The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-05-06


croft. Had there been no Sophocles in
tragedy, there would have been no
Shakespeare. Had there been no Ho-
mer, there would have been no Milton.
The modern wits. who are now or have |
been out on the divine mission of maxi
ing the world laugh at the right time, |
can be traced back to Aristophanes, |
the Athenian and many of the jocosi- |
ties that are now taken as new had
their suggestions $500 years ago in
the 81 comedies of that master of
merriment. Grecian mythology has
been the richest mine from which ora
tors and essayists have drawn their
illustrations and painters the themes
for their canvas, and although now an
exhausted mine, Grecian mythology has
done a work that nothing else could
have accomplished: Boreas, represent
ing the north wind; Sisyphus, rolling
the stone up the hill, only to have the
same thing to do over again; Tantalus.
with fruits above him that he could not
reach: Achilles, with his arrows; lear
us, with his waxen wings, flying too
near the sun; the Centaurs, half man
and half beast; Orpheus, with his
| lvre; Atlas, with the world on his
back, all these and more have helped
| literature, from the graduates speech
on commencement day to Rufus Coates
eulogium on Daniel Webster at Dart
mouth. Tragedy and comedy were born
in the festivals of Dionysius at Athens.
The lyric and elegiac and epic poetry
of Greece 500 years before Christ has
it's echoes in the Tennysons, Longfel-
lows, and Bryants of 1900 and 1900 years
after Christ. There is not an effective
pulpit or editorial chair or professors
room or cultured parlor or Intelligent
farm house to-day in America or Eu-
rope that could not appropriately en-
ploy Paul's ejaculation and say: Il am
| debtor to the Greeks.
The fact is this, Paul h ad got much
of his oratorical power of expression
from the Greeks. That he had studied
their literature was evident, when
standing in the presence of an audience
of Greek scholars on Mars hill, which
overlooks Athens, he dared to quote
from one of their own Greek poets,
either Cleanthus or Aratus, de-
claring: ''As certain also of your OWL
poets have said, for we are also His
offspring'' And he made accurate
quotation, Cleanthus, one of the poets
having written:
For we Thine offspring are. All things that
creep
Are but the echo of the voice Divine.
And Aratus, one of their own poets
had written:
Doth care perplex9 Is lowering danger nigh
We are His offspring, and to Jove we fly.
1t was rather a risky thing for Pau
/ to attempt to quote extemporaneously
: from poem in a language foreign t.
his. and before Greek scholars, bu
| Paul did it without stammering, ant
then acknowledged before the mos
t distinguished audience on the plane
/ his indebtedness to the Greeks, cryin!
out in his oration: ''As one of your owl
r poets has said"
f Furthermore, all the civilized world
t like Paul. is indebted to the Greeks TO
: architecture. The world before tn
S time of the Greeks had built mono
S liths, obelisks, cromlechs, sphinxes an
: pyramids but they were mostly mont
r mental to the dead whom they faile
|, to memorialize. We are not certai
e even of the names of those in who's
n commemoration the pyramids wer
n built. But Greek architure did mo:
d for the living. Ignoring Egyptia
S prccedents, and borrowing nothin
l. from other nations, Greek archite
d ture carved it's own columns, sets /
t. own pediments, adjusted its own e1
n tablatures, rounded it's own molding
D and carried out as never before tt
le three qualities of right building, callt
If by an old author ''firmitas, utilita
le venustas" namely, tirmness. usefr
10 ness. beauty. Although the Parthent
e, on the Acropolis of Athens is only
ID wreck of the storms and earthquak
S? and bembardments of many centurie
lg and although Lord Elgin took from O.
to side of that building, at an expen
Id of $3.50. 900, two ship loads of scul
e. ture. one ship load going doV
ne in the Mediterranean and t
od other ship load now to be found in
OF British museum, the Parthenon, thou
n in comparative ruins, has been an
I'M spiration to all architects
ut centuries past, and will be an
ID. spiration all the time from now un
ell the world itself is a temple ruin. {
de that Parthenon! One never gets o'
OIL having once seen 1t. But what must
en- have been when it stood as its architec
at Ikitnos and Killikrates, built it out
ip- Pentellcan marble, white as Mor
nd Blanc at MONDAY, and as overwhel
lat ing? Height above height. Overt
sas ping the august and majestic pile,
IN, rising from it's roof was statue
AL Pallas Promachus in bronze, SO tall {
cd. flashing that sailors far out at sea
ks held the plume of her helmet w
og- out the aid of the Eternal God
en- never would have been planned,
tel without the aid of God the chisels
ad- trowels never could have construt
sci it. There is not fine church build
lit in all the world, or properly-t
the structed courthouse, or beautiful
the gallery, or an appropriate auditori
ave or tasteful home, which, becaus
in that Parthenon, whether it's style
un- some other style be adopted, is no
lied rectlv or indirectly debtor to