Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2De Quincey, Thomas
History
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays -- 19th century
that conchologists, butterfly-fanciers, &c.,
are unusually prone to commit felonies, because too little of a human
interest circulates through their arid pursuits. The morbid irritation
accumulates until the amateur rushes, out with a knife, lets blood in
some quarter, and so restores his own connection with the vitalities
of human nature. In any case, we advise the Greek tourist to have at
least two strings to his bow besides scenery.
III.--Is it, then, the monuments of the antique, the memorials of
Pericles and Phidias, which a man should seek in Greece? If so, no
great use in going beyond Athens. Because, though more solemn images
survive in other places, associated with powers more mysterious and
ages more remote, as the gate of Lions at Mycense, or the relics yet
standing (and perhaps to stand for ever) of Cyclopian cities, forms
of art that for thousands of years have been dying away through dimness
of outlines and vegetable overgrowth into forms of nature--yet in
Athens only is there a great open museum of such monuments. The Athenian
buildings, though none of them Homeric in point of origin, are old
enough for us. Two-and-a-half millennia satisfy our grovelling
aspirations. And Mr. Mure himself, whilst insisting on their too
youthful character, admits that they are 'superior in number, variety,
and elegance to those which the united cities of Greece can now show.'
Yet even these pure monuments have been combined with modern
aftergrowths, as in the case of the Propylyoea, of which multitudes
doubt [Mr. Mure in particular] whether they can now be detached from
the connection with effect. For more reasons than one, it will, perhaps,
be advisable to leave them in their present condition, and that is as
hybrid as the population. But, with respect to Athenian buildings, it
strikes our feelings--that finish and harmony are essential conditions
to their effect. Ruins are becoming to Gothic buildings--decay is there
seen in a graceful form; but to an Attic building decay is more
expressive of disease--it is scrofula; it is phagedoenic ulcer. And
unless the Bavarian government can do more than is now held out or
hoped, towards the restoration and _disengagement_ of the public
buildings surmounting the city, we doubt whether there will not be as
much of pain as of an artist's pleasure in a visit to the Athenian
capital, though now raised to the rank of metropolis for universal
Greece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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