Contenting myself with this brief retrospect, I must turn from the page of history to the record of individual experience.
My first visit to Athens was in the year 1867. The Cretans were at this time engaged in an energetic struggle for their freedom, and my husband was the bearer of certain funds which he and others had collected in America for the relief of the destitute families of the insurgents. A part of this money was employed in sending provisions to the Island of Crete, where the women and children had taken refuge in the fortresses of the mountains, subject to great privations, and in danger of absolute starvation.
With the remainder of the fund, schools were endowed in Athens for the children of the Cretan refugees. My husband's efforts were seconded by an able Greek committee; and when, at the close of his labors, he turned his face homeward, he was followed by the prayers and thanksgivings of those whose miseries he had been enabled to relieve.
Nearly ten years later than the time just spoken of, I again threaded my way between the isles of Greece and arrived at the Piræus, the ancient port of Athens. A railway now connects these two points; but on this occasion, we did not avail ourselves of it, preferring to take a carriage for the short distance.
In approaching Athens for the second time, my first surprise was to find that it had grown to nearly double the size which I remembered ten years before. The cleanly, thrifty, and cheerful aspect of the city presented the greatest contrast to the squalor and filth of Constantinople, which I had just left. The perfect blue of the heavens brought out in fine effect the white marble of the new buildings, some of which are costly and even magnificent. Yet there, in full sight, towering above everything else, stood the unattainable beauty, the unequalled, unrivalled Parthenon.
I made several pilgrimages to the Acropolis, eager to revive my recollection respecting the design and history of its various monuments. I listened again and again to the statements of well-read archæologists concerning the uses of the temples, the positions of the statues and bas-reliefs, the hundred gates, and the triumphal road which led up to the height crowned with glories.
But while I gave ear to what is more easily forgotten than remembered,—the story of the long-vanished past,—my eyes received the impression of a beauty that cannot perish. I did not say to the Parthenon: Thou wert, but, Thou art so beautiful, in thy perfect proportion, in thy fine workmanship!
What silver chisel turned the tender leaves of this marble foliage? Here is a little bit, a yard or so, which has escaped the gnawing of the elements, lying turned away from the course of the winds and rains! No king of to-day, in building his palace, can order such a piece of work. Artist he can find none to equal it. And I am proud to say that no king nor millionaire to-day can buy this, or any other fragment belonging to this sacred spot. What England took before Greece became a power again, she may keep, because the British Museum is a treasure-house for the world. But she will never repeat the theft: she is too wise to-day. Christendom is too wise, and the Greeks have learned the value of what they still possess.
At the Acropolis, the theatre of Bacchus had been excavated a short time before my previous visit. Near it they have now brought to light the temple of Æsculapius. This temple, with the theatre of Bacchus and that of Herodius Atticus, occupies the base of the Acropolis, on the side that looks toward the sea.
As one stands in the light of the perfect sky, discerning in the distance that perfect sea, something of the cheerfulness of the ancient Greeks makes itself felt, seems to pervade the landscape. Descending to the theatre of Bacchus, the visitor may call up in his mind the vision of the high feast of mirth and hilarity. Here was the stage; here are, still entire, the marble seats occupied by the priests and other high dignitaries, with one or two interesting bas-reliefs of the god.