I believe that one-third out of the
number of days in the year are "kept holy," or rather, KEPT STUPID,
in honour of the saints; no great portion of the time thus set
apart is spent in religious exercises, and the people don't betake
themselves to any such animating pastimes as might serve to
strengthen the frame, or invigorate the mind, or exalt the taste.
On the contrary, the saints' days of the Greeks in Smyrna are
passed in the same manner as the Sabbaths of well-behaved
Protestant housemaids in London--that is to say, in a steady and
serious contemplation of street scenery. The men perform this duty
AT THE DOORS of their houses, the women AT THE WINDOWS, which the
custom of Greek towns has so decidedly appropriated to them as the
proper station of their sex, that a man would be looked upon as
utterly effeminate if he ventured to choose that situation for the
keeping of the saints' days. I was present one day at a treaty for
the hire of some apartments at Smyrna, which was carried on between
Carrigaholt and the Greek woman to whom the rooms belonged.
Carrigaholt objected that the windows commanded no view of the
street. Immediately the brow of the majestic matron was clouded,
and with all the scorn of a Spartan mother she coolly asked
Carrigaholt, and said, "Art thou a tender damsel that thou wouldst
sit and gaze from windows?" The man whom she addressed, however,
had not gone to Greece with any intention of placing himself under
the laws of Lycurgus, and was not to be diverted from his views by
a Spartan rebuke, so he took care to find himself windows after his
own heart, and there, I believe, for many a month, he kept the
saints' days, and all the days intervening, after the fashion of
Grecian women.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79