There May Be Grander Aspects Of Nature, But None More Deliciously Beautiful. The Hills Rise In Perfect Harmony, And Fall In The Most Exquisite Cadences - The Sea Seems Brighter, The Islands More Purple, The Clouds More Light And Rosy Than Elsewhere.

As you look up through the open roof, you are almost oppressed by the serene depth of the blue overhead.

Look even at the fragments of the marble, how soft and pure it is, glittering and white like fresh snow! "I was all beautiful," it seems to say: "even the hidden parts of me were spotless, precious, and fair" - and so, musing over this wonderful scene, perhaps I get some feeble glimpse or idea of that ancient Greek spirit which peopled it with sublime races of heroes and gods; {1} and which I never could get out of a Greek book, - no, not though Muzzle flung it at my head.

CHAPTER VI: SMYRNA - FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST

I am glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that I should not be baulked of the pleasure of entering an Eastern town by an introduction to any garbled or incomplete specimen of one. Smyrna seems to me the most Eastern of all I have seen; as Calais will probably remain to the Englishman the most French town in the world. The jack-boots of the postilions don't seem so huge elsewhere, or the tight stockings of the maid-servants so Gallic. The churches and the ramparts, and the little soldiers on them, remain for ever impressed upon your memory; from which larger temples and buildings, and whole armies have subsequently disappeared: and the first words of actual French heard spoken, and the first dinner at "Quillacq's," remain after twenty years as clear as on the first day. Dear Jones, can't you remember the exact smack of the white hermitage, and the toothless old fellow singing "Largo al factotum"?

The first day in the East is like that. After that there is nothing. The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful shock, which so seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the world, though they seek for it everywhere. One such looked out at Smyrna from our steamer, and yawned without the least excitement, and did not betray the slightest emotion, as boats with real Turks on board came up to the ship. There lay the town with minarets and cypresses, domes and castles; great guns were firing off, and the blood-red flag of the Sultan flaring over the fort ever since sunrise; woods and mountains came down to the gulf's edge, and as you looked at them with the telescope, there peeped out of the general mass a score of pleasant episodes of Eastern life - there were cottages with quaint roofs; silent cool kiosks, where the chief of the eunuchs brings down the ladies of the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets; and Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 36 of 126
Words from 18260 to 18765 of 65663