The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-11
IS NOT A PLEASANT PLACE.
IF IT DOES NOT RAIN THE WIND
 BLOWS CLOUDS OF DUST.

Athens ThereforeIs Not q Most Desirab,G (
 Place in Which Tourist Can Reside
 Complete and Exhaustive Guide Book Ii
 Needed in That Famous Old City.
 Athens, Feb. IT, 1895.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER
 During the last week Athens has not
 been a pleasant place of sojourn. When
 it hasn't rained the west wind has swept
 up clouds of dust in the streets and has
 made standing upright on the Metropolis
 difficult, where just now council of
 the most eminent architects of Europe
 are examining the shaking done by time
 and the late earthquakes to the wes- tern front of the Parthenon. It would
 be pity to prop, but propping may be necessary. It would be delightful to be
 present when the architects confer,
 and to hear their views but it is said that they will not even admit the king
 to their deliberations. That masses of J stone have lately fallen every one can
 see; and that one of these days the
 whole structure must fall is evident. No humanly erected edifice can survive
 time if the time be sufficient ly extended. Still many generations to come will enjoy the Parthenon; will pro- claim if the one thing in all Europe
 best worth visit will be thrilled by it's mysterious beauty; awed by it's harmonious sublimity; charmed and in spired by it's revelations. It is wonder ful how day after day; dull, heavy peo- pie, people who have never had an idea beyond money making; women whose time, thoughts and tasks have been filled with children, cooks, nurses, clothes and gossip, are transigured, soul and body by one visit to the Acropolis. The miracle is performed daily. Nearly ev- cry one can take part in it, They re- turn quietly. They are silent for long while; then modestly they try to con- lvey some of the blessed things they have learned and felt, not knowing yet | that words are inadequate to express the change they have experienced. They will come back to Athens whenever they can, Everybody will who has once | felt its beauty.
 To return to ~practicalities this rainy day, Athens needs a complete and ex- haustive guide book, book that would give all the established facts of archaeo- logical research up to date; book free from theories, controversy and senti- ment; a plain setting forth of the an tiquitles as they exist, with only such historic explanations as are necessary to an understanding of their condition. The American school with it's teachers and students could do nothing better than devote itself to the production of such a volume. There would have to be a new edition every now and then, but knowledge of things has reached such a point that changes are few and slow New theories are springing up all the while, but most of them die out like pretentious weeds. The book should be small. compact, and abundantly sup piled with maps, plans and views, and should have all the valuable and i'm portant inscriptions given in facsimile, reduced to classic writing, and trans lated. The English Murray" and the French 'Ioanfieh are out of date, while Baedeken only gives the facts and in formation needed by superficial and hurried tourist Until the desired guide appears the student Is obliged to dig his information out of French and Ger man periodicals, or to satisfy himself with Miss Harrisons Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, Mac-l milan & Co.,, 1890, and Percy Gardinerss8 New Chapters in Greek History, John Murray, 1892
 Miss Harrison Is a woman to begin | with; which means a person devoid of the historical instincts of beauty and l order, and incapable of subordinating l Individuality to subject. Three-quar- | ters of her large five-dollar volume are taken up with the exposition of her | own peculiar spinster views of Athenian | mythology, a subject about which the | ordinary man would prefer to consult | Smiths dictionaries. The other quarter | is apparently made of notes from Dorp- | feld's unpublished lectures. Miss Har- rison states that Dorpfeld not only per- mitted the publication, but that he also her proof. In that case Dorp- field is not to be recommended to au- thors as a proof reader The book how ever, contains valuable information and references which are not to be had from any other source till Dorpfeld chooses to print.
 Dorpfeld is a very close student of Pausanias and seems to be especially in substantiating his state ments. In no other way can one ac- count for Dorpfeld's strange notion that the old temple on Acropolis, part of the of the stylobate of which Is actually under the Erechtheum, was erected by the Greeks after the Persia war with the exception of the stylobate. Even the restoration of ancient edifices Is so opposed to Greek genius and cus- tom that it is utterly impossible to con- ceive of their re-erecting a temple with the stylobate left off. You would nave to suppose them also caDable of erecting such a superb bit of architec- .ecture as the portico of the caryatides within a few feet of a blank waill Miss Harrison not only swallows Dorpfeld's notion, but goes him one better by endeavoring to prove that the emple was not only erected but was tanding when Pausanias wrote, some ix hundred years after, and that he not ,nly saw, but entered it. This is no