Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/72

 fight."—"Alcibiades, can’t you sit still?"—"Socrates, put down the cup."—"Oh, fie! Aspasia, don’t. Oh! don’t be naughty!” It is true that the names were pronounced Socrahtie, Aspahsie—that is, according to accent, and not according to quantity—but I suppose it is scarcely now to be doubted that they were so sounded in ancient times.

To me it seems, that of all the lands I know (you will see in a minute how I connect this piece of prose’ with the isle of Cyprus), there is none in which mere wealth, mere unaided wealth, is held half so cheaply; none in which a poor devil of a millionaire, without birth, or ability, occupies so humble a place as in England. My Greek host and I were sitting together, I think, upon the roof of the house (for that is the lounging-place in Eastern climes), when the former assumed a serious air, and intimated a wish to converse upon the subject of the British Constitution, with which he assured me that he was thoroughly acquainted. He presently, however, informed me that there was one anomalous circumstance attended upon the practical working of our political system which he had never been able to hear explained in a manner satisfactory to himself. From the fact of his having found a difficulty in his subject, I began to think that my host might really know rather more of it than his announcement of a thorough knowledge had led me to expect. I felt interested at being about to hear from the lips of an intelligent Greek, quite remote from the influence of European opinions, what might seem to him the most astonishing and incomprehensible of all those results which have followed from the action of our political institutions. The anomaly, the only anomaly which had been detected by the vice-consular wisdom, consisted in the fact that Rothschild (the late money-monger) had never been the Prime Minister of England! I gravely tried to throw some light upon the mysterious causes that had kept the worthy Israelite out of the Cabinet, but I think I could see that my explanation was not satisfactory. Go and argue with the flies of summer that there is a power divine, yet greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince the people of the south that there is any other God than Gold.