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Article COLLECTANEA. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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Collectanea.
the shades of evening seemed well calculated to heighten the effect of a ramble among its ruins . * * '" ' We moved along in perfect Kilence , for besides that my Turk never spoke , and my Greek , who was generally loquacious enough , was out of humour at being obliged to go on , we had enough to do in picking our lonely way . But silence best suited the scene ; the sound of the human voice seemed almost a mockery of fallen greatness . We entered ba large and ruined
gatey way into a place distinctly marked as having been a street , and , from the broken columns strewed on each side , probably having been lined with a colonnade . I let my reins fall upon my horse ' s neck ; he moved about in the slow and desultory way that suited my humour ; now sinking to his knees in heaps of rubbish , now stumbling over a Corinthian capital , and now sliding over a marble pavement . The whole hillside is covered with ruins to an extent far greater than I expected to findand
, they are all of a kind that tends to give a high idea of the ancient magnificence of the city . To me , these ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless mass ; but they have been examined by antiquaries with great care , and the character of many of them identified with great certainty . I had , however , no time for details ; and , indeed , the interest of these ruins in my eyes Was not in the details . It mattered little to me that this was the stadium and that a fountain ; that this was a gymnasium
and that a market-place ; it was enough to know that the broken columns , the mouldering walls , the grass-grown streets , and the wideextended scene of desolation and ruin around me were all that remained of one of the greatest cities of Asia , one of the earliest Christian cities in the world . But what do I sav ? Who does not remember the tumults
and confusion raised by Demetrius the silversmith , " lest the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised , and her magnificence destroyed ; " and how the people having caught " Caius aud Aristarchus , Paul's companions in travel , rushed with one accord into the theatre , crying out , 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians ?'" I sat among the ruins of that theatre ; the stillness of death was around me ; far as the eye could reach , not a living soul was to be seen save my two companions and a group of lazy Turks smoking at the coffee-house in
Aysalook . A man of strong imagination might almost go wild with the intensity of his- own reflections ; and do not let it surprise you , that even one like me , in nowise given to the illusions of the senses , should find himself roused , and irresistibly hurried back to the time when the confused mass around liim formed one of the most magnificent cities in the world ; when a large and busy population was hurrying through its streets , intent upon the same pleasures and the same business that
engage men now ; that he should , in imagination , see before him St . Paul preaching to the Ephesians , shaking their faith in the gods of their fathers , gods made with their own hands ; and the noise and confusion , and the people rushing tumultuously up the very steps where he sat ; that he should almost hear their cry ringing in his ears , " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " and then that he should turn from this scene of former lory and eternal ruin to his own far distant land ; a land that
g the wisest of the Ephesians never dreamed of ; where the wild man was striving with the wild beast , when the whole world rang with the greatness of the Ephesian name ; and which bids fair to be growing greater and greater when the last vestige of Ephesus shall be gone and its very site unknown . —But where is the temple of the great Diana , the temple two hundred and twenty years in building ; the temple of one hundred
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Collectanea.
the shades of evening seemed well calculated to heighten the effect of a ramble among its ruins . * * '" ' We moved along in perfect Kilence , for besides that my Turk never spoke , and my Greek , who was generally loquacious enough , was out of humour at being obliged to go on , we had enough to do in picking our lonely way . But silence best suited the scene ; the sound of the human voice seemed almost a mockery of fallen greatness . We entered ba large and ruined
gatey way into a place distinctly marked as having been a street , and , from the broken columns strewed on each side , probably having been lined with a colonnade . I let my reins fall upon my horse ' s neck ; he moved about in the slow and desultory way that suited my humour ; now sinking to his knees in heaps of rubbish , now stumbling over a Corinthian capital , and now sliding over a marble pavement . The whole hillside is covered with ruins to an extent far greater than I expected to findand
, they are all of a kind that tends to give a high idea of the ancient magnificence of the city . To me , these ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless mass ; but they have been examined by antiquaries with great care , and the character of many of them identified with great certainty . I had , however , no time for details ; and , indeed , the interest of these ruins in my eyes Was not in the details . It mattered little to me that this was the stadium and that a fountain ; that this was a gymnasium
and that a market-place ; it was enough to know that the broken columns , the mouldering walls , the grass-grown streets , and the wideextended scene of desolation and ruin around me were all that remained of one of the greatest cities of Asia , one of the earliest Christian cities in the world . But what do I sav ? Who does not remember the tumults
and confusion raised by Demetrius the silversmith , " lest the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised , and her magnificence destroyed ; " and how the people having caught " Caius aud Aristarchus , Paul's companions in travel , rushed with one accord into the theatre , crying out , 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians ?'" I sat among the ruins of that theatre ; the stillness of death was around me ; far as the eye could reach , not a living soul was to be seen save my two companions and a group of lazy Turks smoking at the coffee-house in
Aysalook . A man of strong imagination might almost go wild with the intensity of his- own reflections ; and do not let it surprise you , that even one like me , in nowise given to the illusions of the senses , should find himself roused , and irresistibly hurried back to the time when the confused mass around liim formed one of the most magnificent cities in the world ; when a large and busy population was hurrying through its streets , intent upon the same pleasures and the same business that
engage men now ; that he should , in imagination , see before him St . Paul preaching to the Ephesians , shaking their faith in the gods of their fathers , gods made with their own hands ; and the noise and confusion , and the people rushing tumultuously up the very steps where he sat ; that he should almost hear their cry ringing in his ears , " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " and then that he should turn from this scene of former lory and eternal ruin to his own far distant land ; a land that
g the wisest of the Ephesians never dreamed of ; where the wild man was striving with the wild beast , when the whole world rang with the greatness of the Ephesian name ; and which bids fair to be growing greater and greater when the last vestige of Ephesus shall be gone and its very site unknown . —But where is the temple of the great Diana , the temple two hundred and twenty years in building ; the temple of one hundred