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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
159
It
is
idle
to
talk
to
us
of
"the
Greeks."
The
people
we
mean
when
so
naming
them
were
a
few
little
communities,
living
under
very
peculiar
conditions,
and
endowed
by
Nature
with
most
exceptional
characteristics.
The
sporadic
civilization
which
we
are
too
much
in
the
habit
of
regarding
as
if
it
had
been
no
less
stable
than
brilliant,
was
a
succession
of
the
briefest
splendours,
gleaming
here
and
there
from
the
coasts
of
the
Aegean
to
those
of
the
western
Mediterranean.
Our
heritage
of
Greek
literature
and
art
is
priceless;
the
example
of
Greek
life
possesses
for
us
not
the
slightest
value.
The
Greeks
had
nothing
alien
to
study--not
even
a
foreign
or
a
dead
language.
They
read
hardly
at
all,
preferring
to
listen.
They
were
a
slave-holding
people,
much
given
to
social
amusement,
and
hardly
knowing
what
we
call
industry.
Their
ignorance
was
vast,
their
wisdom
a
grace
of
the
gods.
Together
with
their
fair
intelligence,
they
had
grave
moral
weaknesses.
If
we
could
see
and
speak
with
an
average
Athenian
of
the
Periclean
age,
he
would
cause
no
little
disappointment--there
would
be
so
much
more
of
the
barbarian
in
him,
and
at
the
same
time
of
the
decadent,
than
we
had
anticipated.
More
than
possibly,
even
his
physique
would
be
a
disillusion.
Leave
him
in
that
old
world,
which
is
precious
to
the
imagination
of
a
few,
but
to
the
business
and
bosoms
of
the
modern
multitude
irrelevant
as
Memphis
or
Babylon.
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