A Child of the Orient

ON the morning of my fifth birthday, just as I awoke from sleep, my grand-uncle came into my room, and, standing over my bed, said with a seriousness little befitting my age:

“To-day, despoinis, you are five years old. I wish you many happy returns of the day.”

He drew up a chair, and sat down by my bed. Carefully unfolding a piece of paper, he brought forth a small Greek flag.

“Do you know what this is?”

I nodded.

“Do you know what it stands for?”

Before I could think of an adequate reply, he leaned toward me and said earnestly, his fiery black eyes holding mine:

“It stands for the highest civilization the world has ever known. It stands for Greece, who has taught the world. Take it and make your prayers by it.”

I accepted it, and caressed it. Its silky texture pleased my touch. Its heavenly blue colour fascinated my eyes, while the white cross, emblem of my religion as well as of my country, filled my childish heart with a noble thrill.

My grand-uncle bent over nearer to me.

“In your veins flows the blood of a wonderful race; yet you live, as I have lived, under an alien yoke—a yoke Asiatic and uncivilized. The people who rule here to-day in the place of your people are barbarous and cruel, and worship a false god. Remember all this—and hate them! You cannot carry this flag, because you are a girl; but you can bring up your sons to do the work that remains for the Greeks to do.”

He left his chair, and paced up and down the room; then came again and stood beside my bed.

“Sixty-one years ago we rose. For nine consecutive years we fought, and to-day two million Greeks are free—and Athens, with its Acropolis, is protected by this flag. But the greater part of the Greek land is still under the Mussulman yoke, and St Sophia is profaned by the Mohammedan creed. Grow up remembering that all that once was Greece must again belong to Greece; for the Greek civilization cannot and must not die.”