MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
MONG the varied feelings aroused in us by the master- pieces of art or nature is the feeling of surprise. We believe that we remember perfectly some admired pic- ture or poem and that we can recall with entire accuracy the shape and colour of some landscape that has held us entranced. Yet always, when we return to the originals, the contrast between the thing itself and our own recollection of it occasions a shock of surprise. It may be that the test of the value to ourselves of those natural or artificial objects which we prefer over others is whether, when we see them again, we are conscious that our recognition of them is a startled recognition; that we are surprised to find in them something that we had either forgotten, or not observed, before. If, on seeing again some place or object that has moved us in the past, we exclaim no more than " How nice to see that again," then we can be sure that our sensibilities are becoming blunted or that the admired place or object has exhausted the stimulus that it was once able to exert; that, in other words, it was not really as good as we first felt. I have, for instance, paid frequent visits to Greece, since of all foreign countries it is the one that I prefer. On February afternoons in London I will close my eyes in order to evoke the shimmer of Greek islands and pursue my pavement path towards the Kensington Underground, spell- bound, like Lord Byron, among the clustering Cyclades. Yet always when I return here (and I am writing this article in the train with Mount Olympus swimming in the sky beside me) I have the sensation of constant surprise. It is not only that Greek scenery, with its quick alternation of contrasts, arouses astonishment: it is also that, each time that one comes here, Greece seems different from the place one had remembered.
* * * * What I enjoy so much about the Greek scene is the abrupt- ness with which it changes. A lime-stone gorge, with cistus and sage tangled above the torrent, will stop suddenly and be followed by a vast plain, the limit of which, where it.reaches the next range of mountains, is as straight as a horizon. The sea, which until a few moment ago was glistening to the east, its light blue scudded with dark blue squalls, its white horses dancing sharply under a sharp morning sun, is swept from our sight by the sudden lunge of a promontory : almost immediately a quite different sea glides into our vision from the west, calm as a lagoon. The rocks that soar above the Vale of Tempe (through which I am at this moment passing) are jagged, bare and flecked with snow; far below them hurries the amber river, past the big plane trees on the bank, past the willows already green; around grow terebinth- and myrtle, clematis and jasmine, and clumps of euphorbia lush and yellow in the gorge's shade. The mind is filled with visions of giants assaulting Olympus, with Pelion and Ossa as their siege-engines; of Poseidon cleaving the range with a faint touch of his trident; of Apollo descending with serene eyes to calm such savage legends; of Cicero even, bidding the slaves rest his litter beside this running water, welcoming the stream of frigida Tempe after the fierce heat of the journey from Larissa. Two Greek engineers in my compartment, who until now have been dis- cussing with bitter stridency some hydro-electric scheme in the . Vardar valley, stop • talking suddenly and start to play backgammon. They rattle the neatest little dice and slowly, between brown finger and broken thumb, they move pieces from one section of the board to another. The click of ivory accompanies me across the Thessalian plain. It will be dark before we pass the lion of Chaeronea or enter the defiles of Cithaeron, where Pentheus was murdered, and the ladies of the Court of Thebes dipped into the wine that Dionysus gave them the resin of the pine-cones on their wands.
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The differences that delight me when I return to Greece are partly due to the fact that I have had the good fortune to visit the country at different seasons of the year. In summer even the children wear enormous sun-spectacles, the pepper trees that fringe the boulevards of Athens hang their pods in dusty despair, and the Ilissus—never one of Europe's mightiest rivers—ceases even to be a trickle seeping in an open drain. It is then that the unvintaged sea really comes into its own. In autumn, the morning and evening air is golden, and at sunset Hymettus glows above the Acropolis and the town with incomparable radiations of pink and amethyst and purple. I have never quite seen why Aristophanes, who could himself be sentimental enough, should have jeered at Pindar for calling Athens " violet-crowned "; or why later scholars have insisted that the epithet did not apply to Hymettus at sunset, but to the practice, at the time of the vernal Dionysia, of twining the wands with violet sprays. Hymettus, in a clear October sun- set, is enough to set even a Theban heart aflame. But perhaps the best of all seasons is the month of March, when the snow rests upon the lower mountains also, when the poplars are just beginning to be tinged with green, and when the anemones, the grape hyacinths, the scillas, the tulips, the dwarf irises and the scented narcissus cluster in companies together around the drifts of pink cyclamen. Around them splash the rivulets released by the quick-melting snow.
There is, however, one natural element in Greece which always surprises me with its immutability : the Greek national character. No nation on earth has, within the last half century, endured such terrible calamities. Since 1897 the Greeks have experienced six major wars, four foreign invasions, two civil wars—the first distracting, the second fiercely destruc- tive—all manner of coups d'etat and pronunciamientos, several revolts, three serious revolutions, and a succession of economic catastrophes such as would have shattered any weaker breed. Their villages have been burnt and their children kidnapped; the most frightful murders have been com- mitted; yet here they are, their railways working splendidly, their roads repaired, their merchant navy almost restored to its pre-war prosperity, starting to argue passionately again whether more might not be done with American aid to canalise the waters of the Vardar. We all know that the Greeks are very brave; we all know that they are highly intelligent; but it is their astonishing resilience that, more than any. other quality, compels my deep respect. Along the line that runs from Salonika to Athens a few block-houses and military posts still remain from the civil war. The soldiers have amused them- selves in their spare moments by marking out in white-washed stones the battle-honours of their regiments. Victories against the Bulgarians in Macedonia, victories against the Turks in Thrace, victories against the Albanians in Illyria, victories against the Italians in Northern Epirus; but these lists, starring the mountain-side with the motto " Long Live the King !' ", always begin with three lapidary' names —" Marathon," " Salamis," Plataea." No, I am certain that I could not really like anybody who did not really like the Greeks.
* How insatiable, how Socratic, is their curiosity ! The two men in my compartment finished their backgammon and began all over again to get angry with each other about the Vardar valley. The light tinkle of the luncheon-bell prevented a con- flict. They seated themselves amicably at my table in the restaurant-car. Was I English or French ? Was I married ? Did I still live with my wife ? Had I any children ? Had they entered a profession ? Was I rich or poor ? What was the amount of my yearly income ? Did I, like most English- men, suffer from weak kidneys ? What did I think of Marshal Papagos ? Did I know that Amphikleia was the source of the Cephisus ? What had I been scribbling while they were playing backgammon ? Would I read it aloud to them in French when we got back to the compartment ? And (if I did not mind their asking so personal a question) did I like Greece ?
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