Octavia to her Mother.
... We went up Pentelicus and had a lovely day. It is a splendid view from the top. One sees Eubœa with its long range of snow mountains and its narrow strait, and Helena and Andros and the mountain ranges of Parnes, Cithæron and Parnassus; and Hymettus, and Athens and its plain; below lies Marathon with its red soil and blue bay—indeed blue bays of the sea seem to be around one almost everywhere. Last evening we spent at the Hills’. Mrs. H. was saying that letters, when first they came here, were 7 months coming from America; that they could negotiate no bill of exchange here; when they wanted money Dr. H. used to have to go and fetch it from Smyrna, to which, of course, moreover, there were none but sailing ships. She said they never knew how long it would take, especially because of the quarantine. Plague raged at Constantinople and Jerusalem, so that vessels were often and often kept six weeks with passengers in quarantine. She says the last plague was in 1843.... We went to the House of Deputies to hear a debate, in the box of the Diplomatic Corps, and could see well, and could have heard had we known more Greek. It was very curiously interesting to see the House. The gallery is open to the public, and was quite densely packed with a crowd of the very poorest people, with earnest, eager eyes, watching and listening, with an intentness beyond what I ever saw at the play. Crowds outside, too, were standing, talking and waiting; and this goes on day after day. Mr. Darcy, the clergyman here, took us; and he knew all the members, and pointed them out to us and told us about them. I have been reading some very interesting statistics about Greece, published seven or eight years ago. Do you know that since the independence her population has doubled, and her revenue has increased 500 per cent.?—the children in school were between 6,000 and 7,000 and are now 81,000. I forget the increase of acres cultivated, but it is very large.
THE GROWTH OF THE GREEK NATION
Athens,
April 8th, 1880.
To Miranda.
We went yesterday to Phyle, and saw the actual fortified place held by Thrasybulus against the 30 tyrants. The gigantic walls still stand. We went with Miss Muir, who is so friendly and delightful with all the people, it is beautiful to see. It reminds me of going about with Miss Cons. She always finds out all about the people and finds helpful things to do for them; and it makes one see all the gentle, helpful, friendly, hospitable side. It is so different from going about with guides. We had such a glorious day. We drove for 10 miles over a very bad road to a village called Chassia, quite up in a ravine of Parnes. There the road stopped, and I had a mule, and we went for 2½ hours into the folds of the mountain ravines, till we came to the great promontory-like rock. The utter solitude, the exquisite blue of the shadows on the gigantic cliff-like rocks, the clear sun-filled air, the fresh breeze, the far away look of plain or hill or bay alive with noble memories filled me with a strange awed joy. I am much touched with the nation. I am afraid I shall never tell you all that makes me feel towards them as I do. I am getting such a vivid impression of the people, its hopes and admirations, and capacities. It is clearly growing. I have been reading a great many official statistics, which show the wonderful growth. I cannot but believe it has a great future. I sometimes think of Matthew Arnold’s ideas about Hellenism, and wonder whether in very deed the people may be destined to bring out that side of human nature he speaks of as so wanting in the “Hebrew”;—the sort of intellectual grasp and reverence for thought and intangible things. Yet the nation has hard work just now with its tangible things, and is working to get them into order. Also it has, in its suffering under the Turks, clung with tenacity to its Christian faith, which is more than life to it; and this feeling is intensified by the faith being connected with the nation, the early martyrs for national freedom being many of them bishops. We were present in the metropolitan church at the anniversary of Greek independence. The king and the children were there. It was strange to see the tremendous crowd, the solitary Lutheran king, the tiny children standing between him and the people crossing themselves, and the gorgeously dressed priests who seem so human and so near the people compared with the Catholic clergy. With respect to the national worship for an idea—THE families who are considered great here are those who have lost their all at Missolonghi, or in supplying ships from Hydra!
Athens,
April 8th, 1880.
To her Mother.