GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

Selected from J. P. Mahaffyâ€™s â€œOld Greek Life.â€

Whereas modern life is very much a country life, and we see all our plains and hills studded with farmsteads and well kept houses, it was seldom so with ancient, as it is never so with modern, Greece. In old days the fear of pirates and plunderers, in later days the taste for talking and for politics, kept men from staying in the country, and brought them into the towns, where they found safety and society. The tyrants alone insisted upon country life. Thus we find in Homer that outlying farms belonging to the nobles were managed by trusty slaves, who grazed cattle, and stall-fed them for city use. In Hesiodâ€™s time it was the poor farmer only who dwelt in the country; fashionable and idle people always came together in the towns. The very same facts meet us when we read the Greek novels of the latest age, such as theStory of Daphnis and Chloe. There the rich citizens of Mitylene only come out rarely, like many Irish landlords, to visit their tenants and their flocks. There are only two large instances of Greek gentry living from choice in the country. The first is that of the old Attic gentry, whom Thucydides and Aristophanes describe as living luxuriously on their estates, and coming seldom to Athens. The second is that of the gentry of Elis, who were often, Polybius says, complete strangers for generations to the town. This was so because Attica was protected by her forts and fleets from sudden attack in these early days, and because the Greeks by common consent respected the land of Elis as sacred on account of the Olympic games. Accordingly, Xenophon, who was a sportsman, settled in this country when he retired from his wars. But we must pay our chief attention to city life as the almost universal form of Greek society.

The older Greek towns were usually some miles from the sea, because many pirates went about the coasts. These towns grew out from a castle, orAcropolis, which at first had been the only fortified refuge for the neighboring people in times of danger. Of this we have a remarkable example in the very old ruins of Tiryns on the plain of Argos. When the population increased, they built their towns round this fort, and walled them in. But the Acropolis or hill fort, generally on some steep crag, was of course the strongest and safest part of the town. It was also the seat of the oldest temples, and of the god who took the town under his special charge. Hence it was often a sacred place altogether, and not occupied with common houses. If the town prospered, there grew up at the nearest harbor a roadstead or seaport town, where merchants and sailors carried on their trade. Thus Athens with its Acropolis is three miles from the nearest sea, and more than four miles from the PeirÃ¦us, which became its port because the harbor was so excellent. The same may be said of Argos, Megara, and other towns. Thus Corinth had even two ports, one on either sea, and both at some miles distance from the great rock on which its citadel, the Acrocorinthus, was situate. Sparta alone had no citadel, because the passes into its plain were very difficult and easily defended. It had not even walls, but looked like a few mean villages close together. This was a remarkable exception.

The citadel was defended by walls, wherever the natural rock was not steep enough, and supplied with tanks for water, except in such rare cases as that of Corinth which has a rich fountain on the top of its great rock. If you looked down from any of these great citadels upon the town beneath, themost striking objects were always the temples and other public buildings which were meant to be admired from without, whereas the private houses were externally poor and shabby. So also the public squares and markets were large and imposing, often surrounded by colonnades and porticoes where people lay in the sun, or even slept at night. These colonnades were adorned with rows of statues; but the streets were narrow and dirty. The great contrast to any modern city must have been first of all the absence of all spires and pinnacles, as all Greek architecture loved flat roofs, and never built even in many stories. Then the forest of modern chimneys was also absentâ€”an advantage which may be held fully to make up for the absence of even splendid steeples. All private houses were flat and insignificant, for the Greek never intended his house to be admired from without, he merely meant to shut out the noise and the thoroughfare of the street, and spent all his care on inner comforts.

While we build our houses facing the street, with most of their ornament intended to be seen by those who pass by, the Greek did all he could to shut out completely all connection with the street. He never had ground floor windows facing the street, and his house looked like a dead wall with a strong door in it, furnished with a knocker and a handle. This door opened outward, which made it safer for those within, but when they were coming out they used to knock inside lest passers-by might be thrown down when the door was pushed open. Richer houses did not open directly on the street, but on a porch which was not regarded as part of the house. Directly inside the hall door was a narrow hall with a porterâ€™s lodge opening off it, in which a slave sat, who was put to that work or to that of attending boys, when not useful for anything else. You passed through the hall or passage into an open square court, which was the center of the house, and was surrounded by a covered colonnade or cloister. The various menâ€™s rooms and the dining room opened upon this cloister. The same general plan was adopted by the Romans, and inherited by the modern Italians, so that most Italian palaces in Genoa, Florence, and elsewhere are built in this way. Opposite the entrance was a second door, which led from the court into the womenâ€™s apartments, and here was situated the bed chamber of the master and mistress of the house. In richer houses the womenâ€™s rooms were built round a second court like the first. But more commonly they did not occupy so much room, and were often placed on a second story, raised over the first at the back part of the building, with a staircase going up from the court. The Greeks preferred living on the ground floor, and their houses were not lofty blocks, like those of our streets. The bed rooms and sitting rooms round the court were usually small and dark, being mostly lighted only through their door into the cloister. The upper story had windows. The roof, which was tiled, like ours, was so flat as to allow people to walk upon it. The pantries and store rooms were generally at the back of the house, and near them the kitchen, which alone was supplied with a chimney. The other rooms seldom required a fire, and, if necessary, were heated with braziers of hot coke, or charcoal. The covered way upon which they opened made them cool in summer. Of course the palaces of early kings and the country houses of the rich Attic nobles had larger rooms and courtyards than ordinary city houses, but their plan was not different. Homer describes their halls as ornamented by plates of bright metal on the wallsâ€”a fashion preserved in the house of Phocion at Athens, and of which we still have traces in the so-called treasure house of Atreus, near MycenÃ¦. Fresco painting and rich coloring on the walls did not come into fashion till the fourth century B. C., and then became so common that we find almost all the houses in Pompeii, which was really a Greek town, though in Italy, ornamented in this way. There are large panels of black, scarlet, or yellow, surrounded with the borders of flowers, and in the center of the panel there are figures painted, when the owner could afford it. The same style of ornament, with far better execution, may be seen in the chambers of the palace now excavated on the Palatine at Rome.

As the Greek citizen lived chiefly in the open air, and in public, and regarded his house merely as a safe and convenient place to keep his family and store his goods, it was not to be expected that his furniture should be expensive or elaborate. The small size of the rooms and the dislike of the Greeks for large entertainments also tended to the same economy. Besides, the low valuations of furniture alluded to in several speeches made in the law courts of Athens prove it clearly as a general rule in earlier days, though some cities, such as the rich Sybaris, may have formed exceptions. In later days, with the decay of public spirit, greater luxury prevailed in private life.

We must therefore consider early Greek household furniture to have been cheap and simple, but remarkable for a grace of design and beauty of form which have never since been rivalled. And these were combined with a diligent attention to comfort and to practical use. Thus the Greek chair which is often drawn on vases, and which is reproduced in marble in the front row of the theater at Athens, as we still see it, is the most comfortable and practical chair yet designed. So also the pots and pitchers and vases which have been discovered in endless variety, are equally beautiful and convenient. The chief articles of which we hear are chairs, stools and couches made in ornamental wood work, with loose cushions (unlike our modern upholstery); there were also high-backed arm-chairs, and folding stools often carried after their masters by slaves. Though men of ruder ages and poorer classes were content to sleep between rugs and skins on the ground, and a shake down for a sudden guest was always such (and is so still); yet the Greeks had beds of woolen mattresses stretched on girths. Tables were only used for eating, and were then brought in, and laid loosely upon their legs. In early days each guest had a separate table for himself. This absence of solid tables must have been the most marked contrast between a Greek room and ours. People wrote either on their knees (as they now do in the East) or upon the arm of a couch. Whatever ornaments they kept in their rooms seem to have been placed on tripods, which often carried a vase of precious metal and of elegant workmanship. The wonderful variety and beauty of their lamps must also have been a remarkable feature. They possessed all manner of cups, bowls, jars, and flasks for wine, and water, and oil, and we have long lists of names for kitchen utensils, probably not very different from those found at Pompeii. They used plates and dishes, and sometimes knives and spoons at meals, but never forks.

The Greeks learned the division of the day into twelve hours from Babylon, and Plato is said to have invented a water clock marking the hours of the night in the same way. But in ordinary life, according to the old fashion, a night and the following day were regarded as one whole and divided into seven parts. There were three for the night, one when the lamps were lit, the next the dead hours of the night, and then the dawn, when the cocks begin to crow. The day was divided into four: early morning, the forenoon, when the market place began to fill, the midday heat, and the late afternoon. As in all southern countries now-a-days, where midday is a time of sleep or idleness, so in old times the Greek rose very early, generally at the dawn of day. His ablutions were but scanty, and there is no trace of any bath in the morning. Indeed the general cleanliness of the Greeks must rather be compared with that of other modern nations than with ours. In older days the hair was worn long, and elaborately dressed, as we can see from coins, so that this must have cost some trouble. But shaving the beard did not come in as a general fashion till Alexanderâ€™s time, and even then shaving often and having very white teeth are mentioned as rather foppish.

When dressed, the Greek took a very slight meal, corresponding to the coffee now taken in Greece and elsewhere upon getting up, and merely intended to stave off hunger till late breakfast. It is said to have consisted of bread and wine. He then went to call on such friends as he wished to see on business, before they left their houses. The same fashion prevailed at Rome. When this was done, he went for a morning walk or ride, and if a townsman, to see his farms and crops, and give directions to his country steward. But if he lived in the country, he must start early to be in the city when the market place filled. For if there was important public business the assembly met very early, and in any case he there met all his friends, visited the markets and shops, and if a merchant, was practically on â€™Change at this hour.

At noon all business stopped, and the public places were deserted, when he returned to his breakfast. The modern Greeks, in country parts, still spend half the day in this way before they breakfast. The poorer classes who dined early in the afternoon, and who probably had eaten something more at early breakfast, spent their midday hours, without going home, in barberâ€™s shops, in porticoes, and other places of meeting, where they either slept or gossiped, as their fancy led them. Law-suits, at which speeches were made and evidence taken, must have been carried on during this part of the day also. The breakfast of the better classes was a substantial meal, probably serving as dinner for the children, and consisted, like the modern Greek breakfast, of hot dishes and wine. It was, however, thought luxurious to eat two heavy meals in the day, and much wine drinking before dinner was regarded with the same aversion as tippling is now-a-days. When the day became cooler, men went out again, partly to practice gymnastics, which ended in later times with a warm bath, partly to see others so occupied and talk to their friends. Toward sunset they returned home to their dinner, the principal meal of the day, and the only one at which the Greek entertained his friends. If not a very studious man, or a leading politician, he devoted the evening to conversation and music, either in his family circle, or among his friends. In the former case, he went to bed early; in the latter he was often up all night, and sometimes went from his first feast in company with his noisy friends to knock up other banqueters and enjoy their hospitality unasked. There were no clubs or public houses open at night in the old Greek towns. It should be added that the hours of meals got gradually later, as luxury advanced.

The dress of a Greek gentleman was simple both in form and color. He wore a shirt or under garment of wool called chiton, without sleeves, and drawn tight with a girdle round the waist. As luxury increased, the Athenians adopted linen instead of wool, the Ionians wore the chiton down to the feet, and sleeves were frequently added. Trousers were also considered a foreign dress. Over the chiton was thrown a large cloak shaped something like a Scotch shawl, but squarer, which was wrapped about the figure so as to have only the right shoulder and head free. This was regarded as the principal garment, for while it was not thought polite to throw it open, and a man without it, though in his chiton, was called stripped, on the other hand a man wrapped in his cloak without any under garment was thought perfectly dressed. Most of the portrait statues of celebrated men which have reached us are indeed represented in this very way. White was the full dress color for both garments, but other colors, especially various shades of red, dark blue, and green, were not unfrequently worn.

The cloak was also doubled, when men were actively employed, and fastened on the shoulder with a clasp or pin. This was done in imitation of the smaller but thicker cloaks, some of which were of semicircular shape, and borrowed from Macedonia. These were worn in war and on journeys. As to head dress, the Greeks seem to have usually gone about their cities bareheaded. In case of bad weather, they put on a fur or leather cap fitting closely to the head, and this was commonly worn by slaves. They also used in traveling, to keep off the sunâ€™s heat, broad-brimmed felt hats, very like our â€œwide-awakesâ€ in form. They were often barefooted, but also wore ornamented slippers at home, and in the streets sandals strapped with elegant thongs. In hunting or war, buskins of various kinds, reaching high on the leg, were adopted. If we add a walking stick, which up to the time of Demosthenes was even obligatory at Athens, and was always carried at Sparta, and a seal ring, we complete our picture of the Greek gentlemanâ€™s dress. In Socratesâ€™ day a tunic cost ten drachmÃ¦, a cloak sixteen to twenty, a pair of shoes eight. Lower class people, such as farm laborers and slaves, wore the inner garment alone, but with sleeves, or (in the country) clothed themselves in tanned skins. The general colors of a Greek crowd must have been a dull woollen white, relieved with patches of crimson and dark greens and blues.

Before introducing, as is proposed, condensed excerpta from our available sources of information on Greek Mythology, it may be important for a large class of readers to define the term, and also to show some of the advantages arising from well directed mythological studies.

Mythology is a compound Greek word, meaning the science ofâ€”or, more literally, discourse respectingâ€”myths. What is a myth? No exact definition of the word can be given, because there are many varieties of myths, and the term has been used in several distinct senses. In the New Testament it occurs five times, and is in every instance used in an evil, or severely disparaging sense. In our English version it is translated â€œfables,â€ not such as have been invented to convey and illustrate the truth, but cunningly devised fictions, used to convey ethical notions in themselves false. No such condemnation can be pronounced against the Grecian myths in general, many of which, like those of Plato, are charming figurative representations of important ideas, the splendidly imaginative embodiment of subjective truths, and, like the inimitable parables of our Lord, claim no credence for themselves, only as media for conveying the lessons taught. Such myths are not only free from any just reproach, but are commended, as a proper and effective method of teaching, analogous to allegories, fables and parables, and often found in the writings of the wisest and best of mankind. If in this way falsehood has been embellished, we may repudiate their false doctrines, though we admire the mythological dress in which they are presented.

Conscious that the best verbal definitions that can be given fail to define or precisely indicate the generally accepted character of the Grecian myth, we unconsciously multiply words and amplify their meanings, till the attempt becomes rather descriptive than definitive. Others, however acute and discerning, have had the same difficulty. In his attempt to tell us just what a myth is, Dr. McClintock says: â€œIt is best described as a spontaneous product of the youthful imagination of mankindâ€”the natural form under which the infant race expressed its conceptions and convictions about supernatural relations, and prehistoric events. It is neither fiction, ordinary history, nor philosophy; it is a spoken poetry, an uncritical and child-like history, a sincere and self-believing romance. It does not invent, but simply imagines and repeats; it may err, but it never lies. It is a narration, generally marvelous,which no one consciously or scientifically invents, and which every one unintentionally falsifies.â€ â€œIt is,â€ says Mr. Grote, â€œthe natural effusion of the unlettered, imaginative, believing man.â€ â€œIt belongs to an age in which the mind was credulous, or confiding, the imagination full of vigor and vivacity, the passions earnest and intense. Its very essence consists in the projection of thought into the sphere of facts; and it arises partly from the unconscious and gradual objectizing of the subjective, or the confusing of mental processes with external realities; that is, from imaginatively attributing to external nature the feelings and qualities which exist only in the percipient soul.â€

Myths, then, belong to that period of human progress in which the untaught mind regards â€œhistory as all a fairy tale.â€ Before the dawn of science, and the increase of knowledge by the general dissemination of books, menâ€™s fancies respecting the past, and the uncertain conjectures of their nascent philosophy could be preserved only by these traditional and semi-poetical tales of the mythologists. To borrow the fine expression of Tacitusâ€”Fingunt simul creduntqueâ€”â€œThey at once fabricate and believe.â€

â€œThe real and the ideal,â€ again says Mr. Grote, â€œwere blended together in the primitive conceptions.â€¦ The myth passed unquestioned from the fact of its currency, and its harmony with existing sentiments and preconceptions.â€ So to the intensity of a fresh, undisciplined imagination, and the paucity of terms in the language yet in its extreme adolescence, the origin of a vast number of myths can easily be traced. â€œIn those early days men looked at all things with the large open eyes of childish wonderment, and much of what they saw was incapable of any other than a metaphorical description at their hands. They had no words for the purpose, and if the language had been richer it would have responded less accurately to their thoughts, since they transferred their own feelings and sentiments to the world about them, and made themselves the measure of all things.â€ â€œThus,â€ says one, â€œthe hunter regarded the moon which glanced rapidly along the clouded heavens, as a beaming goddess with her nymphs,â€ and

Sunbeams upon distant hills,Gilding space with shadows in their train,Might, with small help from fancy, be transferredInto fleet Oreads, sporting visibly.â€”Wordsworth.

Sunbeams upon distant hills,

Gilding space with shadows in their train,

Might, with small help from fancy, be transferred

Into fleet Oreads, sporting visibly.â€”Wordsworth.

Among a race of unlettered, but intellectually active, stalwart men, on whose path science shed but a dim, uncertain light, even natural phenomena so imperfectly understood, and many things in the realm of the spiritual and unseen being imaginatively conceived, and described in metaphors, myths must abound. Nor is it wonderful that those belonging to a remote prehistoric age are sometimes shrouded in a veil of impenetrable mystery.

We may not be able to reach their true meaning, since when personifications are so manifold, it is often impossible for us to tell just what was regarded as fancy and what was believed to be fact. It is worthy of remark that the same is as true of the grotesque incredible legends current among semi-barbarian tribes at the present day, as in the earliest Grecian myths. In many of them there is a substratum of facts, of which there was some rather shadowy knowledge; after some progress, and the introduction of letters among them, their guesses and imaginings that were uttered in metaphorical expressions not fully understood, are in a manner evaporated, or crystallize into dogmas that are accepted as parts of the tribal faith.

So the more ancient narratives, that are called mythological, as we will hereafter see, when collected, systematized and written by masters in the art, have a value not only as indicating the incipient, though imperfect development of the race, but in most cases, after the winnowing processes applied have driven away the chaff, some kernels of truth will remain, more than enough to repay those who mostly study them as interesting relics of a primitive society, the earnest, impassioned deliverances of natureâ€™s children, yet unsophisticated by â€œphilosophy falsely so called.â€

We will a little further extend, and corroborate these views by another quotation from a high authority on the subject.

â€œMyths,â€ he says, â€œare figurative representations of events or ideas in the garb of history; they develop themselves spontaneously, and unartificially in the consciousness of a primitive people; instead of being products of design and invention, they symbolize the forces of nature under whose influence they are formed, and have an essentially religious character.â€

The same authority further says: â€œThe myth proceeds from an idea, either true or false; the legend proceeds from facts, more or less clearly apprehended, in which the idea was discovered. The one transforms poetry, religion or philosophy into history; the other modifies history with reference to conceptions of poetry, religion and philosophy.â€

All persons interested in classical studies, and having given much attention to comparative philology, find in the early history of mankind an age in which words were very fewâ€”mostly names of things, and not used to express abstract ideas, or any other than those things necessary to the simplest modes of life. As words increased in number, some were introduced expressive of qualities, relations and acts. They are found variously related, phrases and brief sentences appear, the language becomes organic, and the first elements of its grammar are discovered.

In a second period, as in the Aryan and Semitic tongues, language is found advanced to a more systematic, grammatical development, and invites us to a more critical study and analysis of its forms. As yet there were neither abstract nor collective nouns, and every name designated a definite individual object. All these names of things had terminations suggestive of sex. Neuter nouns were yet unknown. Of course it was impossible for them to speak of any object, though inanimate, without ascribing to it something of an active, individual, sexual, personal character; and for this reason, if for no other, personification is a special characteristic of all languages in their earlier stages of development, and it is found to have a close correspondence with the mythical conceptions in the development of thought in those remote ages. There was then nothing prosaic in menâ€™s thinking or speaking. Their language was a kind of unconscious poetry, every word a poem, every phrase embracing the germs of something metaphorical, or sparkling with the scintillations of some bright conceptions. Verbs, too, were strongly expressive of the mindâ€™s various moods and emotions, and needed few auxiliaries that are employed in more abstract prose. Thus sunset was described as the sun growing old, decaying, dying; the sunrise as night giving birth to a brilliant, beautiful child. Spring was Sol greeting the happy earth with a warm embrace, and showering his treasures into the lap of nature. Rivers, fountains, grottoes, forests, mountains, rain, storm, the ocean, fire, thunder clouds and the heavenly bodies were all clothed with the attributes of living beings, and all descriptions of them were myths.

Volumes have been written, and much more might here be said explanatory of the general subject, and to remove prejudice against mythological studies as useless or misleading in their tendency.

Some well meaning persons ask how Christians who know the truth and rejoice in it can be either pleased or profited by communing with the thoughts or fancies of those on whom the sun did not shine, and who had none to lead them.

It is important for all such to distinguish the point of view in which mythological narratives were contemplated by the ancients, by mythologists themselves, and that in which we are to regard them. To them they were in many respects realities closely connected with their national history and their religiousfaith. To us they are unreal, but affording evidence of the little nature taught them or that was acquired by merely intellectual processes, and their evident, but often vaguely felt, need of supernatural manifestations.

Classical study and literature are regarded as so important in education, and a knowledge of Greek mythology is so obviously necessary to a full understanding of the best Greek authors, that many works have been published on the subject. The writers have either merely stated the fables as reported among the ancients, or in addition have sought to trace them to their origin, either by making conjectures of allegorical, historical and physical meanings in the stories, or deriving them from the events of the early ages, recorded in the Bible. But as these traditions themselves arose in various ways, and often accidentally, there of course must be error in every system which attempts to refer them to a common cause and purpose.

The foundation of very many of the fictions of mythology is laid in ideas that arose from the simplicity and inexperience of persons conversant only with objects of sense. Wherever an unusual fact or appearance was observed it was ascribed to a distinct being or existence, operating directly or immediately. This creation by them of personal existences out of natural phenomena, this ever ready personification of physical objects and events, was, in all probability, one of the most fruitful sources of fable and of idolatry, for which the stars and the elements seem to have furnished the most common occasion.

â€œOne source of fable,â€ says an able writer, â€œis theperversionoralteration of factsin sacred history; and indeed this is its earliest and principal source. The family of Noah, perfectly instructed by him in religious matters, preserved for a considerable time the worship of the true God in all its purity. But when the members of this family were separated and scattered over different countries, diversity of language and abode was soon followed by a change of worship. Truth, which had hitherto been intrusted to the single channel of oral communication, subject to a thousand variations, and which had not yet become fixed by the use of writing, that surer guardian of facts, became obscured by an infinite number of fables which greatly increased the darkness that had enveloped it.â€

The advantages of an acquaintance with mythology are many. They have been admirably shown by Rollin, from whom we quote:

1. It apprises us how much we are indebted to Jesus Christ the Savior, who had rescued us from the power of darkness and introduced us into the wonderful light of the Gospel. Before his time what was the real character of men? Even the wisest and most upright menâ€”those celebrated philosophers, those great politicians, those renowned legislators of Greece, those grave senators of Rome? In a word, what were all the nations of the world, the most polished and the most enlightened? Fable informs us they were the blind worshipers of some demon, and bowed the knee before gods of gold, silver and marble. They offered incense and prayers to statues, deaf and mute. They recognized as gods animals, reptiles, and even plants. They did not blush to adore an adulterous Mars, a prostituted Venus, an incestuous Juno, a Jupiter blackened by every kind of crime, and worthy for that reason to hold the first rank among the gods. See what our fathers were, and what we ourselves should have been, had not the light of the Gospel dissipated our darkness! Each story in fable, every circumstance in the life of the gods, ought at once to fill us with confusion, admiration and gratitude.2. Another advantage from the study of fable is that, by discovering to us the absurd ceremonies and impious maxims of paganism, it may inspire us with new respect for the majesty of the Christian religion, and for the sanctity of its morals. Ecclesiastical history informs us that a Christian bishop (Theophilus of Alexandria), to render idolatry odious in the minds of the faithful, brought forth to the light and exposed to the eyes of the public, all which was found in the interior of a temple that had been demolished; bones of men, limbs of infants immolated to demons, and many other vestiges of the sacrilegious worship which pagans render to their deities. This is nearly the effect which the study of fable must produce on the mind of every sensible person; and this is the use to which it has been put by the holy fathers and all the defenders of the Christian religion. The great work of St. Augustin, entitled â€œThe City of God,â€ which has conferred such honor upon the Church, is at the same time a proof of what I now advance, and a perfect model of the manner in which profane studies ought to be sanctified.3. Still another benefit of great importance may be realized in the understanding of authors either in Greek, Latin, or even French, in reading which a person is often stopped short if ignorant of mythology. I speak now of the poets, merely, whose natural language is fable; it is often employed also by orators, and it furnishes them frequently with the happiest illustrations, and with strains the most sprightly and eloquent.4. There is another class of works whose meaning and beauty are illustrated by a knowledge of fable, viz., paintings, coins, statues, and the like. These are so many enigmas to persons ignorant of mythology, which is often the only key to their interpretation.

2. Another advantage from the study of fable is that, by discovering to us the absurd ceremonies and impious maxims of paganism, it may inspire us with new respect for the majesty of the Christian religion, and for the sanctity of its morals. Ecclesiastical history informs us that a Christian bishop (Theophilus of Alexandria), to render idolatry odious in the minds of the faithful, brought forth to the light and exposed to the eyes of the public, all which was found in the interior of a temple that had been demolished; bones of men, limbs of infants immolated to demons, and many other vestiges of the sacrilegious worship which pagans render to their deities. This is nearly the effect which the study of fable must produce on the mind of every sensible person; and this is the use to which it has been put by the holy fathers and all the defenders of the Christian religion. The great work of St. Augustin, entitled â€œThe City of God,â€ which has conferred such honor upon the Church, is at the same time a proof of what I now advance, and a perfect model of the manner in which profane studies ought to be sanctified.

3. Still another benefit of great importance may be realized in the understanding of authors either in Greek, Latin, or even French, in reading which a person is often stopped short if ignorant of mythology. I speak now of the poets, merely, whose natural language is fable; it is often employed also by orators, and it furnishes them frequently with the happiest illustrations, and with strains the most sprightly and eloquent.

4. There is another class of works whose meaning and beauty are illustrated by a knowledge of fable, viz., paintings, coins, statues, and the like. These are so many enigmas to persons ignorant of mythology, which is often the only key to their interpretation.

BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.

â€œConsistency is the Test of Truth.â€â€”Wilberforce.

Among the strange legends of the Middle Ages there are certain traditions which have evidently a figurative significance, and whose origin has often been traced to the allegorical mythology of an earlier age. An allegory of that sort is the legend of the â€œMarvel of Nikolsburg,â€ near Vienna; a miraculous image that appeared always an inch higher than the person standing before it. â€œIt overtopped a giant, and all but condescended to the stature of a dwarf,â€ says the tradition.

That image is a symbol of nature. The lowest savage must dimly recognize the fact that man can not measure his cunning against the wisdom of the Creator, and the highest development of science has only revealed its own incompetence to imitate, or even comprehend, the structural perfection of the simplest living organism. The Author of life deals only in masterpieces; the marvelous fitness of his contrivances is as infinite in his smallest as in his greatest works, and the apparent exceptions from that rule can nearly all be traced to the influence of abnormal circumstances. Our own interference with the order of nature has caused the discords in the harmony of creation which furnish the chief arguments of pessimism. The winter torrents which devastate the valleys of southern France with a fury which Condorcet calls the â€œtruculence of a vainly worshiped heaven,â€ flowed in harmless brooks till the hand of man destroyed the protecting forests that absorbed and equalized the drainage of the Alpine slopes, the same imprudence has turned the gardens of the East into deserts and obstructed with sandbars the channels of once navigable rivers. The wanton extermination of woodbirds has revenged itself by insect plagues. Consumption, that cruel scourge of the human race, is the direct consequence of thefolly which makes us prefer the miasma of our tenement-prisons to the balm of Godâ€™s free air. We are too apt to confound the results of our sins against nature with the original arrangements of Providence. But the strangest instance of that mistake is the fallacy which has long biased our dealings with the curse of the alcohol habit. Drunkards plead their inability to resist the promptings of an imperious appetite. Their friends lament the antagonism of nature and duty, the weakness of the flesh frustrating the resolves of a willing spirit. Even temperance orators dwell on the dangers of â€œworldly temptations,â€ of â€œselfish, sensual indulgences,â€ as if the alcohol habit were the result of an innate propensityâ€”deplorable in its collateral consequences, but withal entitled to the compromising concessions which ascetic virtue owes to the cravings of an impetuous natural instinct. In other words, we palliate a flagrant crime against the physical laws of God, as if nature herself had lured us to our ruin; the votaries of alcohol plead their ignorance, as if the Providence that warns us against the sting of a tiny insect and teaches the eye to protect itself against a mote of dust, had provided no adequate safeguards against the greatest danger to health and happiness.

And yet those safeguards would abundantly answer their protective purpose if persistent vice had not almost deadened the faculty of understanding the monitions of our physical conscience. It is true that the stimulant-thirst of the confirmed drunkard far exceeds the urgency of the most impetuous instincts, but by that very excessiveness and persistence the far-gone development of the alcohol habit proves what the mode of its incipience establishes beyond the possibility of a doubt, namely, the radical difference of its characteristics from those of a natural appetite. For,

1.Under Normal Circumstances the Attractiveness of Alimentary Substances is Proportioned to the degree of their Healthfulness and their Nutritive Value.â€”To the children of nature all hurtful things are repulsive, all beneficial things attractive. Providence has endowed our species with a liberal share of the protective instinct that teaches our dumb fellow-creatures to select their proper food, and even in this age of far-gone degeneration the dietetic predilections of children and primitive men might furnish the criteria of a general food reform. No creature is misled by an innate craving for unwholesome food, nor by an instinctive aversion to wholesome substances. Our natural repugnance to nearly all kinds of â€œmedicines,â€i. e., virulent stimulants, has already begun to be recognized as a suggestive illustration of that rule. A childâ€™s hankering after sweetmeats is only an apparent exception, for, as Dr. Schrodt observes, the conventional diet of our children is so deficient in saccharine elements that instinct constantly strives to supply an unsatisfied want. Human beings fed chiefly on fruit syrups would instinctively hanker after farinaceous substances. The savages of our northwestern prairies are as fond of honey as their grizzly neighbors. Nurslings, deprived of their mothersâ€™ milk, instinctively appreciate the proper component parts of artificial surrogates. Sailors in the tropics thirst after fruit, after refrigerating fluids, after fresh vegetables. In the arctic seas they crave calorific foodâ€”oil or fat.

But in no climate of this earth is man afflicted with an instinctive hankering after alcohol. To the palate of an unseduced boy rum is as repulsive as corrosive sublimate. I do not speak only of the sons of nature-abiding parents, but of the children of vice, left to the guidance of their enfeebled, but not intentionally perverted, instincts. The intuitive bias even of such is in the direction of total abstinence from all noxious stimulants, for nature has willed that all her creatures should begin the pilgrimage of life from beyond the point where the roads of purity and vice diverge. In their projects for the abolition of the stimulant habit, temperance people are, indeed, rather inclined to underrate the difficulties of a total cure of a confirmed poison vice, but equally apt tooverrate the difficulty of total prevention. The supposed effects of an innate predisposition can generally be traced to the direct influence of a vicious education. Jean Jacques Rousseau expressed his conviction that a fondness for intoxicating liquors is nearly always contracted in the years of immaturity, when the deference to social precedents is apt to overcome the warnings of instinct, but that those who have escaped or not yielded to the temptations of that period would ever afterward be safe. Dr. Zimmerman, too, admits that â€œhome influences are too often mistaken for hereditary influences.â€ And boy topers are not always voluntary converts. The year before I left my native town (Brussels), I found a drunken lad on the platform of the railway depot and carried him to the house of a medical friend, who put him to bed and turned him over to a policeman the next morning. The little fellow was recognized as an old offender, but when the court was going to send him to a house of correction my friend offered to take him back, and, on condition of keeping him away from his parents, was permitted to take care of him, and finally made him his office-boy. His parents were ascertained to be both habitual drunkards, but their son (Ã¦t. 11), showed no inclination to follow their example, and voluntarily abstained from the light wines which now and then made their appearance on the doctorâ€™s tableâ€”though he never missed an opportunity to rejoin his old playmates, and, as his patron expressed it, â€œwas a dangerous deal too smart to be entrusted with the collection of bills.â€ Six months after his last scrape I found him alone in the doctorâ€™s office, where he had collected a private library of picture papers and illustrated almanacs. â€œWhat made you get so drunk last Easter?â€ I asked him, â€œare you so fond of brandy?â€

â€œNenni, mais Pa mâ€™en fit prendre,â€ he repliedâ€”â€œfathermademe drink it.â€

2.The Instinctive Aversion to any Kind of Poison can be Perverted into an Unnatural Craving after the same Substance.â€”Poisons are either repulsive or insipid. Arsenic, sugar of lead, and antimony, belong to the latter class. To the first-born children of earth certain mineral poisons were decidedlyout of the way substances, against which nature apparently thought it less necessary to provide special safeguards. But, though less repulsive than other poisons, such substances are never positively attractive, and often (like verdigris, potassium, etc.), perceptibly nauseous. Vegetable poisons are either nauseous or intensely bitter. Hasheesh is more unattractive than turpentine. Opium is acrid caustic. Absinthe (wormwood extract) is as bitter as gall. Instinct resists the incipience of an insidious second nature.

But that instinct is plastic. If the warnings of our physical conscience remain unheeded, if the offensive substance is again and again forced upon the unwilling stomach, nature at last chooses the alternative of compromising the evil, and, true to her supreme law, of preserving existence at any cost, prolongs even a wretched life by adapting the organism to the exigencies of an abnormal habit. She still continues her protest in the feeling of exhaustion which follows every poison-debauch, but permits each following dose of the insidious drug to act as a temporary re-invigorant, or at least as a spur to the functional activity of the exhausted organism, for the apparent return of vital vigor is, in fact, nothing but a symptom of the morbid energy exerted by the system in its efforts to rid itself of a deadly intruder, for each new application of the stimulus is as regularly followed by a distressing reaction. Andonly thenthe slave of the unnatural habit becomes conscious of that peculiar craving which is entirely distinct from the promptings of a healthy appetiteâ€”a craving uncompromisingly directed toward a specialâ€”once repulsiveâ€”substance, a craving defying the limiting instincts which indicate the proper quantum of wholesome foods and drinks, a craving which each gratification makes more irresistible, though for the time being each indulgence is followed by a depressing reaction. The appetite for wholesome substancesâ€”however palatableâ€”isnever exclusive. A child may become passionately fond of ice cream, yet accept cold water and fruit cake as a welcome substitute. A predilection for honey, strawberries, or sweet tree fruits will not tempt the admirers of such dainties to commit forgery and highway robbery to indulge their penchantâ€”as long as their kitchen affords a supply of savory vegetables. Unnatural appetites have no natural limits; but the art of the best pastry cook would hardly induce his customers to stupefy and bestialize themselves with his compounds. There are no milk topers, no suicidal potato eaters, no victims of a chronic porridge passion. In spite of occasional surfeits the craving for alimentary substances increases and decreases with the needs of the organism, while that of the poison drinker yields only to the temporary extinction of consciousness.

In a state of nature every normal function is associated with a pleasurable sensation, and instead of resulting in agonizing reactions a feast of wholesome food is followed by a state of considerable physical comfortâ€”â€œthe beatific consciousness of perfect digestion,â€ as Baron Brisse describes the pleasures of the after dinner hour. But no length of practice will ever save the poison slave from the penalties of his sins against nature. Each full indulgence is followed by a full measure of woful retributions, while a half indulgence results in a half depression to the verge of world-weary despondency, or fails to satisfy the lingering thirst after a larger dose of the same stimulant. And every poison known to modern chemistry can beget that specific craving. â€œEntirely accidental circumstances, the accessibility of special drugs, imitativeness and the intercourse of commercial nations, the mere whims of fashion, the authority of medical recommendations, have often decided the first choice of a special stimulant, destined to become a national beverageâ€ and a national curse. The contemporaries of the Veda writers fuddled withsoma-wine, the juice of a narcotic plant of the Himalaya foothills. Their neighbors, the pastoral Tartars, get drunk onKoumiss, or fermented mareâ€™s milk, an abomination which in Eastern Europe threatens to increase the list of imported poisons, while opium is gaining ground in our Pacific States as fast as lager beer, chloral and patent â€œbittersâ€ on the Atlantic slope. The French have addedabsintheto their wines and liquors, the Turkshasheeshand opiates to strong coffee. North America has adopted tea from China, coffee from Arabia (or originally from Ceylon), tobacco from the Caribbean savages, highwines from France and Spain, and may possibly learn to drink Mexican aloe-sap, or chew the coca leaves of the South American Indians.Arsenichas its votaries in the southern Alps.Cinnebarandacetate of coppervictimize the miners of the Peruvian Sierras. The Ashantees are so fond ofsorghum beerthat their chieftains have to keep special bamboo cages for the benefit of quarrelsome drunkards. The pastor of a Swiss colony in the Mexican State of Oaxaca told me that the mountaineers of that neighborhood befuddle themselves withcicuta syrup, the inspissated juice of a kind ofhemlockthat first excites and then depresses the cerebral functions, excessive garrulity being the principal symptom of the exalted stage of intoxication. A decoction of the commonfly toadstool(agaricus maculatus) inflames the passions of the Kamschatka natives, makes them pugnacious, disputative, but eventually splenetic (Chamissoâ€™s â€œReisen,â€ p. 322). The Abyssinians use a preparation ofdhurra-cornthat causes more quarrels than gambling. It is a favorite beverage at festivals, and is vaunted as a remedy for various complaints, though Belzoni mentions that it makes its votaries more subject to the attacks of the Nile fever. According to Professor Vamberg, the Syrian Druses pray, though apparently in vain, to be delivered from the temptation offoxglove tea. Comparative pathology has multiplied these analogies till, in spite of the arguments of a thousand specious advocates, there is no valid reason to doubt that the alleged innate craving for the stimulus of fermented or distilled beverages iswholly abnormal, and thatthe alcohol habit is characterized by all the peculiarities of a poison vice.

3.All Poison Habits are Progressive.â€”There is a deep significance in that term of our language which describes an unnatural habit asgrowing uponits devotees, for we find, indeed, a striking analogy between the development of the stimulant habit and that of a parasitical plant, which, sprouting from tiny seeds, fastens upon, preys upon, and at last strangles its victims. The seductiveness of every stimulant habit gains strength with each new indulgence, and it is a curious fact that that power is proportioned to the original repulsiveness of the poison. The tonic influence of Chinese tea is due to the presence of a stimulating ingredient known astheÃ¯ne, in its concentrated form a strong narcotic poison, but forming only a minute percentage of the component parts of common green tea. On the Pacific coast of our country thousands of Chinese immigrants carry their thrift to the degree of renouncing their favorite beverage, but neither considerations of economy nor of self-preservation will induce the same exiles to break the fetters of the opium habit. Not one hasheesh-eater in a hundred can hope to emancipate himself from the thraldom of his vice. The guests of King Alcohol, too, would make their reckoning without their host in hoping to take in the fun of intoxication as a votary of pleasure would engage in a transient pastime: his palace is an Armida castle, that rarely dismisses a visitor.

â€œIn describing the effects of the alcohol habit,â€ says Dr. Isaac Jennings, â€œI want to impress the reader with another feature of itâ€”its perpetuity. It can never be put off during the lifetime of the individual; it may be covered up to appearance, but it can not be effaced.â€¦ It seems to be a common impression that alcohol circulates through the body, excites the action of the heart and liver, quickens and enlivens the animal spirits, and then passes off, and leaves no trace of its visitation, or at most only a temporary loss of power, which is soon restored by a self-moved power pump. This is a great and fundamental error. Every drop of alcohol that enters the stomach inflicts an injury that will continue as long as the old stock lasts, and reach even to the young sprouts. It may not be enstamped on them in precisely the same way, but it will affect essentially the same parts.â€ (â€œMedical Reform,â€ pp. 173-175.)

â€œIf a man was sent to hell,â€ says Dr. Rush, â€œand kept there for a thousand years as a punishment for drinking, and then returned, his first cry would be, â€˜Give me rum, give me rum!â€™â€

â€œThe infernal powers blindfold the victims of their altars,â€ says Lessing, and the stimulant vice seems, in fact, to weaken not only the physical constitution of its votaries, but their moral power of resistance, and often even the faculty of realizing the perils of their practice, as if the poison had struck its roots into the very souls of its victims.

But the alcohol habit grows outward, as well as inward. We have seen that each gratification of the poison vice is followed by a depressing reaction. But his feeling of exhaustion is steadily progressive, and the correspondingly increased craving for a repetition of the stimulant dose forces its victimeither to increase the quantity of the wonted tonic, or else to resort to a stronger poison. The experience of individual drunkards probably corresponds to the international development of the alcohol habit. Its first devotees contented themselves with moderate quantities of the milder stimulants: must, hydromel and light beer. But such tonics soon began to pall, and the jaded appetite of the toper soon resorted to strong wines, to hard cider, and finally to brandy and rum. Others increased the quantity, and learned to drink horse-pails full of beer, in which â€œdiluted and harmless formâ€ many German students manage to absorb a quart of alcohol per day.

â€œPeople sometimes wonder,â€ says Dr. Jennings, â€œwhy such and such men, possessing great intellectual power and firmness of character in other respects, can not drink moderately and not give themselves up to drunkenness. They become drunkardsby lawâ€”fixed, immutable law. Let a man with a constitution as perfect as Adamâ€™s undertake to drink alcohol, moderatelyand perseveringly, with all the caution and deliberate determination that he can command, and if he could live long enough he would just as certainly become a drunkardâ€”get to a point where he could not refrain from drinking to excessâ€”as he would go over Niagara Falls when placed in a canoe in the river above the falls and left to the natural operation of the current. And proportionally as he descended the stream would his alcoholic attraction for it increase, so that he would find it more and more difficult to get ashore, until he reached a point where escape was impossible.â€ (â€œMedical Reform,â€ p. 176.)

Now and then the votaries of the stimulant habit exchange their tonic for a stronger poison. Claude Bernard, the famous French pathologist, noticed that the opium vice recruits its female victims chiefly from the ranks of the veteran coffee drinkers. In Turkey, too, strong coffee has prepared the way for tobacco and opium; in Switzerland arsenic eaters have exchanged their kirschwasser for a more potent tonic; many French and Russian hard drinkers have learned to prefer ether to brandy.

But no poison vice can be cured by milder stimulants. The Beelzebub of alcohol does not yield to weaker spirits; hence the fallacy of theantidote plan. Nothing was formerly more common with temperance people of the compromise school than to comfort converted drunkards with stimulating drugs and strong coffee, in the hope that the organism might somehow be induced to acquiesce in thequid pro quo. That hope is a delusion. The surrogate may bring a temporary relief, but it can not satisfy the thirst for the stronger tonic, and only serves toperpetuate the stimulant diathesisâ€”the poison hunger which will sooner or later revert to the wonted object of its passion. Unswerving loyalty to the pledge of the total abstinence plan is not at first the easiest, but eventually the surest way. For even after weeks of successful resistance to the importunities of the tempter, a mere spark may rekindle the smothered flames. â€œWhat takes place in the stomach of a reformed drunkard?â€ says Dr. Sewallâ€”â€œthe individual who abandons the use of all intoxicating drinks? The stomach by that extraordinary self-restorative power of nature gradually resumes its natural appearance. Its engorged blood-vessels become reduced to their original size, and a few weeks or months will accomplish this renovation, after which the individual has no longer any suffering or desire for alcohol. It is nevertheless true, and should ever be borne in mind, that such is the sensibility of the stomach of the reformed drunkard that a repetition of the use of alcohol,in the slightest degree, and in any form, under any circumstances, revives the appetite; the blood vessels again become dilated, and the morbid sensibility of the organ is reproduced.â€

The use of any stimulating drug may rewaken the dormant propensity, and it will not change the result if the stimulant has been administered in the form of a medical prescription. Strong drink is a mocker, in disease as well as in health, and the road to the rum shop leads through the dispensary as often as through the beer garden.

The logical conclusion of all these premises thus reveals the two-fold secret of the alcohol habit:the anomaly of its attractiveness and the necessity of its progressiveness, and we at last recognize the truth that the road to intemperance is paved with mild stimulants, and that the only safe, consistent and effective plan of reform is total abstinence from all stimulating poisons.

BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,President of W. C. T. U.

The famous San Joaquin Valley is as large as the State of Ohio. It opens into the Sacramento Valley, and the two are about six hundred miles long. A plow could go the length of both and never touch a stone. In the San Joaquin they have a ranche where the gang plow starts in the morning, goes on a straight line all day, turns back and plows its twin furrow the next, having thus retraversed the length of one California farm.

It was through seven hours by rail of this valley that we went, in a southeasterly direction, from San Francisco to Madera, where two coaches were waiting to carry us over the one hundred miles in a northeasterly direction that still separated us from the wonderland ruled by â€œEl Capitan.â€ There were twenty-three of us, and â€œnone smoked or chewed, or drank or swore,â€ as I was credibly informed by our â€œEl Capitan,â€ the Rev. Dr. Briggs. By the way, if Chautauqua wants a first class attraction let this name go on the list. We traveled rapidly. I counted thirty different horses on our coach in one day. We killed rattlesnakes, that is, the Dr. did, marching squarely forward and whacking them unmercifully with his stout cane, while we women, securely perched on our high seats in the coach, really enjoyed the sight. We saw horse-shoes enough for wholesale good luck, scattered along the road. We believe, and always shall, that we perceived a bear track, and wondered if it was made by famous â€œClub Foot Joeâ€â€”whose annals are they not in all the Touristâ€™s Chronicles? We told stories all strictly true. There was no Baron MÃ¼nchausen amongst us, though had prosaic Easterners been within earshot of our driver they might perhaps have promulgated a different declaration. We did not fear robbers, for â€œa countâ€ developed the fact that in our coachâ€”chiefly inhabited by ministers, their wives, and sundry visiting philanthropistsâ€”gold watches were the only â€œplunder,â€ and these were all inscribed â€œPresented byâ€ to that degree that no well regulated â€œroad agentâ€ would have wished such a â€œfree advertisementâ€ of his base conduct, as these trophies must have furnished. We sang old songs of the fireside and sanctuary, talked of the Chautauquas east and west, â€œmarkedâ€ our favorite trees in â€œthe ample forest of Bishop timberâ€ (to be revealed after next General Conference), and regulated the affairs of the nation generally. We fitted ourselves out with a â€œlocal governmentâ€ administered on the everlasting principles of justice and equality,i. e., we counted the womenin, notout. I copy our rules from the log book of the expedition:

1. Unquestioned submission to constituted authority.

2. Silence when entering the valley.

3. Wives, be obedient to your husbands.â€”The Chaplain.

4. Wives, donâ€™t you do it.â€”The Chaplainâ€™s wife.

5. Whenever a dispute arises, the vote of every woman shall count two.â€”A widower.

6. Eat dinner often.â€”Little Walter Bland.

7. No one shall be required to speak grammatically on this trip.â€”F. E. W.

All of which were unanimously adopted except the one about â€œcounting two,â€ which evoked a loud dissent.

The first day we rode seventy-two miles, stopping at Clarkâ€™s hospitable caravansary, and kindly permitting sweet sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care. Decoration Day (May 30th) came next, and with patriotic intent we had made out a program, intending to â€œcelebrateâ€ in the chapel built for Dr. Vincent when he conducted a miniature â€œChautauqua Assemblyâ€ in the Yosemite a few years since. But when, after a mountain ride of half a day, surrounded by inclined planes of evergreens, each of which would have been a worldâ€™s wonder,at the East, with superb curves in the road evermore opening fresh vistas of illimitable height, verdure and beauty, we rounded

â€œthere was no more spirit in us.â€ Nay, rather the spirit of beauty and divinity so possessed us that â€œplansâ€ and â€œprogramsâ€ sunk into oblivion. Word-pauperism oppresses one upon this height as nothing else on earth. There is in Europe a single revelation of art which has power to silence the chatter even of fashionâ€™s devotees, and that is Raphaelâ€™s Sistine Madonna. I have been in its seraphic presence for hours at a time, but never heard a vocal comment. The foamiest natures are not silenced by Niagara, by Mt. Blanc, by the Jungfrauâ€™s awful purity, or the terrors of Vesuvius for their flippant tones have smitten me in all these sacred places. But from the little child in our midstâ€”a bright faced boy of fourâ€”to the rough, kind hearted driver, not one word was spoken by our party as

framed in fleecy, flying clouds, greeted our thoughtful eyes and spoke of God to our hushed souls. Except beside the dying bed of my beloved I have never felt the veil so thin between me and the world ineffableâ€”supernal. What was it like? Let no pen less lofty than that of Milton, less atune with natureâ€™s purest mood than that of Wordsworth, hope to â€œexpress unblamedâ€ the awful and ethereal beauty of what we saw. â€œEarth with her thousand voices praises God,â€ sang the great heart of Coleridge, from the vale of Chamouni, but here, the divine chorus includes both earth and heaven, for El Capitan rears his head into the sky, Sentinel, Cathedral Rocks and sky-climbing clouds rest while the symphony of eighteen waterfalls rounds out the diapason.

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