DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0259
IDEAL SPECULATION.
243
me in Athens ; when, sitting among the ruins of the
Acropolis, upon a broken column of the Parthe-
non, I speculated upon the growth of the city. I
bought, in imagination, a piece of ground, and laid
it out in lots, lithographed, and handsomely painted,
red, blue, and white, like the maps of Chicago, Dun-
kirk, and Hinsdale ; built up the ancient harbour
of the Piraeus, and ran a railroad to the foot of the
Acropolis ; and I leaned my head upon my hand,
and calculated the immense increase in value that
must attend the building of the king's new palace,
and the erection of a royal residence on the site of
Plato's academy. I have since regretted that I
did not " go in" for some up-town lots in Athens;
but I have never regretted not having shaved the
note of the Queen of the East, in the hands of the
richest Jew in Jerusalem.
It was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The
command to do no work on the Sabbath day is ob-
served by every Jew, as strictly as when the com-
mandment was given to his fathers ; and to such an
extent was it obeyed in the house of my friend, that
it was not considered allowable to extinguish a
lamp which had been lighted the night before, and
was now burning in broad daylight over our table.
This extremely strict observance of the law at first
gave me some uneasiness about my dinner; but
my host, with great self-complacency, relieved me
from all apprehensions, by describing the admira-
ble contrivance he had invented for reconciling
appetite and duty—an oven, heated the night be-
243
me in Athens ; when, sitting among the ruins of the
Acropolis, upon a broken column of the Parthe-
non, I speculated upon the growth of the city. I
bought, in imagination, a piece of ground, and laid
it out in lots, lithographed, and handsomely painted,
red, blue, and white, like the maps of Chicago, Dun-
kirk, and Hinsdale ; built up the ancient harbour
of the Piraeus, and ran a railroad to the foot of the
Acropolis ; and I leaned my head upon my hand,
and calculated the immense increase in value that
must attend the building of the king's new palace,
and the erection of a royal residence on the site of
Plato's academy. I have since regretted that I
did not " go in" for some up-town lots in Athens;
but I have never regretted not having shaved the
note of the Queen of the East, in the hands of the
richest Jew in Jerusalem.
It was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The
command to do no work on the Sabbath day is ob-
served by every Jew, as strictly as when the com-
mandment was given to his fathers ; and to such an
extent was it obeyed in the house of my friend, that
it was not considered allowable to extinguish a
lamp which had been lighted the night before, and
was now burning in broad daylight over our table.
This extremely strict observance of the law at first
gave me some uneasiness about my dinner; but
my host, with great self-complacency, relieved me
from all apprehensions, by describing the admira-
ble contrivance he had invented for reconciling
appetite and duty—an oven, heated the night be-