The Turks, Who Battered Down
Chivalry, Seem To Be Waiting Their Turn Of Destruction Now.
In
walking through Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the
signs of this double decay.
For instance, in the streets of the
knights, you see noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of
superb knights, who lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and
murdered the Turks; and were the most gallant pirates of the inland
seas; and made vows of chastity, and robbed and ravished; and,
professing humility, would admit none but nobility into their
order; and died recommending themselves to sweet St. John, and
calmly hoping for heaven in consideration of all the heathen they
had slain. When this superb fraternity was obliged to yield to
courage as great as theirs, faith as sincere, and to robbers even
more dexterous and audacious than the noblest knight who ever sang
a canticle to the Virgin, these halls were filled by magnificent
Pashas and Agas, who lived here in the intervals of war, and having
conquered its best champions, despised Christendom and chivalry
pretty much as an Englishman despises a Frenchman. Now the famous
house is let to a shabby merchant, who has his little beggarly shop
in the bazaar; to a small officer, who ekes out his wretched
pension by swindling, and who gets his pay in bad coin.
Mahometanism pays in pewter now, in place of silver and gold. The
lords of the world have run to seed. The powerless old sword
frightens nobody now - the steel is turned to pewter too, somehow,
and will no longer shear a Christian head off any shoulders.
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