Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators

Elbert Hubbard

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• Publié par: zyal
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7, by Elbert Hubbard This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators Author: Elbert Hubbard Release Date: December 7, 2007 [EBook #23761] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Annie McGuire and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators by Elbert Hubbard Memorial Edition New York 1916. CONTENTS PERICLES MARK ANTONY SAVONAROLA MARTIN LUTHER EDMUND BURKE WILLIAM PITT JEAN PAUL MARAT ROBERT INGERSOLL PATRICK HENRY STARR KING HENRY WARD BEECHER WENDELL PHILLIPS PERICLES When we agreed, O Aspasia! in the beginning of our loves, to communicate our thoughts by writing, even while we were both in Athens, and when we had many reasons for it, we little foresaw the more powerful one that has rendered it necessary of late. We never can meet again: the laws forbid it, and love itself enforces them. Let wisdom be heard by you as imperturbably, and affection as authoritatively, as ever; and remember that the sorrow of Pericles can rise but from the bosom of Aspasia. There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we have not said oftentimes before; and there is no consolation in it. The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell. And now at the close of my day, when every light is dim and every guest departed, let me own that these wane before me, remembering, as I do in the pride and fulness of my heart, that Athens confided her glory, and Aspasia her happiness, to me. Have I been a faithful guardian? Do I resign them to the custody of the gods, undiminished and unimpaired? Welcome then, welcome, my last hour! After enjoying for so great a number of years, in my public and private life, what I believe has never been the lot of any other, I now extend my hand to the urn, and take without reluctance or hesitation that which is the lot of all. —Pericles to Aspasia PERICLES Once upon a day there was a grocer who lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. The grocer's name being Heinrich Schliemann, his nationality can be inferred; and as for pedigree, it is enough to state that his ancestors did not land at either Plymouth or Jamestown. However, he was an American citizen. Now this grocer made much moneys, for he sold groceries as were, and had a feed-barn, a hay-scales, a sommer-garten and a lunch-counter. In fact, his place of business was just the kind you would expect a strenuous man by the name of Schliemann to keep. Soon Schliemann had men on the road, and they sold groceries as far west as Peoria and as far east as Xenia. Schliemann grew rich, and the opening up of Schliemann's Division, where town lots were sold at auction, and Anheuser-Busch played an important part, helped his bank-balance not a little. Schliemann grew rich: and the gentle reader being clairvoyant, now sees Schliemann weighed on his own hay-scales—and wanting everything in sight—tipping the beam at part of a ton. The expectation is that Schliemann will evolve into a large oval satrap, grow beautifully boastful and sublimely reminiscent, representing his Ward in the Common Council until pudge plus prunes him off in his prime. But this time the reader is wrong: Schliemann was tall, slender and reserved, also taciturn. Groceries were not the goal. In fact, he had interests outside of Indianapolis, that few knew anything about. When Schliemann was thirty-eight years old he was worth half a million dollars; and instead of making his big business still bigger, he was studying Greek. It was a woman and Eros taught Schliemann Greek, and this was so letters could be written—dictated by Eros, who they do say is an awful dictator—that would not be easily construed by Hoosier "hoi polloi." Together the woman and Schliemann studied the history of Hellas. About the year Eighteen Hundred Sixty-eight Schliemann turned all of his Indiana property into cash; and in April, Eighteen Hundred Seventy, he was digging in the hill of Hissarlik, Troad. The same faculty of thoroughness, and the ability to captain a large business—managing men to his own advantage, and theirs —made his work in Greece a success. Schliemann's discoveries at Mount Athos, Mycenæ, Ithaca and Tiryns turned a searchlight upon prehistoric Hellas and revolutionized prevailing ideas concerning the rise and the development of Greek Art. His Trojan treasures were presented to the city of Berlin. Had Schliemann given his priceless findings to Indianapolis, it would have made that city a Sacred Mecca for all the Western World—set it apart, and caused James Whitcomb Riley to be a mere side-show, inept, inconsequent, immaterial and insignificant. But alas! Indianapolis never knew Schliemann when he lived there—they thought he was a Dutch Grocer! And all the honors went to Benjamin Harrison, Governor Morton and Thomas A. Hendricks. If the Indiana Novelists would cease their dalliance with Dame Fiction and turn to Truth, writing a simple record of the life of Schliemann, it would eclipse in strangeness all the Knighthoods that ever were in Flower, and Ben Hur would get the flag in his Crawfordsville chariot-race for fame. Berlin gave the freedom of the city to Schliemann; the Emperor of Germany bestowed on him a Knighthood; the University voted him a Ph. D.; Heidelberg made him a D. C. L.; and Saint Petersburg followed with an LL. D. The value of the treasure, now in the Berlin Museum, found by Schliemann exceeds by far the value of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. We know, and have always known, who built the Parthenon and crowned the Acropolis; but not until Schliemann had by faith and good works removed the mountain of Hissarlik, did we know that the Troy, of which blind Homer sang, was not a figment of the poet's brain. Schliemann showed us that a thousand years before the age of Pericles there was a civilization almost as great. Aye! more than this—he showed us that the ancient city of Troy was built upon the ruins of a city that throve and pulsed with life and pride, a thousand years or more before