Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

DOMESTIC LIFE 173and finger-nails tinted with henna. They havevanished with the Turks, and Greece knows themno more. And, let it be said here, that Athenianladies are the best- dressed women in the NearEast. They dress elegantly and quietly and withjudgment. They are not given to the dazzlinghues to which their sisters in Constantinople andSmyrna are prone, and the amazing toilettes onemeets with in Egypt are unknown at Athens.They are not slavish copyists either. All the hatsare not of one pattern and one scheme of colour.But they take their cue from Paris, and not eventheir fervent Hellenism can persuade them toadopt the chiton and peplon. " I will do so whenEnglish ladies wear the costume of Boadicea,"said one.It was submitted to her that the caseswere not exactly parallel. Were it possible todetermine precisely the garb of the dauntlessBritish Queen, the chances are that it would notpossess the grace that distinguished that of thewomen of ancient Hellas. Moreover, the Englishdo not claim to be her descendants. Certainlythey do not speak her tongue, whereas the ladiesof modern Athens do use a modified form of thelanguage spoken by those whose forms arechiselled on the frieze of the Parthenon. The"petticoat" still exists among the men. It isuniversal among the shepherds, is worn by manyof the peasantry, and isfrequent all over Greece,including the streets of Athens. It is not Greek.It is not wholly Albanian, for the Ghegs of