The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1908-11-19
THE WURLD OF HOMER.
Vim. III, Irish,
county Judge.

Ancient Idea of the Earth and Its Mar"
gin Of Water.
Let us consider for one moment what
the idea of the world was-not. indeed,
at the earliest period of which we
have any knowledge. but at the dawn
of written history or of written history
among that Indo-Germanic people
whose descendants have o~verspread so
much of the earth. The world of Ho-
mer was a small. fiat surface, in which
civilization was hemmed in by foreign
races, who again were surrounded by
q great ocean or river vel which no
man had ever passed. The world of
which Homer had any definite notion
was Greece-a Greece which hardly
extended as far as the Balkans on the
north and which scarcely included the
Levant and the islands in the Aegean
sea. No doubt he had some general ac-
quaintance with a world beyond these
narrow limits. He knew, at any rate,
some of the leading features of north
ern Africa. He had heard, as was only
natural, of Egypt. whose civilization
had made such marked advances and
was exercising so much influence. He
had some knowledge of the great river
on whose recurring floods Egypt de-
ponds for her prosperity. He had ever
heard of the pygmies and of the Ethto-
plans who dwelt higher up its stream.
Some reports had reached him OF
southern Italy. But it is hopeless to
attempt TO fit the geography Of Homer
60 the actual facts. II a man were to
search today for the precise spot on
which Captain Lemuel CULVER was
wrecked in the first of his famous vOy-
ages he would find that the Lilliput of
Swift was In the heart Of Australia,
and much in the same way, to quote
Mr.. Gladstone's language, "the key to
the great contrast between the outer
geography (Of Homer) and the facts Of
nature lies in the belief Of Homer that
a great sea occupied the space where
we know the heart of the European
continent to lie."
1t is another indication of the. small
ness of Homer's world that the ten
years war, of which he has given IS
the concluding. episode, was not. as
even Herodotus has described 1t. one
Of the opening chapters of the great
struggle which has endured throughout.
historic times between east and west,
but a contest between men Of common
origin. 1t is not a mere poetical H.
n which makes Greeks and Ro-
mans address one another in the same
language. Yet the world Of Homer.
small as 1t seems to us, seemed large
to him. Compared with the mighty
oceans which men now ira verse the
Mediterranean is but a little landlocked
sea. The Mediterranean of the "Iliad"
was only the Aegean. yet for Homer it
had terrOrs which the Atlantic has not
for Sir Spencer Walpole in Con
temporary Review.
=. Moving Appeal.
He was a motherless boy and his
| fathers only child, but some of the
relatives had decided that he should
be sent to Il boys school fifty miles
from home, and at last the father
had agreed to the plan.
Forty-eight hours after his boys
departure the father received a let.
ter, which was, although not fault
less as an example of spelling, so
much to the point and so in accord
with his own feelings that the plans
for the future were speedily read
justed.
"Dear father" wrote the exile,
cts all right here, and Pm not
homesick, I believe, but life is very
short, and don't you think you'd
better let us spend some more of it
together? Your affectionate son,
Thomas"