Letters to friends
Emily Tennyson
Quarantine Island, Corfu. October 9, 1856
My dear Mrs. Tennyson
[.............] What a place - what a strange place is that Mount Athos! - Apart from the very valuable set of drawings I have brought back, my tour there has been one of the most singular bits of my whole life. Excepting at those Monasteries in Thibet of which Messrs. Hue & Gabet tell us, there is nothing in the world like the Athos peninsular: for the St. Bernard & St. Gothard monasteries are placed there for a good purpose & do much to benefit others; while at Mt. Athos many many thousand monks live on through a long life of mere formal blank. God's world maimed & turned upside down: - God's will laughed at & falsified: nature wounded and trampled on: - that half of our species which it is the natural and best feeling of mankind to love & esteem most - ignored & forbidden: - this is what I saw at Athos: - & if what I saw be Xtianity, then the sooner it be rooted out, the better for humanity [ ..........]
From Constantine & Justinian, who gave up the whole of Acte to Christian hermits, - to the Byzantine Emperors who added to convents already built, & founded others, and down to Sultans as far as our own day - every ruling power in the East has confirmed this territory to the monks as theirs, on proviso of paying £1,500 per ann. to the Porte [3]. So the whole strange place has gradually grown into one large nest of monkery - there being as I saw 20 large monasteries, & perhaps 5 or 600 small-hermitages or chapel=cottages holding 1-2 or more of the fish & watermelon eating, prayermuttering old creatures who vegetate there, or at best, carve little wooden crosses, which I have bought you one to put on some little table on a future day [...........]
The Monasteries - the large ones, are like great castles - fortified with walls & towers: within are courtyards holding churches, clocks & refectories: - the smaller hermitages often stand in gardens, & are gay without though filthy and mournful within. These, which often are clustered so as to seem like villages, - are perhaps the saddest of all - for you think there must be some child - or a dog - or other life than those gloomy blackclad men: - but no - Tomcats & mules are the only beasts allowed on the holy mountain: & crowing cocks the only birds. I solemnly declare such a perversion of right & nature is enough to madden a wise man - & many of these men are more than half foolish: they murmur & mutter & mop & mow. The greater part are utterly ignorant - & only those who manage the affairs of the convents are atall intelligent. Someday perhaps I shall be able to show you the views I made of these very strange dwellings. - And so I will say no more of gloomy & terrible Athos. [...........]
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Notes
[1] Emily Tennyson (1813-96) was a friend of Lear and wife of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. They married in 1850, the year Alfred also became Poet laureate. Lear first met them both in 1850 having long been an admirer of Tennyson's verse. The friendship, especially with Emily, grew and in 1855 she had been very supportive in a lonely period for Lear.
[2] This extract from his letter to Emily is published in Edward Lear - Selected Letters, edited by Vivien Noakes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). The letters relating to the Tennysons are held by the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire Archives.
[3] Porte will refer to the Sublime Porte which is the central government of the Ottoman Empire. The name has its origins in the old Oriental practice in which the ruler announced his official decisions and judgements at the gate (Porte) of his palace.
My dear Mrs. Tennyson
[.............] What a place - what a strange place is that Mount Athos! - Apart from the very valuable set of drawings I have brought back, my tour there has been one of the most singular bits of my whole life. Excepting at those Monasteries in Thibet of which Messrs. Hue & Gabet tell us, there is nothing in the world like the Athos peninsular: for the St. Bernard & St. Gothard monasteries are placed there for a good purpose & do much to benefit others; while at Mt. Athos many many thousand monks live on through a long life of mere formal blank. God's world maimed & turned upside down: - God's will laughed at & falsified: nature wounded and trampled on: - that half of our species which it is the natural and best feeling of mankind to love & esteem most - ignored & forbidden: - this is what I saw at Athos: - & if what I saw be Xtianity, then the sooner it be rooted out, the better for humanity [ ..........]
From Constantine & Justinian, who gave up the whole of Acte to Christian hermits, - to the Byzantine Emperors who added to convents already built, & founded others, and down to Sultans as far as our own day - every ruling power in the East has confirmed this territory to the monks as theirs, on proviso of paying £1,500 per ann. to the Porte [3]. So the whole strange place has gradually grown into one large nest of monkery - there being as I saw 20 large monasteries, & perhaps 5 or 600 small-hermitages or chapel=cottages holding 1-2 or more of the fish & watermelon eating, prayermuttering old creatures who vegetate there, or at best, carve little wooden crosses, which I have bought you one to put on some little table on a future day [...........]
The Monasteries - the large ones, are like great castles - fortified with walls & towers: within are courtyards holding churches, clocks & refectories: - the smaller hermitages often stand in gardens, & are gay without though filthy and mournful within. These, which often are clustered so as to seem like villages, - are perhaps the saddest of all - for you think there must be some child - or a dog - or other life than those gloomy blackclad men: - but no - Tomcats & mules are the only beasts allowed on the holy mountain: & crowing cocks the only birds. I solemnly declare such a perversion of right & nature is enough to madden a wise man - & many of these men are more than half foolish: they murmur & mutter & mop & mow. The greater part are utterly ignorant - & only those who manage the affairs of the convents are atall intelligent. Someday perhaps I shall be able to show you the views I made of these very strange dwellings. - And so I will say no more of gloomy & terrible Athos. [...........]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes
[1] Emily Tennyson (1813-96) was a friend of Lear and wife of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. They married in 1850, the year Alfred also became Poet laureate. Lear first met them both in 1850 having long been an admirer of Tennyson's verse. The friendship, especially with Emily, grew and in 1855 she had been very supportive in a lonely period for Lear.
[2] This extract from his letter to Emily is published in Edward Lear - Selected Letters, edited by Vivien Noakes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). The letters relating to the Tennysons are held by the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire Archives.
[3] Porte will refer to the Sublime Porte which is the central government of the Ottoman Empire. The name has its origins in the old Oriental practice in which the ruler announced his official decisions and judgements at the gate (Porte) of his palace.