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Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife, a fiction by Marietta Holley |
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Chapter 31 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXI 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: And Robert quoted some poetry. I know two lines of it run: "Maid of Athens, ere we part, 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: _ |
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