The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1897-04-02

or have been out on the divine mission
uf making the world laugh at the right
time. can be traced back to Aristo-
planes. the Athenian, and many of the
iocosities that are now taken a new
had their suggestions $500 years ago
in the "a 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, rep
resenting 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;
Iearus, with his waxen wings, flying
too near the sun; the Centaurs. half
man and half beast; Orpheus. with his
Tyre; 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 its echoes in the Tennysons,
Longfellows and Bryants of 1900 and
1900 years after Christ. There is not
Il
professors room or cultured parlOr or
intelligent farmhouse to-day in Amer
lea or Europe that could not appropri-
ately employ PauIs ejaculation and
say. Il am debtor to the Greeks"
Furthermore. all the civilized world,
like Paul. is indebted to the Greeks for
architecture. The world before the
time of the Greeks had built monoliths.
Obelisks, cromlechs. sphynxes and pyra-
mids, but they Were mostly mOnu-
mental to the dead whom they failed
to memorabilia. We are not certain
even of the names of those in whose
cOmmemoration the pyramids were
built. But Greek architecture did most
for the living. Ignoring Egyptian
presidents. and borrowing nothing
from other nations, Greek architecture
carved its own columns. set its own
pediments. adjusted its own entabla-
lures, rounded its own holdings. and
carried out as never before the three
qualities of right building. called by
an old author ''firmitas. utilitas. venus
tas." namely, firmness. usefulness.
beauty. Although the Pantheon on
the Acropolis of Athens is only a wreck
of the storms and earthquakes and
bOmbardments of many centuries, and
although Lord Elgin took from one
side of that building, at an expense of
$3.50, 600, two ship loads of sculp-
ture, one ship load going down
in the Mediterranean and the
other ship load now to be found in the
British museum. the ParthenOn. though
in comparative ruins. has been an in
spiratiOn to all architects for centuries
past. and will be an inspiration all the
time from now until the world itself is
temple ruin. Oh, that ParthenOn,
One never gets over having once seen
it. But what must it have been when
it stood as its architects. Ikitnos and
Killikrates. built it out of Pentelican
marble, white as Mont Blanc at noon
day, and as overwhelming. Height
above height. Overlapping the august
and majestic pile. and rising from its
roof was a statue of Pallas Promachus
in bronze, so tall and flashing that sail
ors far out at sea beheld the plume of
her helmet. Without the aid of the
Il far nj .
planned. and without the aid of God
the chisels and trowels never could
have constructed it. There is not
fine church building in all the world. !
or a properly constructed courthouse, |
or beautiful art gallery. or an appro-
pirate auditorium, or a tasteful home, |
which, because of that ParthenOn, |
its style or some other style |
be adopted, is not directly or indirect
" debtor to the Greeks.
But there is another art in nv mind |
the most fascinating. elevating and
inspiring of all arts. and the nearest
TO the divine-for which all the world
owes a debt to the Hellenes that will
never be paid. | mean sculpture. At
east $50 years before Christ the Greeks
the human face and form
n terra Gotta and marble What a
blessing to the human family that men
Ind women, nightly useful, who could
i've only within century may be per-
for five or six or ten centuries.
How / wish that some sculptor.
ontemporaneous with Christ, could
lave put His matchless form in
narblel But for every grand and
xquisite statue of Martin Luther.
# John Knox, of William Penn. of
Thomas Chalmers, of Wellington, of
or any of the great states
men or emancipators or conquerors
Who adOrn your parks or fill the inches
# your academies, you are debtors to
he Greeks They covered the Aero
'olis, they glorifed the temples. they
dorned the cemeteries with statues.
ONE in cedar, some IN ivory. some in
liver, some in gold, some in size di-
linutive and some in size colossal.
hanks to Phidias, who worked in | {
tone; to Clearchus, who worked in |
rome; to DOntas, who worked in I
old, and to all ancient chisels of com
atiOOf No ron | =