GREEKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 278, 15 April 1911, Page 7

GREEKS.

To the Editor. Sir,—When Arnold White writes that for four hundred years "the ancient Greeks were the healthiest, happiest, most beautiful, and the most artistic people who ever lived on earth," he completely ignores the testimony of Homer, Socrates and Plato. These immortal writers, and many others, one and all maintain the existence of a universal sorrow. Homer considers man the most miserable of all that lives and moves on the face of the earth (Iliad XVII, 446, 447). Socrates is of opinion that we must cling to the best of human beliefs as to a board on the ocean till wej shall be favored with the safety of a] divine boat (Phaedo, p. 85, D). Platol describes the lot of the just man on earth in so vivid and true a manner that many have seen in his words a prophecy of Christ's sufferings: "The just* man who does not only appear to be just, but is so in truth, will be bound,] scourged, tortured, blinded in both eves, and finally, after suffering all possible pain, he will be hanged, and then he will understand that one must not wish to be just, but only to appear so" (De rep. 11, 302). Similar extracts from the imperishable—because true—works of these celebrated authors might be multiplied to any extent. —I am, etc., ... I HISTORICUS.