Booksellers supplied with trimmed or untrimmed copies as they mayindicate their preference.
Number 12. Published byHARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Price 15 Cts.
Copyright, 1878, by Harper & Brothers.
BY
A CONSUL’S DAUGHTER AND WIFE.
EDITED BY STANLEY LANE POOLE.
DEDICATED (BY PERMISSION) TO
THE MARCHIONESS OF SALISBURY,
BY HER GRATEFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR.
No one who has talked with many peopleon the Eastern Question can have failed toremark the wide difference of opinion heldon things which ought to be matters of certainty,and on which two opinions ought tobe impossible. This divergence of view isonly a very natural consequence of the wantof any book of authority on the subject.How is one to learn what manner of menthese Bulgarians and Greeks of Turkey reallyare? Hitherto our information has beenchiefly obtained from newspaper correspondents:and it is hardly necessary to observethat the nature of their selected informationdepends upon the tendency of the paper.There have, of course, been notable exceptionsto this common rule of a party-conscience:the world of journalists is but nowlamenting the untimely death of one of itsmost distinguished members, with whosename honor and truth and indefatigablethoroughness must ever be associated. Butgranting the honesty and impartiality of acorrespondent, allowing the accuracy of hisreport of what he has seen, it must be concededthat his opportunities for observationare short and hurried, that he judges almostsolely from the immediate present, and thatby the nature of his profession he is seldomable to make a very long or intimate studyof a people’s character. One accepts his reportsas the evidence of an eye-witness; butone does not necessarily pledge one’s self tohis deductions. For the former task he hasevery necessary qualification: for the latterhe may have none, and he probably has notthe most important. Especially unsafe is itto trust to estimates of nations formed hastilyon insufficient experience in the midst ofgeneral disorder, such as that in which manysummary verdicts have lately been composed.
But if newspaper correspondents are placedat some disadvantage, what can be said forthose well-assured travellers who pay a threemonths’ visit to Turkey, spend the timepleasantly at Pera, or perhaps at the country-housesof some Pashas, and then considerthemselves qualified to judge the merits ofeach class in each nationality of the mixedinhabitants of the land. It is unpleasant tohave to say it; but it is well known thatscarcely a single book upon Turkey is basedupon a much longer experience than of threemonths.
In this dearth of trustworthy information,it was with no little interest that I learnt thatan English lady, who had lived for a greatpart or her life in various provinces of Europeanand Asiatic Turkey, and whose linguistic