Letters from Egypt
Transcribed from the 1902 R. Brimley Johnson edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
revised edition with memoir by her daughter janet ross new introduction by george meredith
second impression
LONDON: R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON 1902
The letters of Lady Duff Gordon are an introduction to her in person. She wrote as she talked, and that is not always the note of private correspondence, the pen being such an official instrument. Readers growing familiar with her voice will soon have assurance that, addressing the public, she would not have blotted a passage or affected a tone for the applause of all Europe. Yet she could own to a liking for flattery, and say of the consequent vanity, that an insensibility to it is inhuman. Her humour was a mouthpiece of nature. She inherited from her father the judicial mind, and her fine conscience brought it to bear on herself as well as on the world, so that she would ask, ‘Are we so much better?’ when someone supremely erratic was dangled before the popular eye. She had not studied her Goethe to no purpose. Nor did the very ridiculous creature who is commonly the outcast of all compassion miss having the tolerant word from her, however much she might be of necessity in the laugh, for Molière also was of her repertory. Hers was the charity which is perceptive and embracing: we may feel certain that she was never a dupe of the poor souls, Christian and Muslim, whose tales of simple misery or injustice moved her to friendly service. Egyptians, consule Junio , would have met the human interpreter in her, for a picture to set beside that of the vexed Satirist. She saw clearly into the later Nile products, though her view of them was affectionate; but had they been exponents of original sin, her charitableness would have found the philosophical word on their behalf, for the reason that they were not in the place of vantage. The service she did to them was a greater service done to her country, by giving these quivering creatures of the baked land proof that a Christian Englishwoman could be companionable, tender, beneficently motherly with them, despite the reputed insurmountable barriers of alien race and religion. Sympathy was quick in her breast for all the diverse victims of mischance; a shade of it, that was not indulgence, but knowledge of the roots of evil, for malefactors and for the fool. Against the cruelty of despotic rulers and the harshness of society she was openly at war, at a time when championship of the lowly or the fallen was not common. Still, in this, as in everything controversial, it was the μηδὲν ἄyαν with her. That singular union of the balanced intellect with the lively heart arrested even in advocacy the floods pressing for pathos. Her aim was at practical measures of help; she doubted the uses of sentimentality in moving tyrants or multitudes to do the thing needed. Moreover, she distrusted eloquence, Parliamentary, forensic, literary; thinking that the plain facts are the persuasive speakers in a good cause, and that rhetoric is to be suspected as the flourish over a weak one. Does it soften the obdurate, kindle the tardily inflammable? Only for a day, and only in cases of extreme urgency, is an appeal to emotion of value for the gain of a day. Thus it was that she never forced her voice, though her feelings might be at heat and she possessed the literary art.
Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
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INTRODUCTION
MEMOIR
LETTERS FROM EGYPT
November 11, 1862: Mrs. Austin
November 21, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
November 30, 1862: Mrs. Austin
December 20, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
February 11, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 7, 1863: Mrs. Austin
March 10, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 9, 1863: Mrs. Austin
April 13, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 18, 1863: Mr. Tom Taylor
May 12, 1863: Mrs. Austin
May 12, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin
May 25, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 19, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 26, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 31, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
November 14, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
November 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin
December 1, 1863: Mrs. Ross
December 2, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
December 17, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
December 27, 1863: Mrs. Austin
January 3, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 5, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 20, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
February 7, 1864: Mrs. Austin
February 8, 1864: February 8, 1864
February 12, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
February 19, 1864: Mrs. Austin
February 26, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 1, 1864: Mrs. Austin
March 7, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 16, 1864: Mr. Tom Taylor
March 22, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 6, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 7, 1864: Mrs. Ross
April 14, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May 15, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin
June 12, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
June 26, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
August 13, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 9, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 21, 1864: Mrs. Austin
December 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin
January 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin
January 8, 1865: Dowager Lady Duff Gordon
January 9, 1865: Mrs. Austin
February 7, 1865: Miss Austin
February 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
February 7, 1865: Mrs. Ross
March 13, 1865: Mrs. Austin
March 25, 1865: Mrs. Ross
March 30, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 3, 1865: Mrs. Austin
April 3, 1865: Mrs. Ross
April, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 29, 1865: Mrs. Austin
May, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
June 16, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 28, 1865: Mrs. Austin
November 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin
November 27, 1865: Mrs. Austin
December 5, 1865: Mrs. Austin
December 25, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 3, 1866: Maurice Duff Gordon
January 15, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
February 7, 1886: Mrs. Austin
February 15, 1866: Mrs. Austin
February 22, 1866: Mrs. Ross
February 22, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 6, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 17, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 31, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April, 1866: Mrs. Ross
April, 1866: Mrs. Austin
May 10, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
June 22, 1866: Maurice Duff Gordon
July 10, 1866: Mrs. Austin
July 17, 1866: Alick
August 20, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
August 27, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
September 21, 1886: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
September 21, 1886: Mrs. Austin
October 15, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 19, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 25, 1866: Mrs. Austin
November 21, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
December 5, 1866: Mrs. Ross
December 31, 1886: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 12, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 14, 1867: Mrs. Austin
January 22, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January 26, 1867: Mrs. Austin
February 3, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
March 6, 1867: Mrs. Austin
March 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April 12, 1867: Mrs. Austin
April 19, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May 15, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May 23, 1867: Mrs. Austin
June 30, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
July 8, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
July 28, 1867: Mrs. Austin
July 29, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
August 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
August 8, 1867: Mrs. Austin
September 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 17, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 21, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
November 3, 1867: Mrs. Ross
December 20, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
January, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
April, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
May, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
June 14, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
October 22, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
November 6, 1868: Alick
January 25, 1869: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
June 15, 1869: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
July 9, 1869: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
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