From The Oak To The Olive - free ebook by Julia Ward Howe

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From The Oak To The Olive

Julia Ward Howe

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52 chapters

FROM THE OAK TO THE OLIVE.

FROM THE OAK TO THE OLIVE.

A P LAIN R ECORD OF A P LEASANT J OURNEY. BY JULIA WARD HOWE BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD. 1868. Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1868, by JULIA WARD HOWE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 19 Spring Lane. TO S. G. H., THE STRENUOUS CHAMPION OF GREEK LIBERTY AND OF HUMAN RIGHTS , IS OFFERED SUCH SMALL HOMAGE AS THE DEDICATION OF THIS VOLUME CAN CONFER. —————...

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PRELIMINARIES.

PRELIMINARIES.

Not being, at this moment, in the pay of any press, whether foreign or domestic, I will not, at this my third landing in English country, be in haste to accomplish the correspondent's office of extroversion, and to expose all the inner processes of thought and of nature to the gaze of an imaginary public, often, alas! a delusory one, and difficult to be met with. No individual editor, nor joint stock company, bespoke my emotions before my departure. I am, therefore, under no obligation to furnis

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THE VOYAGE.

THE VOYAGE.

The steamer voyage is now become a fact so trite and familiar as to call for no special illustration at these or any other hands. Yet voyages and lives resemble each other in many particulars, and differ in as many others. Ours proves almost unprecedented for smoothness, as well as for safety. We start on the fatal Wednesday, as twice before, expecting the fatal pang. Our last vicarious purchase on shore was a box of that energetic mustard, so useful as a counter-irritant in cases of internal co

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LIVERPOOL.

LIVERPOOL.

A good deal of our time here is spent in the prosaic but vital occupation of getting something to eat. If Nature abhors a vacuum, she does so especially when, after twelve days of a fluctuating and predatory existence, the well-shaken traveller at last finds a stable foundation for self and victuals. The Washington being announced as organized on the American plan, we descend to the coffee-room with the same happy confidence which would characterize our first appearance at the buffet of the Trem

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CHESTER—LICHFIELD.

CHESTER—LICHFIELD.

The Grosvenor Inn receives us, not at all in the fashion of the hostelry of twenty years ago. A new and spacious building forming a quadrangle around a small open garden, the style highly architectural and somewhat inconvenient; waiters got up after fashion plates; chambermaids with apologetic caps, not smaller than a dime nor larger than a dinner plate; a handsome sitting-room, difficult to warm; airy sleeping-rooms; a coffee-room in which our hunger and cold seek food and shelter; a housekeepe

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LONDON.

LONDON.

"Charing Cross Hotel? 'Ere you are, sir;" and a small four-wheeled cab, with a diminutive horse and beer-tinted driver, has us up at the door of the same. In front, within the precincts of the hotel court, stands the ancient cross, or that which replaces it, and around radiate cook-shops and book-shops, jewellers and victuallers and milliners. The human river of the Strand fluxes and refluxes before this central spot, and Trafalgar Square, and Waterloo Place, and Westminster Abbey, and the House

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ST. PAUL'S—THE JAPANESE.

ST. PAUL'S—THE JAPANESE.

The first feature of novelty in visiting St. Paul's Cathedral is the facility for going thither afforded by the city railways,—one of which swiftly deposits us in Cannon Street, whence, with the Cathedral in full sight, we beg our way to the entrance, so far as information goes,—one only of its several doors being open to the public at all times. The second is the crypt occupied and solemnized by the ponderous funereal pomps of the late Duke of Wellington. In conjunction with these must be menti

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SOCIETY.

SOCIETY.

We bite at the tempting bait of London society a little eagerly. In our case, as veterans, it is like returning to a delicious element from which we have long been weaned. The cheerfulness with which English people respond to the modest presentment of a card well-motived , the cordiality with which they welcome an old friend, once truly a friend, may well offset the reserve with which they respond to advances made at random, and the resolute self-defence of the British Lion in particular against

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THE CHANNEL.

THE CHANNEL.

If the devil is not so black as he is painted, it must be because he has an occasional day of good humor. Some such wondrous interval is hinted at by people who profess to have seen the Channel sea smooth and calm. We remember it piled with mountains of anguish—one's poor head swimming, one's heart sinking, while an organ more important than either in this connection underwent a sort of turning inside out which seemed to wrench the very strings of life. But on this broken Sabbath our wonderful l

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PARIS AND THENCE.

PARIS AND THENCE.

In Paris the fate of Greece still pursues us. Two days the rigid veteran will grant; no more—the rest promised when the Eastern business shall have been settled. But those two days suffice to undo our immortal souls so far as shop windows can do this. The shining sins and vanities of the world are so insidiously set forth in this Jesuits' college of Satan, that you catch the contagion of folly and extravagance as you pace the streets, or saunter through the brilliant arcades. Your purveyor makes

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MARSEILLES.

MARSEILLES.

At Marseilles we find a quasi tropical aspect—long streets, handsome and well-shaded, tempting shops, luxurious hotels, a motley company, and, above all, a friend, one of our own countrymen, divided between the glitter of the new life and the homesick weaning of the old. Half, he assumes the cicerone, and guides our ignorance about. Half, he sits to learn, and we expound to him what has befallen at home, so far as we are conscious of it. We take half a day for resting, the next day for sight-see

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ROME.

ROME.

With feelings much mingled, I approach, for the third time, the city of Rome. I pause to collect the experience of sixteen years, the period intervening between my second visit and the present. I left Rome, after those days, with entire determination, but with infinite reluctance. America seemed the place of exile, Rome the home of sympathy and comfort. To console myself for the termination of my travels, I undertook a mental pilgrimage, which unfolded to me something of the spirit of that older

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ST. PETER'S.

ST. PETER'S.

The first day in Rome sees us pursuing the phantom of the St. Peter ceremonies, for all of which, tickets have been secured for us. Solid fact as the performance of the functions remains, for us it assumes a forcible unreality, through the impeding intervention of black dresses and veils, with what should be women under them. But as these creatures push like battering-rams, and caper like he-goats, we shall prefer to adjourn the question of their humanity, and to give it the benefit of a doubt.

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SUPPER OF THE PILGRIMS.

SUPPER OF THE PILGRIMS.

Faster go these shows than one can describe them. On Good Friday evening we attempted only to see the supper of the female pilgrims at the Trinità dei Pellegrini. This again I undertook for the neophytes' sake, having myself once witnessed the august ceremony. Here, as everywhere at this time, we found a crowd of black dresses, with and without veils, which, on this occasion, are optional. Another mob of women, small but energetic; another rush to see what, under other circumstances, we should h

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EASTER.

EASTER.

St. Peter's on Easter called us with the magical summons of the silver trumpets, blown at the elevation of the host, and remembered by me through these sixteen years. To the tribunes, however, I did not betake myself, but, armed with a camp stool, wandered about the church, getting now a coup d'œil , now a whiff of harmony. The neophytes had our tickets, and beheld the ceremonies, which, once seen, are of little interest to those to whom they are not matters of religion. The pope and cardinals o

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WORKS OF ART.

WORKS OF ART.

Enough of shows. Galleries and studios are better. Rome is rich in both, and with a sort of studious contentment, one embraces one's Murray, picks out the palace that unfolds its art treasures to-day, and travels up the stairs, and along the marble corridors, to wonderful suites of apartments, in which the pasteboard programmes lie about waiting for you, while the still drama of the pictures acts itself upon the thronged wall, yourself their small public, and they giving their color-eloquence, w

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PIAZZA NAVONA—THE TOMBOLA.

PIAZZA NAVONA—THE TOMBOLA.

When, O, when does the bee make his honey? Not while he is sipping from flower to flower, levying his dainty tribute as lightly as love—enriching the world with what the flower does not miss, and cannot. This question suggests itself in the course of these busy days in Rome, where pleasures are offered oftener than sensibilities can ripen, and the edge of appetite is blunted with sweets, instead of rusting with disuse. In these scarce three weeks how much have we seen, how little recorded and de

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SUNDAYS IN ROME.

SUNDAYS IN ROME.

Our first Sunday in Rome was Easter, in St. Peter's, of which we have elsewhere given a sufficient description. Our second was divided between the Tombola just described, in the afternoon, and the quiet of the American Chapel in the morning. We found this an upper chamber, quietly and appropriately furnished, with a pleasant and well-dressed attendance of friends and fellow country-people. The prayers of the Episcopal service were simply read, with no extra formality or aping of more traditional

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CATACOMBS.

CATACOMBS.

Of all that befell us in the catacombs we may not tell. We betook ourselves to the neighborhood of St. Calixtus one afternoon. A noted ecclesiastic of the Romish church soon joined our party, with various of our countrymen and countrywomen. He wore a white woollen gown and a black hat. Before descending, he ranged us in a circle, and harangued us much as follows:— "You will ask me the meaning of the word 'catacomb,' and I shall tell you that it is derived from two Greek words— cata , hidden, and

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VIA APPIA AND THE COLUMBARIA.

VIA APPIA AND THE COLUMBARIA.

Since my last visit to Rome, more progress has been made under ground than above it. Rome is the true antipodes of America. Our business is to build—her business is to excavate. The tombs on Via Appia are among the interesting objects which the spade and mattock, during the last seventeen years, have brought to view. I remember well the beginning of this work, and the marble tombs and sarcophagi which it brought to light. I also remember, in those unconscientious days, a marble head, in exceedin

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NAPLES—THE JOURNEY.

NAPLES—THE JOURNEY.

From these brief, sombre notes of Rome, we slide at once to Naples and her brilliant surroundings. Here, taking the seven colors as the equivalents of the seven notes, we are at the upper end of the octave of color. Rome is painted in purple, gold, olive, and bistre—its shadows all in the latter pigment. Naples is clear red, white, and yellow. Orange tawny is its deepest shade. The sounds of Rome awaken memories of devotion. They call to prayer, although the forms now be empty, and the religious

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THE MUSEUM.

THE MUSEUM.

In the Museum we spend two laborious days. The first we give to the world-renowned marbles, finding again with delight our favorites of twenty years' standing. Prominent among these are the Amore Delfino, and the Faun bearing the infant Bacchus. The Farnese Bull and the Farnese Hercules are admirable for their execution, but their subject has no special interest for us. We observe the Atlas, the Athletes, and the Venuses, one of whom is world-famous, but inexcusable. Here, too, is the quadriform

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NAPLES—EXCURSIONS.

NAPLES—EXCURSIONS.

You have been two days in Naples, the hotel expenses and temptations of the street eating into your little capital. For value received your intellects have nothing to show. Your eyes and ears have been full, your brain passive and empty. You rouse yourself, and determine upon an investment. To learn something, you must spend something. These cherished napoleons must decrease, and you must, if possible, increase. The first attempt is scarcely a success. Having heard marvels of the conventual chur

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THE CAPUCHIN.

THE CAPUCHIN.

While we waited for our dinner, a Capuchin at another table enjoyed a moderate repast. Bologna sausage, cheese, fruit, and wine of two sorts contented him. His robust countenance beamed with health, his eyes were intelligent. This was one of the personalities of which the little shown makes one desirous to know more. His refreshment consumed and paid for, he began a rambling conversation with the garçon who attended us, as well as with the proprietor of the locanda in which we were. Capuchin and

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BAJA.

BAJA.

The excursion to Baja called us up early in the morning. With a tender hush, a mysterious remembrance of our weaker and still sleeping brethren, we stole through the hotel, swallowed coffee, and issued forth with carriage and valet de place for a day's campaigning. As the functionary just mentioned had invented a hitherto unpatented language, supposed by him to present some points of advantage over the Queen's English, I will here, en passant , serve up a brief sample, for the study of those inc

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CAPRI.

CAPRI.

I have a fresh chapter of torment for a new Dante, if such an one could be induced to apply to me. I will not expatiate, nor exhale any Francesca episodes, any " Lasciate ogni spiranza! " I will be succinct and business-like, furnishing the outlines from which some more leisurely artist, better paid and employed, shall do his hell-painting. We leave enchanting Naples,—tear ourselves from our hotel, whose very impositions grow dear to us; the precious window, too, which shows the bay and Capri, a

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SORRENTO.

SORRENTO.

Ugh! after the roasting, hurried day at Capri, how delicious was the first morning's rest at Sorrento! The coral merchant came and went. We did not allow him to trouble us. They offered us the hotel asses; we did not engage them. The blue sea, the purple mountains, the green, rustling orange groves,—these were enough for us, pieced with the writing of these ragged notes, and a little dipping into our Horace, who, it must be confessed, goes lamely without a dictionary. A day of lights and shadows

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FLORENCE.

FLORENCE.

A week is little for the grandeurs of Florence, much for the discomforts of its summer weather. The last week of May, which we passed there, mistook itself for June, and governed itself accordingly. We went out as early as human weakness, unsubdued by special discipline, permitted. We struggled with church, gallery, painting, sculpture, and antiquities. We breathlessly read sensible books, guides, and catalogues, in the little intervals of our sight-seeing. We dropped at night, worn and greedy f

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VENICE.

VENICE.

Venice, which I seek to hold fast, is already a thing of yesterday. "Haste is of the devil," truly says the Koran, whose prophet yet knew its value. But the strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as those of the sword need swiftness. Strength goes with Time, and skill against him. Little of either had I after a night in the cars between Florence and Venice,—hot, dusty Florence, and cool, glassy Venice,—a night of starts and stops, morsels of sleep set in large frames of uneasy waking. The

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GREECE AND THE VOYAGE THITHER.

GREECE AND THE VOYAGE THITHER.

"in a transition state." We have left Venice. We have passed an intolerable night on board the Austrian steamer, whose state-rooms are without air, its cabin without quiet, and its deck without shelter. So inconvenient a transport, in these days of steamboat luxury, makes one laugh and wonder. Trieste, our stopping-place, is the strangest mongrel, a perfect cur of a city (cur-i-o-sity). It is neither Italian, Greek, nor German, but all three of these, and many more. The hotel servants speak Germ

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SYRA.

SYRA.

Mr. Evangelides was one of a number of youths brought to the United States, after the war of Greek independence, for aid and education. The latter was the chief endowment with which his adopted country returned him to his native land. The value of this gift he was soon to realize, though not without previous hardships and privations. After a year or two of trial, he commenced a school in Syra. This school was soon filled with pupils, and many intelligent and successful Greeks of the present day

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PIRÆUS—ATHENS.

PIRÆUS—ATHENS.

We were still soundly asleep when the cameriere knocked at the door of our cabin, crying, "Signora, here we are at the Piræus." The hour was four of the morning, but we were now come to the regions in which men use the two ends of the day, and throw away the middle. We, therefore, seized the end offered to us, and as briefly as possible made our way on deck, where we found a commissionaire from the Hotel des Etrangers, at Athens. We had expected to meet here the chief of our party, who had gone

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EXPEDITIONS—NAUPLIA.

EXPEDITIONS—NAUPLIA.

A few days of midsummer passed in Athens make welcome any summons that calls one out of it. Majestic as the past is, one likes to have its grim skeleton a little cushioned over by the æsthetic of the present, and, at the present season, this is not to be had, even in its poorest and cheapest forms. The heat, moreover, though tempered by healthful breezes, is yet of a kind and degree to tell heavily upon a northern constitution. To take exercise of any kind, between ten A. M. and six P. M., is un

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ARGOS.

ARGOS.

We found the prefect at the very maximum of excitement. Another telegram concerning the brigands, and yet another. Kitzos is closely beleaguered by peasants and gens-d'armes; he cannot get away. Another head will be brought in, and the country will be free of its scourge. With much jumping up and declaiming, our entertainer shared the morning meal with us. We feed the discontented servant, whose views of life appeared to be dismal, kissed the sweet-eyed children of the family, and, as a party, l

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EGINA.

EGINA.

We passed this night on board of the steamer, first supping luxuriously on deck, by the light of various lanterns fastened to the masts and bulwarks of the ship. The next morning saw us early awake and on foot to visit the Temple of Egina. The steamer came to anchor near the shore, and its boats soon conveyed us to land. We found on the shore two donkeys with pack-saddles, upon which two of us adventured to ascend the long and weary eminence. The temple is one of the most beautiful remains that

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DAYS IN ATHENS.

DAYS IN ATHENS.

O, there were many of them, each hotter and stiller than the other. All night we steamed and sleepily suffered beneath the mosquito-net. In the morning we arose betimes. We smiled to each other at breakfast, sighed at dinner, were dumb at tea-time. The whole long day held its flaming sword at our door. Sun-stroke and fever threatened us, should we cross the threshold. Visits were tame, and carriages expensive. For many days we sat still, doing little. This is what people call "being thrown upon

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EXCURSIONS.

EXCURSIONS.

To return to matters purely personal. I must not set down the heat and monotony of long days in Athens without stating also the per contras of freshness and enjoyment which have been paid in by various small undertakings and excursions. First among these I will mention a morning meeting under the columns of Jupiter Olympius. A small party of us, by appointment, started at five A. M., and reached the columns, some ten minutes later. They stand quite flatly on a large plain, lifting their Corinthi

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HYMETTUS.

HYMETTUS.

It happened that the next day was fixed upon for a visit to Hymettus, whose water is celebrated, as well as its honey. A certain monkless monastery on the side of the mountain receives travellers within its shady courts, and allows them to feed, rest, and amuse themselves according to their own pleasure. We started on this classic journey soon after five A. M., carrying with us a basket containing cold chicken, bread, and fruit. We filled one carriage; a party of friends accompanied us in anothe

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ITEMS.

ITEMS.

My remaining chronicles of Athens will be brief and simple—gleanings at large from the field of memory, whose harvests grow more uncertain as the memorizer grows older. In youth the die is new and sharp, and the impression distinct and clean cut. This sharpness of outline wears with age; all things observed give us more the common material of human life, less its individual features. In this point of view it may well be that I shall often speak of things trivial, and omit matters of greater impo

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THE PALACE.

THE PALACE.

Armed with a permit, and accompanied by a Greek friend, we walked, one bitter hot afternoon, to see the royal palace built by King Otho, it is said, out of his own appanage, or private income. As an investment even for his own ultimate benefit, he would have done much better in expending the money on some of the improvements so much needed in his capital. The salary of the King of Greece amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and this sum is sufficiently disproportionate to the slend

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THE CATHEDRAL.

THE CATHEDRAL.

In close juxtaposition with the state is the church. In America we have religious liberty. This does not mean that a man has morally the right to have no religion, but that the very nature of religion requires that he should hold his own convictions above the ordinances of others. The Greeks have religious liberty, whose idea is rather this, that people may believe much as they please, provided they adhere outwardly to the national church. The reason assigned for this is, that any change in the

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THE MISSIONARIES.

THE MISSIONARIES.

In the presence of the contradictions alluded to above, the position of the Greek church and of American Protestant missionaries becomes one of mutual delicacy and difficulty. The church allows religious liberty, and assumes religious tolerance. Yet it naturally holds fast its own children within its own borders. The Protestants are pledged to labor for the world's Christianization. When they see its progress opposed by antiquated usage and insufficient method, they cannot acquiesce in these obs

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THE PIAZZA.

THE PIAZZA.

Venice has a Piazza, gorgeous with shops, lights, music, and, above all, the joyous life of the people. Athens also has a Piazza, bordered with hotels and cafés, with a square of trees and flowering shrubs in the middle. It lies broadly open to the sun all day long, and gives back his rays with a torrid refraction. When day declines, the evening breezes sweep it refreshingly. Accordingly, as soon as the shadows permit, the spaces in front of the cafés—or, in Greek, cafféneions —are crowded with

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DEPARTURE.

DEPARTURE.

Too soon, too soon for all of us, these rare and costly delights were ended. We had indeed suffered days of Fahrenheit at 100° in the shade. We had made experience of states of body which are termed bilious, of states of mind more or less splenetic, lethargic, and irritable. We dreamed always of islands we were never to visit, of ruins which we shall know, according to the flesh, never. We pored over Muir and Miss Bremer, and feebly devised outbreaks towards the islands, towards the Cyclades, Sa

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RETURN VOYAGE.

RETURN VOYAGE.

To narrate the circumstances of our return voyage would seem much like descending from the poetic dénouement of a novel to all the prosaic steps by which the commonplace regains its inevitable ascendency after no matter what abdication in favor of the heroic. Yet, as travel is travel, whether outward or inward bound, and as our homeward cruise had features, I will try, with the help of the diary, to pick them out of the vanishing chaos of memory, premising only that I have no further dénouement

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FARTHER.

FARTHER.

Corfu was the last of Greece to us. A tightening at our heartstrings told us so. We consented to depart, but conquered the agony of making farewell verses, dear at any price, in the then state of the thermometer. Our feelings, such as they were, were mutely exchanged with the bronze statue of that late governor, who brought the water into the town. Unless he should prove as frisky as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, they will never be divulged. We now set our faces, in conjunction with the tide

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FRAGMENTS.

FRAGMENTS.

Up to the point last reached, my jottings down had been made with tolerable regularity. Living is so much more rapid than writing, that an impossible babe, who should begin his diary at his birth, would be sure to have large arrears between that period and the day of his death, however indefatigable he might be in his recording. A man cannot live his life and write it too; hence the work that men who live much leave to their biographers. So, of the space that here intervened between Trieste and

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FLYING FOOTSTEPS.

FLYING FOOTSTEPS.

The journey which we now commenced was too rapid to allow of more than the briefest record of its route. The breathlessness of haste, and the number of things to be seen and visited, left no time for writing up on the subjects suggested by the meagre notes of the diary. To the latter, therefore, I am forced to betake myself, piecing its fragmentary statements, where I can do so, from memory. Tuesday, August 6. Started with vetturino for Innspruck, via Brenner pass. A splendid day's journey. Stop

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MUNICH.

MUNICH.

Our two days in Munich were characterized by the most laborious sight-seeing. A week, even in our rapid scale of travelling, would not have been too much for this gorgeous city. We gave what we had, and cannot give a good account of it. My first visit was to the Pinakothek, which I had thoroughly explored some twenty-three years earlier, when the galleries of Italy and the Louvre were unknown to me. Coming now quite freshly from Venice, with Rome and Florence still recent in my experience, I fou

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SWITZERLAND.

SWITZERLAND.

Travelling in Switzerland is now become so common and conventional as to invite little comment, except from those who remain in the country long enough to study out scientific and social questions, which the hasty traveller has not time to entertain in even the most cursory matter. I confess, for one, that I was content to be enchanted with the wonderful beauty which feasts the eye without intermission. I was willing to believe that the mountains had done for this people all that they should hav

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THE GREAT EXPOSITION.

THE GREAT EXPOSITION.

It would be unfair to American journalism not to suppose that all possible information concerning the Great Exposition has already been given to the great republic. There have doubtless been quires upon quires of brilliant writing devoted to that absorbing theme. Columns from the most authentic sources have been commanded and paid for. American writing is rich in epithets, and we may suppose that all the adjective splendors have been put in requisition to aid imagination to take the place of sig

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PICTURES IN ANTWERP.

PICTURES IN ANTWERP.

As you cannot, with rare exceptions, see Raphael out of Italy, so, I should almost say, you cannot see Rubens and Vandyck out of Belgium. This is especially true of the former; for one does, I confess, see marvellous portraits of Vandyck's in Genoa and in other places. But one judges a painter best by seeing a group of his best works, which show his sphere of thought with some completeness. A single sentence suffices to show the great poet; but no one will assume that a sentence will give you to

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