted! but then I should like a little conversation with him in the
morning. Perhaps you would kindly make me known to him?’
‘With sincere pleasure. I’ll write and ask him to dine--and I’ll say that
you will wait on him. I’ll say, “My distinguished friend Mr. Atlee, of whom
you have heard, will wait on you about eleven or twelve.” Will that do?’
‘Perfectly. So then I may make my visit on the presumption of being
expected?’
‘Certainly. Not that Kostalergi wants much preparation. He plays baccarat
all night, but he is at his desk at six.’
‘Is he rich?’
‘Hasn’t a sixpence--but plays all the same. And what people are more
surprised at, pays when he loses. If I had not already passed an evening
in your company, I should be bold enough to hint to you the need of
caution--great caution--in talking with him.’
‘I know--I am aware,’ said Atlee, with a meaning smile.
‘You will not be misled by his cunning, Mr. Atlee, but beware of his
candour.’
‘I will be on my guard. Many thanks for the caution. Good-night!--once
more, good-night!’