[_Editorial comment of the Athenae of Aug. 9 (Sept. 21)_]:
... In Greece there does not exist a discrimination between those who
love France and those who do not, because as a rule the entire nation
worships France. The Hellenic world, from the most uneducated citizen
to the one who represents all the development of intellect, worships
France.
It was always with admiration that the discerning Hellenic intellect
looked upon the French Nation, which is the leader in every progress.
French letters, French art, and French industry have found in Greece
sincere admirers and enthusiastic heralds. The French heroism, the
devotion that every Frenchman feels for the ideals of the fatherland,
the superiority of the French woman, whom certain malevolent writers
have so misrepresented to the world; the virtue of the French
housewife, the French mother, and the French patriot, have always been
splendid examples to those who are apt to think on the world's
progress. The birthplace of the forerunners of the modern social and
civic spirit and the mother of the most genuine philhellenism, the
France of Rabelais, Molière and Voltaire and Béranger and Hugo has
always been an object of respectful sympathy for those in Greece who
are admirers of the beautiful, the liberal, and the ideal.
Every one of us knows that, if France has not been able to help
materialize the Greek's rightful aspirations, this is not due to lack
of good intentions on her part, but rather to the French compliance
with the interests of the Slav; and we know that France had to
cultivate those interests by her own wealth, and contrary to her
democratic principles, only in order to have an alliance against her
neighboring enemy, against whom she meditated revenge for a defeat and
the vindication of her subjugated children.
For the German people, this people of progress and civilization, which
has never aspired to a world hegemony by the subjugation of other
peoples, outside of the needs of their frontiers, Greece feels the
same admiration and sympathy. And when such French patriots as Jules
Huret and Georges Bourdon, in voluminous works, have cited the German
progress and German social civilization as an example to their own
country, it would be almost a reversal of logic if we outsiders were
to deny these things, at the sight of two friends who have come to
blows.
If there is anything that grieves the Greek soul, which has always
been used to appreciate virtue disinterestedly, it is the fratricidal
woe of two nations who ought to be, hand in hand, forerunners and
co-workers in the great enterprises of science and civilization!