Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to HIRAM POWERS, dated October 10, 1852.
Primary tabs
Dear Powers
Yours of the 5' of August reached me here a few weeks since. I know almost nothing
of the present state of American politics, but I suppose Gen Peirce's election is
highly probable, and in that event, I shall no doubt be summoned home earlier than I
care to go. After discharging certain duties in Greece, I came to this, at this
season, solitary spot to give Mrs Marsh the benefit of the waters, and to find quiet
for writing out my reports on my doings in Greece. These I have completed, and
immensely voluminous they are. As Mrs Marsh derives no benefit from the waters, I
have no longer any motive to remain, & we are going to Vienna tomorrow, to
consult physicians there, for her eyes & other ailments. We shall return
southward in a few weeks, & if I do not too soon receive orders from
Washington to return to Greece or Turkey we hope to be in Florence before
New
Year's.
The country where we are interests me much, on being in surface & vegetation surprisingly like Vermont. The hills are lower, but the trees, & wild as well as cultivated smaller plants, seem almost identical with those that grew on Mount Tom, & on the fields & meadows about your father's house and mine, but the forest wants the rich autumnal hues of our soft maples and some other trees, & there are here no red leaves but those of the woodbine and the sumach. Some American trees they have introduced. The locust is common, & I have seen a few three thorned locusts, several catalpas & one tulip tree.
At Athens, all was bare when we were there, except the olives & the
vineyards. I was disappointed in the sculptures, comparatively few of which, except
inscriptions, have been found. The Romans first, then the Byzantines, &
finally Lord Elgin and
other Northern barbarians have so completely stripped
Greece, that there is little of art, but the ruins of her architecture, left. The
little that has been found is collected at the Acropolis & the temple of
Theseus, & consists principally of bas reliefs. One of these latter, a full
length figure of a warrior found at Marathon, belonging to a very early period of
art, and , is highly interesting, and the sepulchral tablets, which
are numerous, constantly recall those of Thorvaldsen. The conception and composition of many of these is fine, but few
have any merit of execution. The poverty of the Greek gov't & other
circumstances have prevented excavations, &, unhappily, the grounds where
there was most reason to expect to find sculptures have been allowed to be occupied
by buildings, so that all that lies buried there is now
probably lost forever.
I hope my son will profit at Florence, but beg you will not allow him to consume your time. I shall however be extremely thankful for any advice you can give him. I have not heard from him for near three weeks.
What is Hart doing? I thought his model of Mr Clay very good. Has he ever executed it or any thing else? Kellogg, I am glad to learn, has his hands full. I want to see his Eastern sketches & pictures extremely.
Mrs Marsh joins me in kind remembrances to Mrs Powers the children & yourself.
Yours trulyG P Marsh
H Powers Esq
References in this letter:
Bertel Thorwaldsen (1768-1844), a Danish sculptor long resident in Rome, was one of the leaders of the Classical revival in sculpture.
George Ozias Marsh, Marsh's son by his first wife Harriet Buell, was born in Burlington in 1832. He had a troubled relationship with his father, for whom he harbored ill will arising from feelings of neglect and undue severity. He never fully recovered from a typhoid attack in 1857 while at Harvard Law School, eventually became an alcoholic supported by stipends from Marsh, and died in a rooming house in New York in 1865.