Thus ended my intimate intercourse with Sultan Abdul Hamid. The only benefit it has been to me was a rubbing up of my impressions of life in the Near East, a renewal of old relationships, and the editing of a few valuable old Slav manuscripts which I found in the treasure-house of the Sultan, and which were lent me for a considerable length of time. But the renewal of my acquaintance with the Orient was void of that charm which it had for me on my first visit. The East and myself are both thirty years older; the East has lost much of the glory of its former splendour, and I have lost the vigour of my youth. I fancied myself an elderly man who, after thirty years meeting again the adored beauty of his youthful days, misses the wealth of her locks, the fire in her eyes, thebrightness of her rosy cheeks. Old Stambul, the Bosphorus, and Pera—everything was changed. The Sultan's mad love of extravagance, the unfortunate war of 1878, and above all the loss of Bulgaria—in fact nearly the whole of Rumania—had reduced the dominating class almost to beggary. Gone were the rich Konaks in Stambul, empty the once glorious yalis (villas) on the Bosphorus, and of the Effendi world, flourishing and well-to-do in my time, only a few miserable vestiges remained.
The Christian element, as compared with the Moslem, has increased enormously; the European quarter of the city is full of life and animation, and the Turk, always wont to walk with bowed head, now bends it quite low on his breast as he loiters among the noisy, busy crowds of the Christian populace. He is buried in thought; but whether he will be able to pull himself together and recover himself is as yet an open question.
When speaking of my renewed visits to Turkey and my personal intercourse with the Sultan, I made mention of my English sympathies; and I feel bound to say a word about the rumours then prevalent, which made me out to be a secret political agent of England, the more so since a member of Parliament, Mr. Summers, has questioned the Conservative Government regarding this matter. I have never at any time stood in any official relation to the English Government. My intercourse with the Conservative and Liberal statesmen on the Thamesand on the Hugli (Calcutta) has always been of a strictly private nature, and, just as my utterances in the daily papers were taken notice of by the public, so my occasional memoranda to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been accepted as the private information of an expert, friendly to the cause of England—information for which nobody asked me, and for which labour therefore I could claim no compensation from anybody. This anomalous position of mine was touched upon by the Central Asiatic writer, Mr. Charles Marvin, in hisMerv, the Queen of the World[2]issued, in 1881. He there blames the English Government for having neglected me, and for leaving me in poverty, in spite of all my services. As regards this, I must say that I had at one time a modest yearly income, while working with all my might for the defence of India, a possession from which England derived in commercial profits alone many million pounds sterling; but I never suffered actual poverty, and it never entered my mind to take steps to obtain material acknowledgment of my services. English statesmen least of all thought of making any such acknowledgment. They looked upon me merely as a writer in pursuit of a purely platonic object, and this English cynicism went so far that when I published, in 1885, my Osbeg Epic, the "Scheibaniade," entirely at my own cost, and asked for a subscription for twenty copies,the India Office declined the offer, although this work furnished so many data for the history of Baber, the founder of the Mongol dominion in India. The supposition, therefore, that my journalistic labours, although appreciated in England, ever met with any material recognition on the part of the Government, is altogether false. In after years I had an offer to enter the English service, but this I never entertained for a moment; and when on the Bosphorus I furthered English interests, I did so from the standpoint of European peace, as an opponent of the overbearing power of despotic Russia, and as a Hungarian whose native land has common interests with England in the Near East. Of course such motives bore no weight with the Sultan. He judges everybody by his own standard; and when I tried to defend myself against such accusations, and even one day quoted to him the saying of Mohammed, "El fakru fakhri" ("Poverty is my pride"), he took the remark with a diabolical smile, and turned the conversation into another channel.
I must confess the character of Sultan Abdul Hamid has always been a riddle to me. I strained every nerve to penetrate him, but all in vain. Brilliant qualities and incredible weaknesses were always at strife in him. The man and the ruler were constantly at war with one another, and in the same manner his Oriental views always came into collision with the ever more pressing demandsof modern civilisation. Fear and suspicion were naturally at the bottom of this moral condition, and if from time to time he would have recovered himself, and listened to the dictates of his heart—for I did not find him heartless, as he is generally supposed to be—the instruments of his despotic arbitrariness kept him back, and made him commit deeds which in the eyes of the world were rightly condemned. In keeping with his own character was also the quality of the officials around him, who after the decline of the Porte acted as ministers of State. Divided into various cliques according to their personal interests, the secretaries, adjutants, chamberlains, court-marshals, body-servants, &c., have created quite a chaos of intrigues, plots, and calumnies round the person of their ruler, which he was quite able to cope with when in the full vigour of his manhood, and with his marvellous perspicacity could fathom at a glance. But even Sultan Abdul Hamid could not be expected to do superhuman things; physically never very strong, his nervous system at last grew perceptibly weaker, and in the thirtieth year of his reign he became very infirm. The reins of government fell from his hands, and gradually he sank from a ruler to being ruled over, and he fancied himself secure against all danger only in the mutual envy, malice, and hatred which he had provoked among those immediately surrounding him. In this terrible position the Sultan himselfwas most to be pitied, and this doleful picture of the so-called autocrat I have often had occasion to contemplate at close quarters. Great State cares, pressing financial troubles, the threatening grouping of the European Powers, and the fearful phantom of an internal revolution, all of which tormented the Sultan, left him neither rest nor peace. The Sultan's fear of Young Turkey was exaggerated, for in Turkey revolutions are not instigated by the masses, but by the upper classes, and since these were quite impoverished and dependent on their official position, a revolt against the Crown is not very probable nowadays, especially as the old party of the time of the forcible dethronement of Abdul-aziz exists no more, and the Osmanlis darkly brooding about the future of their land cannot so easily be roused from their sleep. If Sultan Abdul Hamid had been a little less despotic, and had taken account a little more of the liberal ideas of the more enlightened Osmanlis, he would have saved himself much trouble and many a sleepless night. But he is stubborn and firmly resolved to persevere with therégimeof terrorism he has instituted. Hence his misfortune, hence his suffering. Indeed, the man had deserved a better fate. He is not nearly such a profligate as he is represented to be. He is more fit than many of his predecessors; he wants to benefit his land, but the means he has used were bound to have a contrary effect. I have received from Sultan Abdul Hamid many tokens of hisfavour and kindness, and I owe him an everlasting debt of gratitude. It grieves me, here, where I am speaking of my personal relations with him, to have to express opinions which may be displeasing to him, but writers may not and cannot become courtiers, and even in regard to crowned heads, the old saying still holds true, "Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas."
FOOTNOTE:[2]Pp. 19-21.
[2]Pp. 19-21.
[2]Pp. 19-21.
My Intercourse with Nasreddin Shah and his Successor
PROF. VAMBERY AND HIS TARTAR, 1864
PROF. VAMBÉRY AND HIS TARTAR, 1864.
To face Page 393.
Following up my intercourse with the Sultan of Turkey, I must not omit to relate the episode of my second meeting with the King of Persia. It was on the occasion of the Shah's third visit to Europe that I met him in Budapest.
Thirty years ago I had been presented to him as a Dervish who had visited Central Asia and spent many years among the Turcomans, at that time held in great fear by the Persians. I now appeared before him as representative of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and was not surprised that he did not at once recognise me. When at the head of the Academicians I welcomed him in a Persian speech in the pillared hall of the Academy palace, the good Persian monarch was quite amazed and hastily turning to his courtiers, inquired, "In kist?" ("Who is that?"). They told him my name and function, and made some comments in a low voice, whereupon the cunning Persian exclaimed,"Belli! belli!" ("Of course"), "Vambéry!" He maintained (which I take the liberty to doubt) that he remembered me; but he warmly shook hands with me, and said to the Hungarian Minister standing at his side, "Il parle bien, très bien notre langue!" I do not wonder that my speech, in the Shirazi dialect and delivered in true Oriental style, took him by surprise, for as he afterwards told me, on the whole Continent he had not met with any scholar who could speak Persian idiomatically and without foreign accent. What did seem to me somewhat odd was a remark in his Journal (p. 378) that there were, even in Persia, few orators who for elegance and force of speech could compete with me, a compliment which struck me as particularly strange from the mouth of the Persian king. I remained three days in attendance on Nasreddin Shah, and had ample opportunity to admire the marvellous progress made by this Oriental since the time when I knew him at Teheran in 1864. Nasreddin Shah was the first sovereign of the True Believers who had learned to speak French tolerably well, and if he did make a little too much show of this accomplishment, seeing that his knowledge was but very superficial, it must be admitted that his judgment in matters of art, his knowledge of geography and palæontology, and his acquaintance with the genealogical relationships of the various kingdoms of Europe was most astonishing. In any case, he surpassed in knowledge of ourcountries and towns, our manners and customs, all magnates and princes of the Moslem East, not excepting even the Khedive Ismail Pasha and the late Sir Salar Jung. As we saw more of one another he did not hesitate to express his opinion about many of our social and political views. So, for instance, being an Asiaticpur sanghe detested Liberalism, and if it had not been for the dangerous nearness which made him turn against Russia, he would have looked upon the Czar as the model of sovereign greatness and the Russianrégimeas the ideal form of government. Naturally, the French republic was an abomination to him, the most woeful absurdity, and he could not understand how a society where, as he maintained, no one commands and no one obeys, a land without a ruler,i.e., a sovereign, can possibly exist.
In his political utterances he was a good deal more cautious; he always made an evasive answer to my insinuations. Once, sailing on the Danube, I remarked that the Karun is wider but not so long as the Danube, the Kadjar prince looked gravely at me and said, "Thank God, no!" ("If it had been the English would before now have taken Teheran," was my mental comment.) But in spite of his great reserve and cautiousness in political matters, I got a pretty clear insight into his political views. He had not for the future of his land the same bold confidence as his royal brother on the throne of the Osmanli, for while the latter's plans reach far intothe future, and to all appearances, at least, are of a very exalted nature, especially those relating to Panislamism, the Kadjar monarch devotes all his energies to the welfare of his dynasty, or rather of his own person. "L'État c'est moi" is also Sultan Abdul Hamid's motto, but the glorious past of his dynasty and his people awakens in him great and exalted ideas, the accomplishment of which he never doubts, while Nasreddin Shah, as the offspring of a Turcoman family, only lately come into power, and, intimidated by the danger which surrounded him on all sides, hardly dared to think of the distant future. In their personalities they are also very different. Sultan Abdul Hamid, although inferior in European culture to hischer frèreon the throne of Persia, is shy and timid by nature, more affable and generous than Nasreddin Shah, who, in spite of all his European manners, remained the Asiatic despot and comported himself with all the peculiar pride and strictness of the Oriental ruler. His Grand-Vizier had sometimes to stand for hours before him, and when he wanted some information or other from me, I was often kept standing for a considerable time, regardless of my great fatigue; and he used closely to scrutinise my face if I dared to express an opinion different from his. In his character he certainly was more Oriental than the Sultan, and considered this severity as indispensable to his sovereign dignity.
I was very much amused with the airs thePersian king put on, as he went about bedizened with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and other jewels. Although his dynasty had been founded by a condottiere of the lowest rank, viz., Mehemmed Aga Khan, and as grandson of Feth Ali Shah, a cousin of this Aga Khan's, he was only the fourth Kadjar on the throne of Iran, he always wanted to parade the antiquity of his race. Before me he especially prided himself on his descent from the Mongol chief, Kadjar Noyan, and when I dared to question the correctness of this genealogy, merely brought forward by Persian historians to flatter their monarch, he looked at me quite angrily and ejaculated that "the sovereigns of the West were nothing but parvenus compared to their brother monarchs of the East." Persia, in fact, is the only land in Moslem Asia which can boast of a hereditary nobility, in a miserable condition, it is true, for not only Khans and Mirzas, but even royal princes may be found as drivers, house servants, and artisans of various kinds, but this does not prevent one from being proud of one's noble blood, and when Nasreddin Shah was in a good temper he expressed his astonishment that European counts, princes, and dukes attempted to be on a familiar footing with him, who could find his equal only among crowned heads. It is curious that the Turks even, who on account of their nomadic antecedents have never had any hereditary nobility, always try to make themselves out as aristocrats. Sultan AbdulMedjid was highly pleased when the French poet Lamartine, whom he had invited to his court and afterwards presented with a country seat near Brussa, called his attention to the fact that after the Bourbons the Osmanli was the oldest dynasty in Europe. The high dignitaries of the Porte, frequently tracing their descent from simple peasants, labourers, or shepherds, had at one time serious thoughts of setting up coats-of-arms, and much regretted the religious restriction which forbids their taking some animal for their device. Human weakness is after all the same in the East and in the West, and in spite of the strongly democratic tendencies of the Arabian prophet, we may yet live to see Islam adopting hereditary nobility with many other evils of European culture. In the personality of Nasreddin Shah I have always detected this curious mixture of East and West, of the old and the new aspect of life which we find in so many neophytes of European culture in the Moslemic East. The Iranian despot held in particular favour Malcolm Khan and Jahya Khan, and the Europeans who for a time were physicians in ordinary to his Majesty.
Doctors Cloquet, Polak, and Tholozan instructed him in many things, and point for point the influence of one or the other could be detected in his manners and behaviour. That he always wanted to act the Grand Seigneur, and ostentatiously displayed his Frenchified airs, mustchiefly be attributed to his Iranian boastfulness; he always wished to appear as the perfect European gentleman, and there was a time when at the court no one but his Majesty was allowed to wear a starched European shirt. Nasreddin Shah inherited many characteristics from his grandfather, Feth Ali Shah—I refer here especially to his love of show and tyrannical arbitrariness—but he lacked his grandfather's affability and kindly generosity. Nasreddin Shah was sometimes even particularly miserly, hence the story, circulated during his lifetime, of his fabulous private wealth, of which, however, after his death very little was to be found.
The European Press has delivered most unjustly severe criticisms upon the personality of this Oriental prince, and made fun of his Oriental manners. It is only natural that he should commit occasional mistakes of etiquette, for what Western sovereign or prince when visiting at an Eastern court would not be guilty of similar blunders? It is said that in Berlin, after dining at the royal table, he turned to the Emperor William and the Empress Augusta and loudly belched, which in Central Asia is an expression of gratitude for the hospitality received and always acknowledged with good grace. At dinner with the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House he is said to have thrown the asparagus stumps over his back on to the floor, and, in order not to shame his guest, the Prince, now King of England, and all the other guestsimmediately did the same, greatly to the disgust of the attendants. Quite a collection of similar anecdotes were at the time in circulation about him, but I think they must be grossly exaggerated, for Nasreddin Shah never neglected to make strict inquiry into the customs of the lands he visited, and more than once I have given him information upon minor details. The Persian king felt much freer in Europe than in his own land. In Teheran, when he went out for a drive, a long row of attendants marched on either side of him, who, armed with long staves, cleared every one out of the way. In Budapest it happened that a poor labourer's wife pressed up quite close to him to admire the great diamonds on his coat. I motioned to the woman to go out of the way, but the King said, "Let her come; she wants to see my jewels close to." He even stopped a minute or two to let the woman stare at him to her heart's content. In a word, the man was better than his reputation, and when in May, 1896, a day before the Jubilee of his fifty years' reign, he fell a victim to the murderous bullet of Riza Khan, I thought to myself the man deserved a better end, for as a matter of fact he had to pay with his life for the tyranny of his officials. At first it was supposed that Riza Khan belonged to the secret society of the Babis, but, as was proved later on, he took this means to revenge himself for the unheard-of injustice of the Governor of Kerman, against which he had vainly sought protection.
Eleven years after my meeting with Nasreddin I met with his son, Mozaffareddin Shah, who in 1900 on his return from Paris passed through the capital of Hungary. From myWanderings and Experiences in Persiathe reader will recall that I had made the acquaintance of the young ruler in Tabris in 1862, where, a nine year old boy and the heir-apparent to the throne, he occupied the position of Governor of Azerbaidshan. Physically weak and insignificant as he was then, I found him now sickly and quite broken down. Contrexéville and Marienbad were resorted to in vain to relieve his intense suffering, and the undeniable signs of disease impressed upon his features clearly revealed the desperate struggle that he fought within himself. The poor prince was really worthy of a better fate.
Being by nature timid and reticent, the very strict education which his father had deemed it necessary to give him had robbed him of all energy. He liked best to lose himself in quiet contemplation, and in his childish simplicity was hardly a fit ruler for a land so miserably desolate as Persia, nor was he likely to carry out his good intentions of leading his people into the way of modern culture. He was very pleasant with me, more so than his father had been. He hardly remembered our meeting at Tabris, but he had carefully read the memoirs of his father's travels, in which my small personality had received mostlaudatory mention, and so he was prepared to meet me long before he arrived at Budapest. On the journey from Vienna to Budapest he had asked several times if I was still alive, and if he would be sure to see me at Budapest. Arrived at the station, where he was received by the son of the Archduke Joseph and the Hungarian State Ministers, he looked round inquiringly and said, "Vambéry kudjast?" ("Where is Vambéry?"). I was called; he pressed my hand in the friendliest manner, and straightway invited me to come with him to the hotel. I did as he asked me, and during his stay in the Hungarian capital was frequently with him. These visits led to a more intimate intercourse, and I found out (1) that the much-to-be-pitied-king was very ill, and that the throne of Iran was not at all the right place for him; (2) that he had the best intentions in the world, was quite alive to the superior advantages of modern culture, and had a great desire to reform his country if only he had the necessary energy, money, and men. But all three unfortunately failed him, as well as all other means, and when I gave him a picture of Persia's future in its regenerate condition, with railways, streets, manufactories, and similar advantages of modern culture, he looked straight before him and said, "Belli, belli! leikin wakit mikhahed" ("Very well, very well, but that will take time"). Also in discussing political questions I found him less close than his father, who loved to give himself theappearance of a Persian Bismarck. Mozaffareddin expressed himself quite freely and frankly about the political condition of his land, and when I remarked jokingly that in Europe he was looked upon as a partisan of Russia, because in Tabris as heir to the throne he had complied with all Russia's demands, he laughed out loud and said, "Am I the only one who in default of counter-arms has feigned friendship for this mighty, ambitious opponent?" He had not much to say in favour of England, although he agreed with me that this country would never do any harm to Persia. "But," said he, "Britain's friendship is cold as ice, and has always expressed itself in empty words." And perhaps he was not altogether wrong. He was very much down on the politics of Lord Salisbury, who had declined his support to a contemplated Persian loan in London, Persia thus being compelled to borrow money from Russia. Referring to the riskiness of this step, the king remarked, "What were we to do? When my father died it was said that he had left private means to the amount of about four million pounds, and that these moneys were packed away in chests in the cellar. There was not a word of truth in all this. Instead of money my father left debts, and when I came to the throne I was unable to pay not merely the State officials, but even the court expenses and the servants. I was forced to get a loan from somewhere, and England drove me into the arms of Russia."
Taking it altogether, Mozaffareddin Shah earnestly desired to reform his land thoroughly, and in its internal arrangements to introduce many of the modernisations which had particularly struck him in his European travels. Unfortunately the good man did not know where to begin and what means to use to attain his object. Discouraged and embittered by the everlasting wrangling and quarrelling in his immediateentourage, he seemed to stand in mortal dread of his Grand-Vizier, Ali Asghar Khan. This man, the son of a Georgian renegade from the Caucasus, had practically made the Shah the unwilling tool of his intriguing and rare abilities. He comported himself as a servant, but was in reality the master of his master and the ruler of Persia. I was often an eye-witness when the two were together. The Shah, apathetically seated in his easy chair, would speak with as much authority as the words of his first minister were servile and submissive; but scarcely had he felt the piercing glance of the latter than he would suddenly stop short and sink back in his armchair. Behind the door listened his secretary and faithful servant, who occasionally made his presence known by a low cough, upon which the Vizier would angrily turn towards the door, and strongly accentuating the submissive words continue his harangue. Master of the situation and with an insatiable desire for power and gain, the Grand-Vizier might possibly have been useful to the country if the violentopposition of his many rivals had not occupied all his energy, and the secret hostility of high dignitaries and the rivalry of European ambassadors at court had not effectually frustrated all attempts at any healthy reform. Even as Nasreddin's various journeys to Europe remained fruitless for Persia, so it was with the efforts made by his son. After his return from Europe the Shah hastened to change the cut and the colour of the uniform of certain court officials. High-flown orders were issued, but not followed up; the money borrowed from the Russians soon came to an end; anarchy, misery, and confusion were bound to increase apace.
To complete the above notes about my intercourse with the Oriental princes and grandees, I will attempt to throw some light upon their private life and mental condition, points which would not be open to a foreigner in their intercourse with them, but which could not be hidden from me, the supposed Asiatic. The personality of the Oriental ruler is still more or less a curiosity in Europe; he is still gazed at and admired as something out of the common; and naturally so, for the attributes of Oriental Majesty are always extravagantly magnified, and, candidly speaking, our minds are still somewhat under the spell of the "Thousand and One Nights" stories, although current literature has here and there somewhat ruthlessly torn away the magic veil which surrounds thesedemigods of our imagination. Demigods they are no longer to their own subjects even, for their crowns have lost too many of the jewels whose brilliancy dazzled the eyes of the beholders, and the source is dry which furnished the means wherewith the faithfulness and loyalty of their subjects could be secured. I have been on intimate terms with two Sultans, two Shahs, and several Khans; I have watched them closely, and I must honestly say that I consider their position anything but an enviable one; for with a few exceptions they are more ruled over than ruling, and in spite of their apparent omnipotence, the fear with which they inspire those nearest them is not nearly so great as the fear to which they themselves are exposed in their constant anxiety about their personal safety. When late in the evening I was sitting quite alone in one of the apartments of the Yildiz Palace, and in the stillness of the night was startled by the echo of the dull, heavy step of the patrol passing close under the windows, I often thought to myself "What in all the world can compensate for such a terrible existence?" I will admit that Sultan Abdul Hamid is more anxious and timorous than many of his Oriental brother sovereigns, for his exaggerated precautions are rightly ridiculed, but from the fact that he never feels safe by day or by night, never sleeps peacefully, that with all he eats and drinks he thinks of poison, and that on all occasions and everywhere he scents danger, for such an existence the greatest powerand majesty, all the glory in the world and all its submissive homage are but a poor exchange and in nowise adequate compensation for all the quaking and trembling that it involves. A quiet and peaceful life is practically impossible at an Oriental court, considering the everlasting quarrelling, intriguing, and jealousy prevailing among the servants and officials. All covet the favour of the unfortunate autocrat, each one tries to outdo the other, each one seeks the destruction of his neighbour, and when to this pandemonium are added the intrigues of the womenfolk in the harem, it is easy to see how little joy there is in the life of an Oriental despot, nay, rather how deplorable is the fate of such a monarch.
In cases where conceit has a stronger hold upon the senses, where the ruler in his diseased fancy behaves himself like a superhuman being, as, for instance, Sultan Abdul Aziz, such an one knows but little fear and in the shelter of his imaginary security manages to make his existence fairly tolerable. The story is told of this latter Sultan that during his European journey in 1867, when making a pleasure trip on the Rhine to Coblentz, he asked of those with him whether this canal had been dug for his special benefit, and when in Budapest on board one of the Danube steamers the Turkish Consul, Commandant A., a cultured officer educated in Europe, met him and saluted in European fashion, the Sultan in my presenceturned to Fuad Pasha and remarked: "Why did not this rude fellow kiss my feet?" This Sultan, half mad as he was, who decorated horses, dogs, and rams, who spent many millions on useless buildings, was little troubled with anxiety and fear, up to the memorable night when he was informed of his deposition; but other despots are in constant dread of their lives. Nasreddin Shah, even in his hunting lodge in Djadjerud, never neglected to have his couch surrounded by a company of soldiers; and his son, Mozaffareddin Shah, now on the throne, keeps awake for whole nights together for fear of being attacked and murdered. Can anything be more awful?
Of late years Oriental despots have come to the conclusion that in foreign lands, among the unbelievers, they are safer, freer, and altogether happier than in their own country. Abdul Ahad, the Emir of Bokhara, visits the Russian baths of Pyatigorsk in preference to any other, and from the frequent visits of the Persian kings to Europe it is very evident that the Shehinshahs of Iran, notwithstanding their Asiatic despotism, find in the land of the Franks—whose very touch defileth, in the eyes of the Shiites—more of pleasure and recreation than they can ever enjoy at home. In Teheran when the Shah rides or drives out, two long rows of Ferrashes (attendants) precede him as already mentioned, armed with long staves, to keep the beloved subjects at a safe distance and to clearthe way. Windows and doors are tightly shuttered and curtained to prevent any one from setting eyes on their lord and master; the sanctity (otherwise security) of the ruler's sublime person demands this. When the Shah comes to a European city crowds of curious Westerners receive him; he is cheered and welcomed, and the homage of the public pleases him, and makes him feel stronger and more confident than before. And then there is the courtesy he meets with at our courts; he fancies himself on equality with the powerful sovereigns of the West; all this increases his self-respect, and therein lies the special charm of his European travels.
If here in Europe we have been under the impression that the experiences gained in these visits to Western lands would be used in the interests of Western culture and for the civilising of his own land, we have been far too sanguine in our expectations, for these pleasure trips of Oriental sovereigns have never benefited their respective countries. On the contrary, they drain the land's resources. With his three journeys to Europe Nasreddin Shah has utterly ruined the finances of Persia, already in a very unsound condition. They did not lead to any profitable innovations, and it is a well-known fact that the travels of his son Mozaffareddin Shah were paid for by a Russian loan, originally intended for the economic and administrative amelioration of the land.
No, these Asiatic demigods do not lie on a bedof roses. Their life is bare and lonely, their enjoyment full of anxiety and fear, the hundreds of thousands who writhe before them in the dust and do them homage with bombastic titulations are their greatest enemies, and the worst victims of despotism are the despots themselves. Can one be surprised that I brought no rosy reminiscences from the Oriental courts?
The Struggle's End, and yet no End
The preceding autobiographical notes give in broad outline the experiences and varied fortunes of my career from childhood to old age. They give, so to speak, the material picture of an unusual life, with all its varieties of light and shade, the struggles and adventures of the tailor's apprentice, private tutor, student, servant, Effendi, Dervish, and international writer. The details of this picture are, after all, but the outside wrappings, the shell, not the core or inner substance. They do not depict adequately the mental struggles and sufferings which have marked all these different phases of my existence, and which each in their turn have deeply influenced my thoughts and reflections. The enumeration of certain facts may, to some extent, gratify one's personal vanity, but since the empty satisfaction of self-glorification is hardly an adequate return for all the bitter sufferings of my past life, I must complete my story by giving expression to my reflections resulting from a careful comparison of certain institutions,manners, and customs in Asiatic and European society. These reflections, the chief factors of the transformation of my mental life, are very possibly shared by many others, and explained in various ways, but the manner in which I gained my experience was rather out of the ordinary, for before me no European or Asiatic ever acted so many different parts on the world's stage in two continents, and I will therefore endeavour to draw a comparison between some institutions, manners, and customs of society in Asia and Europe. I will reveal a picture of my mental condition when, saturated with Asiatic ways of thinking, I made the acquaintance of various European countries, and how, when comparing the two worlds, I came to the conclusion that here, as there, shortsightedness, prejudice, prepossession, and want of objectiveness prevented the forming of sound and just opinions.
When first I left the West to enter the Asiatic world I had but a vague theoretical knowledge of the lands and peoples of Europe, gathered from a study of the literatures of the various Western nations, but I had no practical acquaintance with any of them. My first experiences of Turkish society in Stambul—which, in spite of the introduction of many Western customs, still at bottom bears a decided Asiatic stamp—together with the charm of novelty and my decided Oriental predilections, were in many respects of a pleasing nature. The kindly reception and the friendly treatment extended tothe stranger regardless of his antecedents, are bound to charm and captivate the recipient. One feels at once at home everywhere, and a cursory comparison of the two kinds of culture is decidedly in favour of the Old World. Afterwards—that is, when one has spent some time among the Asiatics, and has obtained an intimate knowledge of their views of religion, men, and the world in general—a certain feeling of monotony, indifference, and sleepiness creeps over us. Our blood becomes sluggish, we yawn and fidget while the Oriental, always imperturbable, sits unmoved, with evident satisfaction, gazing up at the sky.
Gradually, the more I became familiar with the inner Asiatic world, these feelings took possession of me. In Persian society these thoroughly Asiatic features worried me, but in Central Asia, where the world is eight hundred years older, I positively shuddered at what I saw. The very things which, on my first acquaintance with Asiatic life, had pleased me, I now recognised as the causes of its decay, its tyranny, and its misery. The Old World, never at any time free from the defects and vices which now, in its ruined condition, stare us in the face, became despicably mean in my estimation, and unworthy of men, and with longing eyes I turned to the West again. I cannot describe the feeling of delight with which I crossed the Eastern borders of our modern world; with each day's journey I breathed more freely. I rejoiced to see the last ofthe ruins, the misery, the sterility of the older world, and the pictures which to my heated imagination, partly because of their novelty, had had so much fascination for me in my younger days, now made me shudder when I thought of them.
Such was my state of mind on returning from Asia. If before starting on my Oriental travels I had been in a position to obtain a deeper insight into the religious, social, and political conditions of Europe than lay within the reach of the poor, self-taught scholar, my impressions and estimate of Asia might have been different, and the result of my comparative study of the two cultures might have been more of an objective nature. But there, as here, I came as a man, who, under the magic of the first impression, saw everything in a rosy light, and was pleased with everything, and only afterwards, when the cold light of reality and of clearer perception showed me everything in its right light, I began to look upon Europe with quite different eyes, and my opinion about the actions of the Western world became considerably modified. And now, in the evening of my life, roaming the horizon of rich experience with unprejudiced eyes, and noting the light and shady sides of both the Old and the New World, of Asiatic and European culture; now that no personal interests and no prejudices obscure my vision, now I see and judge quite differently, and I count it my duty to acquaint the reader with these modified views, the more soas I know by experience how astonishingly small is the number of critics who, free from the trammels of religion and nationality, have devoted themselves to the comparative study of the old and the new culture. The clatter of the chains can always be heard in the praise or disapproval of our critics. On this side, as on the other, partiality has blocked the way to truth; and since the new century has, in many respects, opened the way to free thought, we can now unreservedly and without fear discuss the good and the evil, the advantages and disadvantages, of the two worlds. Those who have read my travels, and realise the miseries, sufferings, and vicissitudes to which I was exposed through the barbarism, anarchy, and desolation of the Asiatic world, will be surprised that I discovered large spots on the highly-praised sun of our modern culture, and saw caricatures where we expected to find noble ideals for the benefit of humanity. Considering many of my earlier views on these matters, I may be accused of precipitancy and inconsistency, but the judgment of mature age easily redeems the errors of youth, and improvement and perfecting are generally the outcome of former mistakes and errors. After these few remarks I will now try to put into words the impressions made upon me by particular instances of our manners and customs, our religious, social, and political life, all of which have given me much food for thought.
Asia is a religious worldpar excellence. Religion animates all phases and fibres of human existence. It does not confine itself to the relations between Creator and creature, but it also governs political and social life; it penetrates everything; it enters into the most secret thoughts and aspirations of the human mind; it rules the course of the earthly body; it creates laws and orders daily life; it teaches us how to dress, feed, and comport ourselves; also in what manner we must eat, drink, and love—in a word, it is the one all-pervading instrument to secure happiness and to ennoble life. Coming back to Europe after a sojourn of many years under these Asiatic influences, one cannot fail to be struck by the looseness of the religious structure and by the constant efforts made by the State, the Church, and sometimes also by society to strengthen and keep upright the frail, shaky building tottering on its foundation. In Asia this is not necessary. With the exception of the Motazilites and other freethinkers during the first centuries of the Hejira, scepticism and free thought have found no adherents in Islam, and in modern times less than ever. The great masses of the Mohammedans are strictly religious; all discussion in matters of religion is prohibited, except perhaps to the Shiite Mollahs, and highly edifying to me were the hours spent in Ispahan under theplane-trees in the garden of Medressei Shah, where I could converse freely and openly with the Persian clerics about the Divine tradition of the Koran, the immortality of the soul, &c., &c. With Moslems of other nationalities the principlenoli me tangeregoverns all matters of religion, and when we leave this stronghold of faith and come to Europe, where the struggle between faith and knowledge has been going on for hundreds of years, where Spinoza, Voltaire, Gibbon, Draper, Buckle, and many other modern thinkers have been successfully employed on the demolition of the religious structure; where attempts are made to supplant the worship of God with the worship of humanity; the hypocrisy and dissimulation prevailing in our world must strike us painfully. What Christianity and Judaism give us to behold passes all description. In spite of Strauss and Renan, Büchner and Huxley, millions of Westerners pretend to be either Christians or Jews without even believing that there is a God. The majority of Churchmen are so enlightened by modern science that they, least of all, believe in the doctrines they preach and fight for, and the traveller from Asia to Europe must, perforce, ask himself the question, "Why all this hypocrisy, all this dissimulation? Why this persistent closing of one's eyes against the rays of light which our culture, after a hard struggle with the prevailing darkness, has at last revealed?" This incomprehensible love of pretence has in Europe attainedto such a pass that in certain leading circles hypocrisy, the religious lie and false pretence are held up as a virtue worthy of imitation, and a meritorious example! This perversity, this vice, I might say, is as incomprehensible to the thoughtful mind as it is unworthy of, and humiliating amid, the much vaunted achievements of Western civilisation. In the circles where these despicable notions are tolerated and extolled as worthy of imitation we hear most of the mighty influence exercised by religion upon the social status of humanity, while it is asserted that the world without this moral police could not exist, because society, even in its lowest state—the savage state—could not exist without its fetish and totem.
During my many years' intercourse with people of various religions, living amongst them in the incognito of Catholic, Protestant, Sunnite, Shiite, and for a short time also as Parsi, I have come to the conclusion that religion offers but little security against moral deterioration, and that it is not seemly for the spirit of the twentieth century to take example by the customs and doings of savages. Not only Lombroso, but many other thinkers, have clearly proved that the majority of criminals are religiously disposed, and that, for instance, the robber-murderer in Spain, before setting to his work, offers a prayer to his patron saint, St. James. In Asia I have noticed the same thing. The most cruel and unprincipled Turkoman robbers werealways the first, before setting out on a marauding expedition, to beg from me, the supposed Sheikh, or from some other pious man, a Fatiha (blessing). In the towns of Central Asia, Persia, and Turkey I have found in the thickly-turbaned men of God some of the most consummate villains and criminals, while the plain Osbeg and Osmanli, who only knows religion in its external form, shows himself a man full of generosity and goodness of heart. In all the Islamic world Mecca and Medina are known as the most loathsome pools of wickedness and vice. Theft, murder, and prostitution flourish there most wantonly. I have noticed the same in the large pilgrim haunts, Meshed and Kum, and it is a well-known saying, "He who wants to forsake his Christianity should make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Rome."
With us in Europe the relation between morality and religion is a similar one, and how it is possible that, in the face of the revealed facts, states and societies give themselves the trouble to discover in religion a panacea against vice and a standard of morality must remain a mystery to any thinking man.
Remarkable and inexplicable it certainly remains why in Western lands, with the prevailing scepticism in the cultured world, far more tolerance or indifference is shown towards the freethinker than towards people who hold different religious views from our own. In Asia the hatred of andfanaticism against those of another creed are the outcome of strong faith, and since these are fostered and upheld by the Government, antagonistic feelings, though probably deeper rooted, do not express themselves so vehemently or so frequently as with us. Our laws and our notions of decency guard against the outbreak of passion, but they cannot break the power of prejudice even in the breast of the most cultured. When we consider the relations of the Christian West towards the Moslemic East, it will strike us that the sympathies of Europeans, however unprejudiced they may think themselves, when it comes to the political questions of the day will always be more on the side of the Christian than of the Mohammedan subjects of Turkey, although the Mohammedan subjects of the Porte have to suffer more from the despotism of the Government than the Christians under the protection of the Western Powers. The European still looks upon the Mohammedan, Brahmanist, Buddhist, &c., as an inferior being whose faith he ridicules and blackens and whom he could not under any circumstances regard as his equal, and in spite of the protection extended by our laws to those of another creed, the follower of the doctrines of Mohammed, Buddha, and Vishnu feels always uncomfortable, strange, and restricted in Western lands. And the Jews do not fare much better, although they have adopted the language, manners, and customs of the various lands of Europe.
In the history of the Moslemic East, for instance, persecutions and violent outbreaks against the Jews are far less frequent than with us in the West, not merely in the Middle Ages but even in quite modern times. Enlightened Europe, mocking at the fanaticism of Asia, has of late years published, under the title of Anti-Semitism, things against the Jews which defy repetition; they form one of the darkest stains on the escutcheon of the modern world of culture. Even our most eminent freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists are not without blame in this matter; and the absurd excuse that the Jews are hated and persecuted not on account of their belief, but on account of their exclusiveness and strongly marked nationality, is ridiculous on the face of it, for all over Europe the Jew adopts the national proclivities of his native land, and often,plus catholique que le pape, he shows himself more patriotic than his Christian countryman. In consideration of these facts it is surprising that the Jew, treated as a stranger everywhere in Europe, still persists in ingratiating himself into the national bond. Why does he not accept the fact and simply say, "Since you want none of me I remain Jew, and you can brand me as a cosmopolitan if you like." There is no doubt that this innate prejudice of the Christian world finds its root in those virtues and characteristics which have enabled the Jews to accomplish so much, and which as the natural result of oppression may be seen in all oppressed people. "He who violentlythrows down the flaming torch to extinguish it will burn his fingers at the fiercer burning flame," as a German poet pithily remarks. Tyrants generally harm themselves most by their tyranny, and when the ruling Christian world considers itself justified in taking up arms against the professedly more highly gifted, more energetic, and persevering children of the so-called Semitic race, it is grossly mistaken. The Jew in Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia is more purely Semitic, more staunchly religious than his co-religionist in Europe, and yet I do not know any more miserable, helpless, and pitiful individual on God's earth than theJahudiin those countries. Where is the Semitic sharpness, the Semitic energy and perseverance, which the European puts down and fears as dangerous racial characteristics? The poor Jew is despised, belaboured and tortured alike by Moslem, Christian, and Brahmin, he is the poorest of the poor, and outstripped by Armenians, Greeks and Brahmins, who everywhere act the same part which in Europe has fallen to the lot of the Jew for lack of a rival in adversity. I repeat, Anti-Semitism in Europe is a vile baseness, which cannot be justified by any religious, ethnical, or social motives, and when the Occident, boasting of its humaneness and love of justice, always tries to put all that is evil and despicable on to poor, starved, depraved Asia, one forgets that with us the sun of a higher civilisation truly has dawned, but is not yet risen high enoughto illumine the many dark points and gloomy corners in this world of ours.
Why deny it? In my many years' intercourse with the people of both these worlds, religion has not had a beneficial influence upon me. I have found in it nothing to ennoble man, not a mainspring of lofty ideals, and certainly no grounds for classifying and incorporating people according to their profession of faith or rather according to their interpretation and understanding of the great vital question as to the exact manner in which one should grope about in the prevailing darkness. If the division into many nationalities of people belonging to the same race and living under the same sky is an absurdity, how much more foolish is it to be divided on the point of a fanciful interpretation of the inscrutable mystery, and a fruitless groping into the unfathomable problem? The question of nationality will be further discussed presently, and as regards religion I will only add here that the ethical standard of faith, although much higher in Asia than in Europe, can after all have but a problematic influence, and only on intellects whose culture enables them to form high ideals, and to whom, being of a poetic or sentimental or indolent temperament, a roaming in loftier spheres seems a necessity. Beyond this, religion in Asia as in Europe reveals itself in outward show, miracles and mysteries, and where these are absent there is no true religion. Many of the ceremonies, usages,and superstitions which as an Orthodox Jew I practised in my youth I have discovered again one by one in faithful counterfeit amongst Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Moslems, Fire-worshippers, and Hindus, and nothing to my mind is more ridiculous than the revilings of one religion against another about these childish external things. So, for instance, as a pious Jew, I was always careful on Saturdays not to pass the Ereb,i.e., the line which marks the closer limit of the town, with my wallet full. Overstepping this cordon might be looked upon as a business transaction and a violation of the Sabbath; with a handkerchief on my loins and my eyes fixed on a bit of twine hanging between two sticks, I ventured, however, to take my walks abroad on the Sabbath day. Many years later I travelled from Samarkand to Herat in company with some Hindustani, who, having transacted some financial business in Bokhara, now with full pouches were returning to their sunny home on the Ganges. These Vishnu-worshippers, with the yellow caste-sign on their brow, used at night at the halting-place to separate themselves from the rest of the caravan. Small sticks about a finger in length were stuck in the ground to form a circle round them with a thin twine stretched from point to point, (for, like the Ereb, this line represented the cordon between them and the world of unbelievers), and behind this imaginary wall they prepared and ate their food without any fear ofits being defiled by the glances of the heathen. As a child I was taught to look with disgust upon swine's flesh, and later, as Mohammedan, I had to feign horror and aversion at the very mention of the word Khinzir (swine). In my youth the wine prepared by a Christian was Nesekh (forbidden), as a Shiite, notwithstanding my ravenous hunger, I could not touch the food which the hand of a Christian had handled. Not only among Jews and Asiatic religionists, however, but even Christianity, whether in Europe or in Asia, is full of such flagrant superstitions and absurdities which are thrown in the teeth of those of another persuasion. The Abbé Huc tells us in his Book of Travels, that once on the borders of Tibet he sought a night's quarter and was directed to the house of a Buddha-maker. This led the French missionary to make some scoffing remark about the manufacturing of gods in Buddhism. I had a similar experience at St. Ulrich's in the Grödnerthal, in strictly Catholic Tyrol, for in my search for a house to put up at in that charmingly situated Alpine place I was directed successively to a Mary-maker, a God-maker, and a Christ-maker, for in this district live the best-known manufacturers of crosses and saints. In the Mohammedan world, knowing that I was acquainted with Europe, I have often been asked whether it was really true that the Franks worshipped a god with a dog's head, practised communism of wives, and such like things. In Tyrol,on the Achensee, where I lived among the peasants, I was asked if on my many travels I had ever visited the land of the Liberals, where the goat does duty as god, as the anti-Liberal minister had given the simple peasants to understand.
In many other respects the religions of the East and of the West agree in point of degeneracy, and it is incomprehensible how and with what right our missionaries manage to convince the Asiatics of the errors of their faith and to represent Christianity as the only pure and salvation-bringing religion. If our missionaries could point to our Western order and freedom as the fruit of Christianity, their insistence would be somewhat justified, but our modern culture has developed notthroughbutin spite ofChristianity. The fact that Asia in our days is given up as a prey to the rapacity of Europe is not the fault of Islam or Buddhism or Brahminism. The principles of these religions support more than Christianity does the laws of humanity and freedom, the regulations of State and society, but it is the historical development and the climate, the conditions of the soil, and, above all, the tyrannical arbitrariness of their sovereigns which have created the cliffs against which all the efforts of religion promotors must be wrecked.
After all this I need not comment any further upon my own confession of faith, which is contained within the pages of this autobiography. To my thoroughly practical nature one grain of commonsense is of more value than a bushel of theories; and it has always been trying to me to go into questions the solution of which I holdà priorito be impossible, and I have preferably occupied myself with matters of common interest rather than with the problems of creation, the Deity, &c., which our human understanding can never grasp or fathom. I have honoured and respected all religions in so far as they were beneficial and edifying,i.e., in so far as they endeavoured to improve and ennoble mankind; and when occasion demanded I have always, either out of respect for the laws of the land, or out of courtesy to the society in which I happened to be, formally conformed to the prevailing religion of the land, just as I did in the matter of dress, although it might be irksome at times. In matters of secondary importance, religious and otherwise, I have strictly adhered to the principle, "Si fueris Romæ romano vivito more," and to the objections raised by religious moralists to my vacillating in matters of religion I can but reply: A vacillating conviction is, generally speaking, no conviction at all, and he who possesses nothing has nothing to exchange. Nothing to me is more disgusting than the holy wrath with which hypocrisy in Europe censures and condemns a change of religion based on want of conviction. Are the clergy, pastors, and modernised rabbis so fully convinced of the soundness of the dogmas they hold, and do they really believe that theirdistortions of face, their pious pathos and false enthusiasm can deceive cultured people of the twentieth century? When certain Europeans in their antiquated conservatism still carry high the banner of religious hypocrisy, and although possessing a good pair of legs prefer to go about on the crutches of Holy Scripture, we have no occasion to envy them their choice. The idea of carrying the lie with me to the grave seems to me horrible. The intellectual acquisitions of our century can no longer away with the religion of obscure antiquity; knowledge, enlightenment, and free inquiry have made little Europe mistress of the world, and I cannot see what advantage there can be in wilfully denying this fact, and why, in the education of the young, we do not discard the stupefying system of religious doctrine and cultivate the clear light of intellectual culture. Those who have lived among many phases of religion, and have been on intimate terms with the adherents of Asiatic and European creeds, are puzzled to see the faint-heartedness and indecision of the Western world; and if there be anything that has astonished me in Europe, it is this everlasting groping and fumbling about in matters of religion and the constant dread lest the truth, acknowledged by all thinking men, should gain the victory. For governing and ruling the masses religion may perhaps remain for some time to come a convenient and useful instrument, but in the face of the progress in all regions of modern knowledge and thought it becomes ever clearer andmore evident that this game of hide-and-seek cannot go on very much longer. The spirit of the twentieth century cries, "Let there be light!" The light must and shall come!
Frail and brittle as is the foundation of the partition wall dividing the religions of Europe, the same may be said of the boundaries of nationalities which separate people into various corporations. If nationality were a question of common origin, based on consanguinity,i.e., on natural proclivities, there would be nothing to say against the idea of unity and cohesiveness. Mankind would be divided into different families separated by certain conspicuous racial characteristics; such separation, based on natural causes, would be quite justifiable. But in the various nationalities, as we now see them in Europe, there is not a symptom of any such idea; their ethnical origin lies in obscurity. These nations are an agglomeration of the greatest possible mixture of kindred and foreign elements, and, according to the longer or shorter process of development, it is at most their common language, customs, and history which constitute the so-called national stamp. If we observe a little more closely the European nations of our time we shall find that the older the influence of culture the sooner the national crystallisation of such a country began, and consequently is still in process in thelater-developed Eastern portion of Europe. The French are a mixture of Iberians, Ligurians or Gauls, Kelts, and eventually also Phœnicians, and the German Franks, who found this ethnical conglomeration in ancient Gaul and gave it the present national name. In the German national corporation there are many nationalities whose German origin is by no means proved. A large portion of Eastern Germany was Slavonic; Berlin, Leipsic, Dresden, Chemnitz, &c., point to a Slavonic origin, and the oldest inhabitants of Steiermark, Kärnten, and the Eastern Tyrol were Slavs. In Italy we find a most curious mixture of Etruscans, Latins, Greeks, Slavs, Arabs, and Germans, which in course of time Church and State have amalgamated and impressed with the stamp of linguistic unity, although the typical features of the various fragments are not obliterated even now. In Hungary Ural-Altaic fragments have mixed with Slavs and other Aryans, and in spite of numerical minority the Magyar element, through its warlike propensities, has for centuries maintained the upper hand and gradually absorbed the foreign elements. The real ground-element of the Magyar nation, however, it would be almost impossible to discover.
The strongly mixed character of the English people is universally known, and when we look a little more closely at the gigantic Russian Empire we shall find that in the small nucleus of the Slavonic provinces, Tartars, Bashkirs, Kirghiz,Buriats, Votiaks, Cheremiss, Suryanes, Shuvashes, Greeks, Ostiaks, Voguls, Caucasians, &c., have been swallowed up. The growth of the Russian nation is of comparatively modern date and still in process. At the time of Peter the Great the entire population of Russia was estimated at thirty millions;nowthe number of Russians alone is over eighty millions.
And now I ask, in the face of all the above difficulties, can there be a question of consanguinity in the various nationalities, and what is there to insure a feeling of brotherly fellowship? Those who argue in favour of this point bring forward the national peculiarities, the outcome of their common language, customs, and historical antecedents, all of them psychical causes, and nationality is represented as a moral and not as a material conception. Very well, we will accept this, only let us remember that language, like all other psychical things, is subject to changes, and we must not be astonished if Islam, ignoring all former national restrictions, seeks to classify the human race only according to profession of faith, and has advanced the thesis, "All true believers are brothers." In the Mohammedan organisation the various shades of nationality practically do not exist, in obedience to the maxim: "Hubb ul watan min el iman." Patriotism proceeds from religion; at any rate they are always of secondary importance. When Islam, inspired by such lofty ideas,can accomplish this, why cannot we, under the powerful protection of our modern culture, produce some equivalent in our Western lands, and, putting aside national restrictions, create a cultural bond and united corporation, excluding all national hatred and discord? This indeed would be one of the most ideal forms of national life, and its realisation in the distant future is not at all an impossibility. But as yet, alas! we have not reached this exalted station of peace and happiness. Behold in our cultured West the uninterrupted struggle of great and mighty nationalities against smaller and weaker ones—a struggle in which Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fittest" is fully justified. No one likes to act the part of the weaker, doomed to destruction; none wants to be absorbed by others, and the inferior in numbers have to defend their claim for existence as a political nation upon historical grounds. It is the rapacity and the tyranny of the great nations which have called forth and justify the fight for existence in the smaller ones, for why should not all want to preserve their individuality, all want to be entirely free in promoting the intellectual and material development of their own commonwealth? And this being so, there can, for the present, be no question of cosmopolitan tendencies. This fact becomes more conspicuous where it concerns a small ethnical island surrounded by the wild waves of a mighty ethnical sea, which threaten to destroy it, as we seeexemplified in Hungary. Encompassed by German, Slav, and Roman elements, it has for centuries skilfully and successfully held its own, and the preservation of its national independence is an absolute necessity, as otherwise a collision between the three large national bodies just mentioned would be unavoidable, and the existence of a buffer-state must therefore be hailed as a fortunate coincidence. All lovers of peace and of quiet expansion of Western culture in the East must hail with joy the buffer afforded by the Hungarian State, and all true friends of culture must heartily desire the growth of Hungary. In this spirit I have always preserved my Hungarian patriotism, and will do so to the end of my days, although for many decades of years I have occupied myself with questions of universal interest, and have kept aloof from home politics. It is not surprising that the patriotism of a cosmopolitan differs considerably from that of his stay-at-home compatriots. But the keen interest in the affairs of the various nations with whom the traveller comes into contact hardly ever succeeds in suppressing or weakening in him his warmer feelings for the weal and woe of his native land. The tears I have shed in my younger days over the cruel sufferings and mortifications inflicted upon my native land by Austria's absolutism would have promoted a more luxurious growth of the plant of patriotism, if I had always remained at home and had had intercourse with Hungariansonly. But even when one's horizon has widened one may still cling lovingly to one's native sod. One does not so lightly agree with Tolstoy, who maintains that patriotism is a crime, for although there are proverbs such as "Ubi bene ibi patria," or its English equivalent, "If you happen to be born in a stable, it does not follow that you are a horse," the cosmopolitan, be he ever so infatuated, always in the end is glad to get home again.
If there be anything likely to weaken or shake one's patriotism, it is the narrow-mindedness and ridiculous prejudice of the Christian West against its fellow-countrymen of a different creed. I will take my own case as example. I was all ablaze with enthusiasm when in my childhood I became acquainted with the life of the national heroes of Hungary. The heroic epoch of 1848 filled my youthful heart with genuine pride, and even later in 1861, when I returned from Constantinople by the Danube boat, on landing at Mohacs I fell on my knees and kissed the ground with tears of true patriotic devotion in my eyes. I was intensely happy and in a rapture of delight, but had soon to realise that many, nay most people questioned the genuineness of my Hungarianism. They criticised and made fun of me, because, they said, people of Jewish origin cannot be Hungarians, they can only be Jews and nothing else. I pointed to the circumstance that in matters of faith, like most cultured people, I was really an agnostic and had long since left the precincts of Judaism.
I spoke of the dangers I had faced in order to investigate the early history of Hungary, surely a test of patriotism such as but few would be able to show. Many other arguments I brought forward, but all in vain; everywhere and on all occasions an ominous sneer, an insidious shrug of the shoulders, an icy indifference, or a silence which has a more deadly effect than any amount of talk. Add to this the deep and painful wound inflicted by the adverse criticism at home upon me and my travels, and I would ask the reader, Could I under these conditions persist in my national enthusiasm, could I stand up to defend Hungarian patriotism with the same ardent love of youth when as yet I had no anticipation of what was to happen to me? Even the most furious nationalist could not easily answer this question in the affirmative. Not his Jewish descent, but the prejudiced, unreasonable, and illiberal Christian world is to blame when the man of Jewish origin becomes cosmopolitan; and I am not sure whether those Jews who, in spite of the blunt refusals they receive, persist in pushing themselves within the national framework must be admired as martyrs or despised as intruders. The law, at all events, makes no difference, but usage and social convenience do not trouble themselves much about the law; and in this all European countries are alike, with the exception of England, where liberalism is not an empty term, where the Jew feels thoroughly English and is looked upon assuch by the true Briton. I frankly admit that the weakening and ultimate loss of this warm national feeling deprives us of one of the most noble sentiments of humanity; for, with all its weakness and prejudices, the bond of national unity possesses always a certain charm and attraction; and through all the painful experiences of my life, the thought that the short-sightedness of society could not deprive me of my national right to the soil of my birth has comforted and cheered me. The land where I saw the light of day, where my cradle stood, and where I spent the golden days of childhood, is, and ever remains my Fatherland. It is my native soil, its weal and woe lie close to my heart, and I have always been delighted when in some way or other I could help a Hungarian.