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

THE GREEK PEOPLE 207the least Greek of Greek lands. There is moreHellenic blood in the Cyclades and Sporades, onthe mainland of Asia, nay, even among the"Turks" of Crete. Compare the diversity ofphysical types one meets with in Greece, "whereevery variety of facial angle accosts the eye," 1with the regular features and uniformity of thepurer-blooded Cretans, whether Christian or Moslem.The Greeks of the kingdom, generallyspeaking, may dispute this, though it shouldbe a matter of pride to them rather than otherwise.An Englishman does not feel hurt if he is toldthat he isnot a direct descendant of the AncientBritons, for he knows that his mixed blood hasendowed him with qualities which but for it hewould lack. And it is the same with the Greeks.Mr. Hogarth puts it thus: "Those great andnoble qualities which the modern Greek has displayedso conspicuously this century past belongto him, to my thinking, in spite, not because, ofhis possessing a little old Hellenic blood. . . .The stock that was grceculus even in the AugustanAge has been passing down the road of racialdecay these two thousand years, to be combinednow in Greece with younger and ruder races." 2An Athenian once said to the writer: "I hateAjax and Achilles and all the rest of them.Greeks sit down and glorify them, and do notthink it worth while to do anything more."There1D. G. Hogarth, The Nearer East.sD. G. Hogarth, A Wandering Scholar in the Levant.