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 Another Random Document on
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 The Project Gutenberg eBook of
The story of my struggles: the memoirs of
Arminius Vambéry, Volume 2
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius

Vambéry, Volume 2

Author: Ármin Vámbéry

Release date: January 3, 2016 [eBook #50837]

Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Albert László, Martin Pettit and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF

MY STRUGGLES: THE MEMOIRS OF ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY, VOLUME 2
***
THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY:
His Life and Adventures.

Imperial 16mo, cloth, 6s. Boys' Edition, crown

8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s.

THE STORY OF HUNGARY.

Fully Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.

(The Story of the Nations Series.)

—————————————
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
 VAMBÉRY AFTER HIS RETURN FROM CENTRAL ASIA.

Photographed in Teheran, 1863.

Frontispiece to Vol. II.
 THE STORY OF
MY STRUGGLES
THE MEMOIRS OF
ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY
PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BUDAPEST

VOLUME II

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE · 1904

(All rights reserved.)

 Contents

CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
FROM LONDON TO BUDAPEST 237

CHAPTER VIII.
MY POLITICAL CAREER AND POSITION IN ENGLAND 283

CHAPTER IX.
THE TRIUMPH OF MY LABOURS 317

CHAPTER X.
AT THE ENGLISH COURT 329

CHAPTER XI.
MY INTERCOURSE WITH SULTAN ABDUL HAMID 343

CHAPTER XII.
MY INTERCOURSE WITH NASREDDIN SHAH AND HIS
391
SUCCESSOR

CHAPTER XIII.
THE STRUGGLE'S END, AND YET NO END 411

APPENDICES 459
 Illustrations

PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AFTER HIS RETURN FROM

Frontispiece
CENTRAL ASIA
Facing page
PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AND HIS TARTAR, 1864
393

From London to Budapest

 CHAPTER VII
FROM LONDON TO BUDAPEST

I have often been asked how it was that, after the bitter
disappointment I had experienced in my native land on my return
from Asia, and after the brilliant reception accorded to me in
England, I yet preferred to settle down permanently in Hungary.
People have been surprised that I should choose a quiet literary
career, whereas my many years of intimate intercourse with various
Eastern nations might have been turned to so much better account,
and a practical, active career would have been so much more in
keeping with my character. All these questions were asked of me at
the time in London, but filled as I then became with a sense of
oppression and a great longing for home I could not give a
satisfactory answer to these queries. Now that the cloud has lifted,
and my vision is clear, now that sober reflection has taken the place
of former rapture and exultation, the causes which influenced my
decision are perfectly clear. I see now that I could not have acted
differently; that the step I took was partly the result of my personal
inclination and views of life, and partly influenced by the
circumstances of my birth and bringing up, and the notions then
generally prevailing in Hungary; nor have I cause or ground to regret
my decision.
In the first place I have to confess that in England, notwithstanding
the noisy, brilliant receptions I had, and all the attention paid to me,
no one ever made me any actual proposal with a view to my future
benefit, and no one seemed at all disposed to turn to account my
practical experiences in the service of the State or of private
enterprise. The Memorandum about the condition of things in
Central Asia, written at the time in Teheran at the request of the
British Ambassador there, had duly found its way to Lord
Palmerston, the Prime Minister. The gray statesman received me
most kindly; I was often a guest at his private house, or dined with
him at Mr. Tomlin's, of Carlton House Terrace, or at Sir Roderick
Murchison's, of 16, Belgrave Square. At his initiative I was invited to
other distinguished houses, for the merry old gentleman was much
entertained by my lively conversation and my anecdotes from Asia,
which I used to relate after dinner when the ladies had retired. My
stories about the white ass of the English Embassy at Teheran, of
diplomatic repute, and similar amusing details of court life in Persia
and the Khanates of Central Asia, tickled the fancy of the most
serious, sober-minded of these high lords, and went the round in the
fashionable West End circles. But for all that they saw in me merely
the "lively foreigner," the versatile traveller, and if here and there
some interest was shown in my future, it amounted to asking what
were my latest travelling plans, and when I thought of setting out in
search of fresh discoveries. As if I had not been on the go for two-
and-twenty years, ever since I was ten years old! as if I had not
battled and struggled and suffered enough! And now that for the
first time in my life I had lighted on a green bough and hoped to
have accomplished something, was I again straightway to plunge
into the vague ocean of destiny? "No, no," I reflected; "I am now
thirty-two years old, without for one moment having enjoyed the
pleasures of a quiet, peaceful life, and without possessing enough to
permit myself the luxury of resting on my own bed, or of working
comfortably at my own table." This uncertain, unsatisfactory state of
things must come to an end sometime; and so the desire for rest
and peace necessarily overruled any inclination for great and
ambitious plans, and nipped in the bud all projects which possibly
might have made my career more brilliant, but certainly not happier
than it afterwards turned out.
The kind reader of these pages who is familiar with the struggles
and troubles of my childhood, who has followed me in thought on
the thorny path of early youth, and knows something of my
experiences as self-taught scholar and tutor, will perhaps accuse me
of dejection, and blame me for want of perseverance and steadiness
of purpose. Possibly I have disregarded the golden saying of my
mother, "One must make one's bed half the night, the better to rest
the other half." I did give way to dejection, but my resolve, however
blameworthy it may be, should be looked upon as the natural
consequence of a struggle for existence which began all too early
and lasted sadly too long. Man is not made of iron, too great a
tension must be followed by a relaxation, and since the first fair half
of my life began to near its ending, my former iron will also began to
lose some of its force. The wings of my ambition were too weak to
soar after exalted ideals, and I contented myself with the prospect
of a modest professorship at the University of my native land and
the meagre livelihood this would give me.
In England, where a man in his early thirties is, so to speak, still in
the first stage of his life, and energy is only just beginning to swell
the sails of his bark, my longing for rest was often misunderstood
and disapproved of. In London I met a gentleman of sixty who
wanted to learn Persian and start a career in India; and I was going
to stop my practical career at the age of thirty-two! The difference
seems enormous, but in the foggy North man's constitution is much
tougher and harder than in the South. My physical condition, my
previous sufferings and privations, may to some extent account for
my despondency; I had to give in, although my object was only half
gained.
Emotions of this kind overpowered me even in the whirl and rush of
the first months of my stay in London. Before long I had seen
through the deceptive glamour of all the brilliancy around me; and
as I very soon realised that my personal acquaintance with high
society and the most influential and powerful persons would hardly
help me to a position in England, I endeavoured at least to use the
present situation as a step towards a position at home, in the hope
that the recognition I had obtained in England would be of service to
me in my native land, where the appreciation of foreign lands is
always a good recommendation. First of all I set to work upon my
book of travels, an occupation which took me scarcely three months
to accomplish, and which, written with the experiences all yet fresh
in my mind, resolved itself chiefly into a dry and unadorned
enumeration of adventures and facts. The introduction of historical
and philological notes would have been impossible in any case, as
my Oriental MSS. were detained in Pest as security on the money
loan, and also because in England everything that does not actually
bear upon political, economical, or commercial interests is looked
upon as superfluous ballast. When the first proof-sheets appeared of
my Travels in Central Asia many of my friends regretted the brevity
and conciseness of the composition, but the style was generally
approved of, and after its publication the various criticisms and
discussions of the work eulogised me to such an extent, that my
easily roused vanity would soon have got the better of me, had I not
been aware of the fact that all this praise was to a great extent an
expression of the hospitality which England as a nation feels it its
duty to pay to literary foreigners. This, my literary firstfruits,
necessarily contributed a good deal to increase my popularity, and
enlarged the circle of my acquaintance in high society to which I had
been semi-officially introduced by my Asiatic friends. My fame now
spread to all scientific, industrial, and commercial circles all over
England. I had no time to breathe. The post brought me double as
many invitations as before; I was literally besieged by autograph
hunters and photographers; and it is no exaggeration to say that for
months together I had invitations for every meal of the day, and that
my engagements were arranged for, days and weeks beforehand.
Wearisome and expensive as this enjoyment of popularity was—for
in my outward appearance and bearing I could not neglect any of
the prescribed forms which mark the "distinguished foreigner"—my
position afforded me the opportunity of studying London society, and
through it the aims and objects of the highest representatives of
Western culture, in a manner which might otherwise not have come
within my reach. When in my youth I journeyed Westward I never
went beyond the frontiers of Austria, and it was always only in
literary pursuits that I came in contact with Western lands: hence I
never saw any but the theoretical side of things. And now I was
transplanted from the depths of Asia, i.e., from the extreme end of
old-world culture and gross barbarism into the extreme of Western
civilisation and modern culture; and overpowering as was the
impression of all that I saw and experienced, equally interesting to
me was the comparison of the two stages of human progress.
What surprised me more than anything was the wealth, the comfort,
and the luxury of the English country houses, compared to which the
rich colouring of Oriental splendour—existing as a matter of fact
mostly in legends and fairy tales—cuts but a poor figure. As for me,
who all my life had only seen the smile of fortune from a distance, I
was struck with admiration. Most difficult of all I found it to get used
to the elaborate meals and the table pomp of the English aristocracy.
I could not help thinking of the time of my Dervishship, when my
meals consisted sometimes of begged morsels and sometimes of
pilaw which I cooked myself. Now I had to eat through an endless
series of courses, and drink the queerest mixtures. During this
period of my lionship it was strangest of all to think of the miseries
of my childish days and the time when I was a mendicant student. It
was the realisation of the fairy tale of the beggar and the prince;
and with reference to this I shall never forget one night which I
spent at the magnificent country house of the Duke of A., not far
from Richmond. I was guest there together with Lord Clarendon, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other English notabilities. After dinner
the company adjourned to the luxuriously furnished smoke-room,
and from there shortly before midnight every guest was conducted
to his respective bedroom by a lacquey preceding him with two huge
silver chandeliers. When the powdered footman dressed in red silk
velvet had ushered me into the splendidly furnished bedroom,
provided with every possible comfort and luxury, and began to take
steps to assist me in undressing, I looked at the man quite
dumbfounded and said with a friendly smile, "Thank you, I can
manage alone." The footman departed. I feasted my eyes upon all
the grandeur around me. It was like a cabinet full of precious
curiosities and overflowing with silver articles and wonderful
arrangements of all sorts. When I turned back the brocaded coverlet
and lay down on the undulating bed, my fancy carried me back
twenty years, and I thought of my night quarters in the Three
Drums Street at Pest with the widow Schönfeld, where I had hired a
bed in company with a tailor's apprentice, he taking the head and I
the foot of the bed. Musing upon the strange alternations of man's
lot, and the difference between my condition then and now, I could
not go to sleep, but tossed about half the night on my silken couch.
It was after all merely a childish reflection, for, though now in
splendour, I was but a guest. But it is difficult to divest oneself of the
impression of the moment, and as often as I found myself in a
similar position the comparison between the mendicant student
suffering want and the petted lion of English society has brought me
to a contemplative mood.
More even than by the wealth and prosperity I was struck by the
spirit of freedom which, notwithstanding the strictly aristocratic
etiquette of society, must surprise the South-Eastern European, and
more still any one who from the inner Asiatic world finds himself
suddenly transplanted to the banks of the Thames. Formerly, in my
native land it was always with unconscious awe and admiration that
I looked up to a prince, a count, or a baron, and afterwards in Asia I
had to approach a Pasha, Khan, or Sirdar with submissive mien,
sometimes even with homage. And now I was surprised to notice
how little attention was paid to dukes, lords, and baronets in the
clubs and other public places in England. When for the first time I
went into the reading-room of the Athenæum Club, and with my hat
on stood reading the Times opposite to Lord Palmerston and at the
same desk with him, I could hardly contain myself for surprise, and
my eyes rested more often on the strong features of "Mister Pam"
than on the columns of the city paper. Later on I was introduced in
the Cosmopolitan Club to the Prince of Wales, then twenty-three
years old. This club did not open till after midnight. When I saw the
future ruler of Albion sitting there at his ease, without the other
members taking the slightest notice of him, I fairly gasped at the
apparent indifference shown to the Queen's son. I could but
approach the young Prince with the utmost reverence and awe; and
it was entirely owing to the great affability and kindness of heart of
this son of the Queen that I plucked up courage to sit down and
hold half an hour's conversation with him. Since that time this
specially English characteristic of individual freedom and
independence has often struck me forcibly, and could not fail to
strike any one accustomed to the cringing spirit of Asia and the
servility of Eastern Europe. Truly a curious mixture of the sublime
and the ridiculous, of really noble and frivolous impressions, marked
these first months of my sojourn in England. Feelings of admiration
and contempt, of delight and scorn alternated within me; and when
I ask myself now what it was that I disliked about England, and
drove me to unfavourable criticism, I would mention in the first place
the rigid society manners, utterly foreign to me, which I found it
hard to conform to and consequently detested. The straitjacket of
etiquette and society manners oppresses the English themselves
more than they care to acknowledge; how, then, must it affect the
Continental and the wanderer fresh from the Steppes of Asia? The
second reason which made the idea of a longer stay in London quite
impossible for me was the dislike, nay, the absolute horror I had of
the incessant hurrying, rushing, bustling crowds in the
thoroughfares; the desperate efforts to gain honour and riches, and
the niggardly grudging of every minute of time. Standing at the
corner of Lombard Street or Cheapside, or mixing with the crowds
madly hurrying along Ludgate Hill, I felt like a man suddenly
transported to pandemonium. To see how these masses push and
press past one another, how the omnibus drivers swing round the
corners, regardless of danger to human life, for the mere chance of
gaining a few coppers more, and to realise how this same struggle
for existence goes on in all stages of society, in all phases of life,
relentless, merciless, was enough to make me think with longing of
the indolent life of Eastern lands; and, without admitting the Nirvana
theory, all this fuss and flurry seemed out of place and far too
materialistic. My nature altogether revolted against it.
Of course this view was quite erroneous. For what has made
England great was, and is, this very same prominent individuality,
this restless striving and struggling, this utter absence of all fear,
hesitation, and sentimentality where the realisation of a
preconceived idea is concerned. But unfortunately at that time I was
still under the ban of Asiaticism; and although the slowness,
indolence, and blind fanaticism of the Asiatics had annoyed me,
equally disagreeable to me was the exactly opposite tendency here
manifested. I wanted to find the "golden middle way," and
unconsciously I was drawn towards my own home, where on the
borderland between these two worlds I hoped to find what I sought.
And now, after the lapse of so many years, recalling to mind some
personal reminiscences of London society, I seem to recognise in the
political, scientific, and artistic world of those days so many traits of
a truly humane and noble nature, mixed with the most bizarre and
eccentric features which have been overlooked by observers.
The gigantic edifice of the British Empire was then still in progress of
building, the scaffolding was not yet removed, some portions still
awaited their completion; and as the beautiful structure could not
yet be viewed in its entirety, and an impression of the whole could,
therefore, not be realised, there was in the nation but little of that
superabundant self-consciousness for which modern times are
noted. They listened to me with pleasure when I spoke of England's
mighty influence over the Moslem East, they heard with undisguised
gratification when I commended England's civilising superiority over
that of Russia, but yet they did not seem to trust their own eyes,
and to many my words were mere polite speeches with which the
petted foreigner reciprocated their hospitality. The interest shown by
a foreigner in a foreign land must always seem somewhat strange,
and my appreciative criticisms of England may have appeared
suspicious to many of my readers. Only later statements by such
men as Baron Hübner in his Travels in India, or Garcin de Tassy's
learned disquisitions on the influence of English culture on
Hindustan, have lent more weight to my writings.
Of all the leading statesmen of the time I felt most attracted towards
Lord Palmerston. I recognised in him a downright Britisher, with a
French polish and German thoroughness; a politician who, with his
gigantic memory, could command to its smallest details the
enormous Department of Foreign Affairs, and who knew all about
the lands and the people of Turkey, Persia, and India. He seemed to
carry in his head the greater portion of the diplomatic
correspondence between the East and the West; and what
particularly took my fancy were the jocular remarks which he used
to weave into his conversation, together with bon-mots and more
serious matters. In the after-dinner chats at the house of Mr. Tomlin,
not far from the Athenæum Club, or at 16, Belgrave Square with Sir
Roderick Murchison, where I was an often invited guest, he used to
be particularly eloquent. When he began to arrange the little knot of
his wide, white cravat, and hemmed a little, one could always be
sure that some witty remark was on its way, and during the absence
of the ladies subjects were touched upon which otherwise were but
seldom discussed in the prudish English society of the day. I had to
come forward with harem stories and anecdotes of different lands,
and the racier they were the more heartily the noble lord laughed.
The Prime Minister was at that time already considerably advanced
in years. The most delicate questions of the day were freely
discussed, and I must confess that it pleased me very much when
they did not look upon me as an outsider, but fully took me into their
confidence. Lord Granville, afterwards Minister of Foreign Affairs,
treated me also with great kindness. He was a little more reserved,
certainly, but an intrinsically good man, and it always pleased him
when I was at table with him to hear me converse with the different
foreign ambassadors in their native tongue. His sister, Mrs. James,
an influential lady in high life, provided me with invitations from
various quarters, and it was she who urged me to settle in London.
Similar encouragements I also received from Sir Justin Sheil, at one
time British Ambassador in Persia, and his wife, most distinguished,
excellent, people, who instructed me in the ways of fashionable life,
and taught me how to dress and how to comport myself at table, in
the drawing-room and in the street. Blunders against the orthodoxy
of English customs were resented by many; and once a lady who
had seen me on the top of an omnibus, from where the busy street-
life of London can best be observed, said to me in full earnest, "Sir,
take care not to be seen there again, otherwise you can no longer
appear as a gentleman in society." Admittance into society is
everything in England. One is severely judged by the cut and colour
of one's clothes. Society ladies demand that hat, umbrella, and
walking-stick come from the very best shop, and most important is
the club to which one belongs, and of course also the circle of one's
acquaintances. When I was able to give as my address, "Athenæum
Club, Pall Mall," the barometer of my importance rose considerably.
One can easily understand that all these trifles were little to my
taste. I had always been fond of simplicity and natural manners. All
these formalities and superficialities were hateful to me, but at that
time I had to yield to necessity and make the best of a bad job; nay,
even be grateful to my instructors for their well-meant advice in
these matters.
Honestly speaking, I have found among these people some very
noble-minded friends who, from purely humane motives, interested
themselves in me, and whose kind treatment I shall not forget as
long as I live. Amongst these I would especially mention Lord
Strangford, already referred to, a man of brilliant scientific talents,
and possessing a quite extraordinary knowledge of geography,
history, and the languages of the Moslem East. He had lived for
many years on the banks of the Bosphorus as Secretary to the
Embassy, and was not only thoroughly acquainted with Osmanli,
Persian, and Hindustani, but also with the Chagataic language, then
absolutely unknown in Europe. He could recite long passages from
the poems of Newai. He was as much at home in the works of Sadi,
Firdusi, and Baki as in Milton and Shakespeare, and well informed as
regards the ethnography and politics of the Balkan peoples, and the
various tribes of Central Asia and India. Lord Strangford, indeed, was
to me a living wonder, and when he shook his long-bearded, bony
head in speaking of Asia and criticising the politics of Lord
Palmerston, I should have liked to note down every word he said, for
he was a veritable mine of Oriental knowledge. It is very strange
that this man was not used as English Ambassador at one of the
Oriental courts, and it has often been laid to Lord Palmerston's
charge that he, the illustrious Premier, was not well disposed
towards his Irish countryman, who sometimes expressed his
resentment of the slight in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette, the
Saturday, or the Quarterly Review. As far as I am concerned Lord
Strangford was always a most kind and considerate patron, one of
the best and most unselfish friends I had in England, and his early
death was a great grief to me. He died of brain fever, and, as Lady
Strangford afterwards wrote to me, holding in his hand the volume
of my Chagataic Grammar which I had dedicated to him.
Next to the noble Lord Strangford I would mention the great
mathematician, Mr. Spottiswoode, who often asked me to his house;
also Sir Alexander Gordon, in Mayfair, whose sister, knowing
something of Egypt, took a special interest in my travels. I was also
a welcome guest at Lord Houghton's, both in town at Brook Street
and in the country at Ferrybridge, Yorkshire. The lunch parties at his
town residence were often of a peculiarly interesting nature. The
master of the house, a lover of sharp contrasts, used to gather
round his table the fanatical admirer of Mohammedanism, Lord
Stanley of Alderley, and the equally fanatical Protestant Bishop of
Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce known as "Soapy Sam." Most lively disputes
took place at times in defence of the teachings of Christ and
Mohammed, in which the disputants did not deal over-gently with
one another, and their forcible attacks upon each other's convictions
sometimes caused the most ridiculous scenes. Still finer were the
meetings at Ferrybridge, Lord Houghton's country seat. During one
visit there I made the acquaintance of such celebrities as Lord
Lytton, afterwards Viceroy of India; the poet Algernon Swinburne,
who used to read to us passages of his yet unpublished poem,
Atalanta in Calydon, over which the slender youth went into
ecstasies; and last, but not least, of Burton, just returned from a
mission in the North-West of Africa. Burton—later Sir Richard Burton
—was to spend his honeymoon under the hospitable roof of the
genial Lord Houghton. The company, amongst which Madame Mohl,
the wife of the celebrated Orientalist, Jules Mohl, specially attracted
my attention, had met here in honour of Burton, the great traveller,
and as he was the last to arrive, Lord Houghton planned the
following joke: I was to leave the drawing-room before Burton
appeared with his young wife, hide behind one of the doors, and at
a given sign recite the first Sura of the Koran with correct Moslem
modulation. I did as arranged. Burton went through every phase of
surprise, and jumping up from his seat exclaimed, "That is
Vambéry!" although he had never seen or heard me before. In after
years I entertained the most friendly relations with this remarkable
man, whom I hold to be, incontestably, the greatest traveller of the
nineteenth century, for he had the most intimate knowledge of all
Moslemic Asia; he was a clever Arabic scholar, had explored portions
of Africa together with Speke, and gone through the most awful
adventures at the court of Dahomey; he had explored the unknown
regions of North and South America, and also made himself a
literary name by his translations of the Lusiade and The Thousand
and One Nights; in a word, this strangely gifted man, who was never
fully appreciated in his own country, and through his peculiarities
laid himself open to much misunderstanding, was from the very first
an object of the greatest admiration for me. His contemporary and
fellow-worker, Gifford Palgrave, I also reckoned among my friends.
He was a classical Englishman, first belonging to the Anglican and
afterwards to the Roman Catholic Church. For some time he was in
the service of the Society of Jesus, as teacher in the mission school
at Beyrût; and as he was quite at home in the Arabic language, he
under-took a journey into the then unknown country of Nedjd, the
chief resort of the Wahâbis, about whom his book of travels contains
many interesting new data. Being a classical orator, he used to
fascinate his audience with his choice language, and what Spurgeon
has been in the pulpit and Gladstone in Parliament, that was
Palgrave in the hall of the Geographical Society. I liked the man fairly
well, only a peculiar twinkle of the eye constantly reminded me of
his former Jesuitism. In David Livingstone, the great African explorer,
I found a congenial fellow-labourer, whose words of appreciation,
"What a pity you did not make Africa the scene of your activity!"
sounded pleasant in my ears.
Other travellers, such as Speke, Grant, Kirk and others, I was also
proud to reckon among my friends; and in the field of literature I
would mention in the first place Charles Dickens, whose
acquaintance I made at the Athenæum Club, and who often asked
me to have dinner at the same table with him. Dickens was not
particularly talkative, but he was very much interested in my
adventures, and when once I declined his invitation for the following
evening with the apology that I had to dine at Wimbledon with my
publisher, John Murray, he remarked, "So you are going to venture
into the 'Brain Castle,' for of course you know," he continued, "that
Murray's house is not built of brick but of human brains." Among
politicians, artists, actors, financiers, generals—in fact in all classes
and ranks of society—I had friends and acquaintances. I had no
cause to complain of loneliness or neglect; any one else would no
doubt have been supremely happy in my place, and would have
made better use also of the general complaisance. But I was as yet
absolutely new to this Western world; I was as it were still wrapped
in the folds of Asiatic thought, and, in spite of my enthusiasm for
modern culture, I had great difficulty in making myself familiar with
the principal conditions of this phase of life, with its everlasting
rushing and hurrying, the unremitting efforts to get higher up, and
the cold discretion of the combatants. In fact, my first visit to
England made me feel gloomy and discouraged.
This depression was yet enhanced by the disappointment in regard
to the material results of my book, and the rude awakening out of
my dreams of comparative prosperity. To judge from the enthusiastic
reception of my work both in Europe and America, and after all the
laudatory criticisms of the Press, I expected to get from the sale of
the first edition a sum at least sufficient to ensure my independence.
The newspapers talked of quite colossal sums which my publisher
had paid or would pay me, and I was consequently not a little
crestfallen when at the end of the year I received the first account,
according to which I had made a net profit of £500, a sum of which
I had spent nearly a third in London. The modest remainder, in the
eyes of the former Dervish a small fortune, was as nothing to the
European accustomed to London high-life, and not by a long way
sufficient for the writer, anxious to make a home for himself. The
vision of all my fair anticipations and bold expectations vanished as a
mist before my eyes, and after having tasted of the golden fruit of
the Hesperides, was I to go back to my scantily furnished table, nay,
perhaps be reduced again to poverty and the struggle for daily
bread? After twenty years of hard fighting I was back again where I
was at the beginning of my career, with this difference, that I had
gained a name and reputation, a capital, however, which would not
yield its interest till much later.
I am therefore not at all surprised that in my desperate frame of
mind I clutched at a straw, and looked upon a professorship at Pest
and the doctor's chair of Oriental languages as the bark of salvation
upon the still turbulent ocean of my life. True, my cold reception at
home had somewhat sobered me, and made the realisation of even
this modest ambition not quite so easy of attainment, but my
longing for my native land and for a quiet corner admitted of no
hesitation, no doubt. With incredible light-heartedness I disengaged
myself from the embrace of the noisy, empty homage of the great
city on the Thames and sped to Pest to present myself to my
compatriots after my triumphal campaign in England and crowned
with the laurels of appreciation of the cultured West. As may be
supposed, my reception was somewhat warmer but not much more
splendid than on my return from Asia. Small nations in the early
stages of their cultural development often follow the lead of greater,
mightier, and more advanced lands in their distribution of blame or
praise. The homely proverb, "Young folks do as old folks did," can
also be applied to whole communities, and, especially where it
concerns the appreciation and acknowledgment of matters rather
beyond the intellectual and national limits of the people, such
copying or rather echoing of the superior criticism is quite
permissible and excusable. On my return from England my
compatriots received me with marked attention, but Hungary was
still an Austrian province, and in order to attain the coveted
professorship I had to go to Vienna and solicit the favour of an
audience with the Emperor. The Emperor Francis Joseph, a noble-
minded monarch and exceptionally kind-hearted—who was not
unjustly called the first gentleman of the realm—received me most
graciously, asked some particulars about my travels, and at once
granted me my request, adding, "You have suffered much and
deserve this post." He made only one objection, viz., that even in
Vienna there are but few who devote themselves to the study of
Oriental languages, and that in Hungary I should find scarcely any
hearers. On my reply, "If I can get no one to listen to me I can learn
myself," the Emperor smiled and graciously dismissed me.
I shall always feel indebted to this noble monarch, although, on the
other hand, from the very first I have had much to bear from the
Austrian Bureaucracy and the fustiness of the mediæval spirit which
ruled the higher circles of Austrian society; perhaps more correctly
from their innate ignorance and stupidity. The Lord-High-Steward,
Prince A., whom I had to see before the audience, regardless of the
recommendations I brought from the Austrian Ambassador in
London, received me with a coldness and pride as if I had come to
apply for a position as lackey, and while royal personages of the
West, and later on also Napoleon, had shaken hands with me and
asked me to sit down, this Austrian aristocrat kept me standing for
ten minutes, spoke roughly to me, and dismissed me with the
impression that a man of letters is treated with more consideration
in Khiva and among the Turkomans than in the Austrian capital.
And this, alas! hurt me all the more, as the social conditions at home
in my native land were no better. Here also the wall of partition,
class distinctions and religious differences rose like a black,
impenetrable screen adorned with loathsome figures before my
eyes, and the monster of blind prejudice blocked my way. The
enormous distance between the appreciation of literary endeavours
in the West and in the East grew in proportion as I left the banks of
the Thames and neared my native land; for although the public in
Hungary warmly welcomed their countryman, re-echoing the shouts
of applause from England and France, nay, even looked upon him
with national pride, I could not fail to notice on the part of the heads
of society and the leading circles a cold and intentional neglect,
which hurt me.
The fact that this Hungarian, who had been so much fêted abroad,
was of obscure origin, without family relations, and, moreover, of
Jewish extraction, spoiled the interest for many, and they forcibly
suppressed any feelings of appreciation they may have had. The
Catholic Church, that hotbed of intolerance and blind prejudice, was
the first in attack. It upbraided me for figuring as a Protestant and
not as a Catholic, as if I, the freethinker, took any interest in
sectarian matters!
I was the first non-Catholic professor appointed according to
Imperial Cabinet orders to occupy a chair of the philosophical faculty
at the Pest University. Thus not to give offence to this University—
unjustly called a Catholic institution—by appointing a so-called
Protestant, i.e., a heretic, the title of professor was withheld from
me, and for three years I had to content myself with the title of
lector and the modest honorarium of 1,000 florins a year—a
remuneration equal to that of any respectable nurse in England
when besides her monthly wages we take into account her full keep!
Truly, from a material point of view, my laborious and perilous
travels had not profited me much!
To justify this humiliation certain circles at home took special care to
depreciate me at every possible opportunity. Wise and learned men,
for instance, professed to have come to the conclusion that my
travels in the Far East, and the dangers and fatigues I had professed
to have gone through, were a physical impossibility on account of
my lame leg. "The Jew lies; he is a swindler, a boaster, like all his
fellow-believers." Such were the comments, not merely in words, but
actually printed in black and white; and when I introduced myself
officially to the Rector of the University, afterwards Catholic bishop
of a diocese, I was greeted with the following gracious words, "Do
you suppose we are not fully informed as to the treacherousness of
your character? We are well aware that your knowledge of Oriental
languages is but very faulty and that your fitness to fill the chair is
very doubtful. But we do not wish to act against His Majesty's
commands, and to this coercion only do you owe your appointment."
Such was the gracious reception I had, and such were the
encouraging words addressed to me after the learned Orientalists of
Paris and London had loaded me with praise and honour, and after I
had accomplished, in the service of my people, a journey which, as
regards its perilousness, privations, and sufferings, can certainly not
be called a pleasure trip.
As it is only natural that small communities on the lower steps of
civilisation are either too lazy or too incapable to think, and are
guided in their opinion by the views of the higher and leading ranks
of society, I am not surprised that in certain circles of Hungary for
years together I was looked upon with suspicion, and that my book
of travels, which in the meantime had been translated for several
Eastern and Western nations into their mother-tongue, was simply
discredited at home. Similar causes have elsewhere, under similar
conditions, produced similar effects. When the nickname of "Marco
Millioni" could be given to the celebrated Venetian who traded all
over Asia, why should I mind their treatment of me in Hungary,
where, apart from national archæological considerations, nobody
evinced any great interest in the distant East? Among the millions of
my countrymen there was perhaps no more than one who had ever
heard the names of Bokhara and Khiva, and under the extremely
primitive cultural conditions of those days geographical explorations
were not likely to excite very great interest. The nation, languishing
in the bonds of absolutism, and longing for the restoration of
Constitutional rights, was only interested in politics; and, since the
few scientists, who in their inmost minds were convinced of the
importance of my undertaking, had become prejudiced by the
reception I had received abroad and were now filled with envy, my
position was truly desperate, and for years I had to bear the sad
consequences of ill-will. When the first Turkish Consul for Hungary
appeared in Budapest he was asked on all sides whether it was
really true that I knew Turkish, and when he replied that I spoke and
wrote Turkish like a born Osmanli, everybody was greatly surprised.
One of my kind friends and patrons said to me in reply to my remark
that I should talk Persian with Rawlinson, "You can make us believe
this kind of thing, but be careful not to take in other people." A few
weeks later Rawlinson took me for a born Persian, but at home they
said it was unheard of for a Hungarian scientist to be able to speak
Persian. So deplorably low was the standard of Hungarian learning in
those days!
Under these conditions the reader may well be surprised, and I must
confess that I am surprised myself now, that my deeply-wounded
ambition did not revolt against these saddest of all experiences, but
that I meekly bore these constant insults and calumnies. This
extraordinary humility in the character of a man who in every fibre
of his body was animated by ambition and a desire for fame, as I
was in those days, has long been an enigma to me. I have accused
myself of lack of courage and determination, and I should blush for
shame at the memory of this weakness if it were not for the
extenuating circumstance that I was utterly exhausted and wearied
with my twenty years' struggle for existence, and that my strong
craving for a quiet haven of rest was a further extenuation. What did
I care that my supposed merits were not appreciated at home, since
in the far advanced West the worth of my labours had been so
amply recognised? Why should I trouble myself about the adverse
criticism of my rivals and ill-wishers since I had at last found a quiet
corner, and in possession of my two modestly furnished rooms could
comfort myself with the thought that I had now at last found a
home, and with the scanty but certain income of some eighty florins
per month I could sit down in peace to enjoy the long wished-for
pursuit of quiet, undisturbed literary labour? When I had completed
the furnishing of my humble little home, and, sitting down on the
velvet-covered sofa, surveyed the little domain, which now for the
first time I could call my own, I experienced a childish delight in
examining all the little details which I had provided for my comfort.
Thirty-three years long I had spent in this earthly vale of misery, a
thousand ills, both physical and mental, to endure, before it was
granted me to experience the blissful consciousness, henceforth no
longer to be tossed about, the sport of fortune, no longer to be
exposed to gnawing uncertainty, but quietly and cheerfully to pursue
the object of my life, and by working out my experiences to benefit
the world at large. To other mortals, more highly favoured by birth,
my genuine satisfaction and delight may appear incomprehensible
and ridiculous: one may object that I longed for rest too soon, and
that the small results were scarcely worthy of all the hard labour. But
he whom Fate has cast about for years on the stormy ocean hails
with delight even the smallest and scantiest plot of solid land, and
he who has never known riches or abundance enjoys his piece of dry
but certain bread as much as the richest dish.
Such were the feelings which animated me when I settled down in
surroundings altogether apart from my studies, my desires and
views of life, and such also were the feelings which made me proof
against all the attacks and slights of a criticism animated more by
ignorance than intentional ill-will. I simply revelled in the enjoyment
of these first weeks and months of my new career. The healthy
hunger for work acted like a precious tonic, the old indestructible
cheerfulness returned, and when after my daily labour of eight or
ten hours I went for a walk in the country I fancied myself the
happiest man on earth. On account of the marked difference of
treatment I had received in England and in Hungary, and in order
not to subject myself to unnecessary slights, I had at home avoided
all social intercourse as far as I possibly could. Thus on the one hand
I had all the more leisure for my work, and on the other hand,
through my large correspondence with foreign countries, I was led
to remove the centre of gravity of my literary operations and the
chief aim and object of my pursuits to foreign lands. At first this
necessity troubled me; but the remark of my noble patron, Baron
Eötvös, that Hungary never could be the field of my literary labours,
and that I should benefit my native land far more by putting the
products of my pen upon the world's market in foreign languages
soon comforted me. I wrote mostly in German and English, and
enlarged my mind in various branches of practical and theoretical
knowledge of Asiatic peoples and countries. Two years had scarcely
passed before my pen was the most in request on subjects of the
geographical, ethnographical, philological, scientific, and political
literature of Central Asia—in fact, of the whole Moslemic East. During
this period I saw the realisation of the boldest ideas of my early
days, and only now began to reap the benefit of my studies. I read
the different European and Asiatic languages without the help of a
dictionary, and as in most of them I had had practical experience, I
could understand them the more easily, and also write in them.
Gradually I had got together a small library of special books, and on
account of the lively correspondence I kept up with my fellow-literati
and friends of Oriental study, I was enabled to work with energy far
from the centre of my studies as linguist, ethnographer, and editor.
Now and then the want of intellectual stimulus and personal
intercourse with my fellow-labourers made itself felt. I longed
particularly for an interchange of ideas with authorities on the East,
as in Pest itself I could only meet with a few orthodox scholars of
Ural-Altaic comparative philology; but in the zeal and enthusiasm for
one's undertaking one easily dispenses with encouragement, and
with the device, "Nulla dies sine linea," which I always
conscientiously followed, I must ultimately reach the goal and
overcome all obstacles.
With industry and perseverance, energy and untiring zeal, I could
conquer anything except the stupidity of human nature galled by
envy. The more I worked to keep up my literary repute and the
repute I had gained as traveller, the more furiously raged my
opponents, and the more they endeavoured to discredit me, and to
accuse me of all imaginable mistakes and misrepresentations. Once
when I complained about this to Baron Eötvös, this noble and high-
minded man rightly remarked, "The regions of your travels and
studies are unknown in this land, and you cannot expect society to
acknowledge its ignorance and incapacity to understand. It is far
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