Be assured, those unwholesome speculations and gro-
tesque myths, which enervate our urban people with
their advocacy of perversion and crime, are figments
which will never overcome the profound common-sense
of our peasants.
»
YOU must find my chatter as persistent and as
strident as that of the cicada in the olive-tree
above me, but if I have wearied you I have at
least had the pleasure of imagining that I was convers-
ing with you idly and freely. My mood will show you
that I am content and not at all anxious to cumber with
my person the lmperial ante-rooms. From this moss-
grown marble bench, on which I write, I can see two
young women of the people placing flowers beneath
the rough wood figure of Dionysus. What permanence
have our philosophisings or those unhealthy Eastern
myths beside this sane, humble acceptance of natural
facts? Long after all memory of us and of those Syrian
charlatans has vanished, other peasant girls will lay
similar offerings before the figures of their gods which,
like ours, will symbolise wine, wheat, the death of
autumn and the rebirth of spring, maternity and desire.
Doubtless their floral tributes will not make the harvest
any less ample. Vale.
tesque myths, which enervate our urban people with
their advocacy of perversion and crime, are figments
which will never overcome the profound common-sense
of our peasants.
»
YOU must find my chatter as persistent and as
strident as that of the cicada in the olive-tree
above me, but if I have wearied you I have at
least had the pleasure of imagining that I was convers-
ing with you idly and freely. My mood will show you
that I am content and not at all anxious to cumber with
my person the lmperial ante-rooms. From this moss-
grown marble bench, on which I write, I can see two
young women of the people placing flowers beneath
the rough wood figure of Dionysus. What permanence
have our philosophisings or those unhealthy Eastern
myths beside this sane, humble acceptance of natural
facts? Long after all memory of us and of those Syrian
charlatans has vanished, other peasant girls will lay
similar offerings before the figures of their gods which,
like ours, will symbolise wine, wheat, the death of
autumn and the rebirth of spring, maternity and desire.
Doubtless their floral tributes will not make the harvest
any less ample. Vale.