CHAPTER VIII MY POLITICAL CAREER AND POSITION IN ENGLAND
Many people have wondered how the various professions of Orientalist, ethnographer, philologist, and political writer could all be united in one and the same person, and that I applied myself to all these literary pursuits has often been made a matter of reproach. Personally, I cannot see either virtue or advantage in this odd mixture of study, but I have gone on with it for years, and I will now shortly mention the reasons which induced me thereto. I have already related how, during my first stay in Constantinople, I became a Press correspondent, and how, through constant intercourse with the political world, I entered the list of writing politicians. My interest in political affairs has never flagged; indeed, it rose and became more active when, on account of my personal experiences in Persia and Central Asia, I became, so to speak, the authority for all such information concerning them as related to the political questions of the day, and of which even initiated politicians were ignorant. The traveller who keeps his eyes open necessarily takes a practical view of all that goes on in social, political, and intellectual life, and it is perfectly impossible that the wanderer, entirely dependent upon his own resources for years together, and mixing with all classes and ranks of society, should cultivate merely theoretical pursuits. To me the various languages were not merely an object, but also a means, and when one has become practically so familiar with foreign idioms in letter and in speech that one feels almost like a native, one must always retain a lively interest in their respective lands and nations, one shares their weal and woe, and will always feel at home among them. Of course, it is quite another thing for the theoretical traveller, whose object is of a purely philological or archæological nature. To him land and people are secondary matters, and when he has procured the desired theoretical information, and left the scene of operation, he forgets it all the sooner, since he has always remained a stranger to his surroundings, and has always been treated as such.
This could never be the case with me. I had so familiarised myself with Osmanli, Persian, and East Turkish that I was everywhere taken for a native. In those three languages my pen has always been busy up to an advanced age, and I believe there is hardly another European who has kept up such varied correspondence with Orientalists in distant lands.
When, on my return from Asia, I took part in the discussion of the political questions of the day, and, as eye-witness of current events, was questioned by the leading statesmen of the day, I could not with the best will in the world have escaped entering upon a political career. Lord Palmerston gave me the first incentive by requesting me, through Sir Roderick Murchison, then President of the London Geographical Society, to draw up a memorandum. I did as I was asked, and handed in my report about the position of Russia on the Yaxartes, and the state of political affairs in Central Asia, with the necessary digressions into the regions of Persian and Turkish politics. All this was easy enough to me, for at the Porte I had been an eye-witness of the political movements. I had already been actively employed as political correspondent, and both in Teheran and in Constantinople I had constantly been in contact with the diplomatic circles. During the many interviews which Lord Palmerston granted me, he always took all my remarks jokingly, and never appeared the serious diplomatist. He told me that I looked at things through the spectacles of anti-Russian patriotic Magyarism, that Hungarians and Poles were hot-brained, and that the Thames would discharge a good deal more water before the Cossacks watered their horses at the Oxus. When, a few months after my arrival in London, the news came of the taking of Tashkend by Chernayeff, and soon after the celebrated Note of Gorchakoff was presented at Downing Street, the jocular character of the English Premier toned down somewhat. In influential political circles I was questioned more frequently about the defensive strength of the Emir of Bokhara, about the high-roads, and the public opinion of the Central Asiatics. But even then Lord Palmerston, always cheerful in spite of his advanced age, would not allow his real motives to transpire. He feigned an Olympic quietness or an icy indifference, and the only sign of interest he showed me was his encouragement to continue writing my letters to the Times, and to enlighten the English public concerning the land and the people of Central Asia.
But the press and the public in England behaved quite differently. The great majority, of course, was optimistic. The terror of the Afghan Campaign in 1842 still filled all hearts with dismay, and after the unsuccessful termination of the Crimean War they easily drifted into the Ostrich policy, said that the advance of Russia towards the frontiers of India was a chimera, and laughed at my firm and consistent assertions that there was danger threatening from the side of Russia. If I were now to publish all the newspaper articles, essays, and parliamentary speeches which appeared at the time to contradict my views, and to pacify the public in England and India, it would display indeed a sad picture of self-deception and a wilful lulling to sleep in fancied security. On my side were only a few staunch Conservatives, since this party, decidedly anti-Russian, had stood out for an energetic policy; but personally I took no notice either of the indifference of the masses or of the scorn and mockery of the optimists. The more they laughed at my ideas the more fervently and zealously did I defend them. I spared neither time nor trouble to bring forward the most striking proofs. I kept up my relations with Central Asia and Persia by constant correspondence. I read the Russian papers industriously, and so I had always an important weapon of defence at hand. The columns of the Times and the fashionable monthly and weekly periodicals were open to me, and I had little difficulty in displaying such activity in writing as would impress even my political opponents, and finally break down the indifference of the great reading public. Many looked upon me as a Magyar thirsting for revenge on Russia, others again were pleased to find in me, a foreigner, a zealous defender of British State interests; and this caused the more surprise, as such concern for foreign State interests is always a rarity, and in England, much envied and little beloved on the Continent, had never been heard of before. Had I been seeking to obtain a public appointment in England, and had I settled there, no doubt my efforts would have appeared in quite another light, and the attention and subsequent acclamation I received would doubtless have been pitched in a lower key. But since, in my humble function of professor, I abode in Hungary, and as a foreigner continued in a foreign land, without ostentation or hope of material preferment, to carry on the defence of British interests on the Continent of Europe, and even persevered in influencing public opinion in England itself, I succeeded in banishing all suspicion of self-interest, and finally in disarming even the bitterest political opponents. Amongst the few who particularly disliked my political energy was Mr. Gladstone, the zealous advocate of an Anglo-Russian alliance in Church and politics. And yet I have been told that he had remarked to a friend, "Professor Vambéry's agitation seemed at first suspicious to me, but since I have heard that he is a poor man I believe in his fanaticism." The insular separatist, the proud Englander, had in the end to submit to a foreigner mixing himself up with his national concerns, giving his unbidden opinion about Great Britain's foreign policy, and finally, by dint of perseverance, influencing public opinion in England.
Of course all this was not the work of a few weeks or months, but of a whole series of years. Between 1865 and 1885 I published a quantity of letters, articles, and essays on political and politico-economic affairs in Central Asia, Persia, and Turkey in English, German, French, Hungarian, and American periodicals, which, if collected, would make several volumes. In England it was chiefly in the Times, and sometimes in other daily papers, as also in periodicals such as the Nineteenth Century, the Fortnightly Review, the National Review, Army and Navy Gazette, the New Review, the Journal of the Society of Arts, the Asiatic Quarterly Review, the Leisure Hour, and Good Words. In Germany I wrote in the Münchener (formerly Augsburger) Allgemeine Zeitung, Unsere Zeit, Die Deutsche Rundschau, Die Deutsche Revue, Welthandel, and in a few other daily and monthly papers, long since discontinued. In Austro-Hungary I often wrote in the Pester Lloyd, but only seldom in the Neue Freie Presse and in the Monatschrift für den Orient, while in France I contributed to the Revue des deux Mondes, and in America to the Forum and the North American Review. Only when the Central Asiatic question became acute—as, for instance, on the occasion of the taking of Samarkand in 1868, the campaign against Khiva in 1873, the conquest of Khokand in 1876, and the Pendjdeh affair—was my pen in actual request. For the rest I had to force myself upon the public, and not only on the Continent, but in England also, I often had difficulty in getting a hearing. As long as the Russians had not so far consolidated their power that it was dangerous for foreign travellers to be admitted in the conquered districts I was able to maintain myself as chief and only authority on Central Asiatic affairs. Later I had gradually to relinquish this privilege. The number of writers versed in Central Asiatic concerns constantly increased, but my knowledge of the Oriental and Russian languages, and also my prolonged and intimate acquaintance with the theme, always gave me a certain amount of advantage over my literary competitors. From time to time, when the Central Asiatic question came to the foreground, I entered the arena with larger, more substantial essays. Thus, for instance, my Power of Russia in Asia, which appeared in German and Hungarian, depicted the gradual progress of the Russian conquests in Asia. As foundation for my article I used MacNeil's The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East, which appeared at the time of the Crimean War. This I elaborated with new facts and data. Like my predecessor, I preached then (1871) to deaf ears. People troubled themselves very little about Russia's Asiatic politics. They called me a blinded Russophobe, and now—since the Northern Colossus has thrown his polyp-like arm over the half of Asia, and is looked upon as the peace-breaker of the Western world—when I remember the scornful laughter of the great politicians, I cannot help thinking what a pity it was that timely precautions were not taken to ward off the coming danger, and that people did not realise that the power gained in Asia might one day stand Russia in good stead in its dealings with Europe.
The second independent book about political matters which I brought out was entitled, Central Asia and the Anglo-Russian Frontier Question, published in English and German. It was, correctly speaking, a collection of my different political articles published in various periodicals. This book, coming out at the time of the Khiva campaign, when people showed a much keener interest in what took place in the inner Asiatic world, found a good sale, and although not of much material advantage to me, gave me a good deal of moral encouragement.
Of great effect was my article about The Coming Struggle for India, published in 1885, at the time when the question of the rivalry between the two Colossi in Asia had reached a seething-point, and after the affair at Pendjdeh nearly involved England and Russia in a war. This booklet, which I wrote in twenty days, and issued simultaneously in English, French, German, Swedish, and Guzerati (East Indian language), caused a great sensation far beyond its intrinsic worth. It proved also a lucrative speculation.
The Coming Struggle for India, which was the English title of the book, brought me quite a stream of commendatory grateful letters from England, America, and Australia; I was eulogised as a prophet, and held up as an English patriot whose merits would never be forgotten nor too highly thought of in Albion. On this occasion I also received some less flattering communications from English Socialists and Anarchists, who in the first place reproached me with interfering in the affairs of their country, and in the second place endeavoured to prove how unjust and inhuman it was for England to waste life and money on the civilising and conquest of foreign nations, while at home hundreds of thousands of their compatriots were perishing of poverty and distress. The colonial policy enriches the aristocrats who revel in luxury, while the labourer, oppressed by the capitalist, is left to starve. Thus complained one of my unbidden correspondents.
The middle classes and the aristocracy of England thought differently, however. Regardless of all scornful and derisive remarks I had now for twenty years pursued my political campaign with unremitting zeal, and had always had the interest of England at heart. Many, therefore, looked upon me as a true friend, and although I was stamped by some as a fanatic, an Anglomaniac, or even a fool, the majority saw in me a writer who honestly deserved the respect and recognition of the country; a man who in spite of his foreign extraction should be honoured as a promoter of Great Britain's might and power. Cold, proud, and reserved as the Britisher generally appears before strangers, I must confess that at my public appearances both in London and in the provinces I have always been received with the utmost cordiality and warmth.
Many were struck with the pro-English spirit of my writings, and I have frequently been asked how it was that I, far from the scene of action, was often more quickly and better informed about current events than the English Government which had Embassies and secret agencies at its disposal. The reason is clear enough. In the first place I had personal experiences at my disposal, and, supported by my correspondents in the Far East, many of my views have thus in course of time been justified by events. Secondly, I had paid far greater attention to the communications of the Russian press than the politicians in England, where the Russian language was not much known yet. I was surprised myself to find that my political activity was even discussed in the English Parliament and led to interpellations. On the 22nd of May, 1870, Mr. Eastwick asked the Government: "Whether there was any truth in the rumours, mentioned in Mr. Vambéry's letter published in the Times on the 18th of this month, that Herat had been taken by Yakub Khan?" Lord Enfield, then Secretary of State, denied my statement; nevertheless I was right, for Herat was actually in the hands of the rebel son of Shir Ali Khan. On the 3rd of June, 1875, Mr. Hanbury asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs, "Whether his (the minister's) attention had been called to a letter of Mr. Vambéry's in the Times of the 2nd of June relating to a new Russian expedition to hitherto unknown districts of the Upper Oxus; whether the purpose of the expedition had been communicated to the English Government, and whether, as stated by Mr. Vambéry, the diplomatist, Mr. Weinberg, was a member of the expedition, and whether it was of a political as well as of a scientific character?" To this Mr. Bourke, then Secretary of State, replied in Parliament: "That he had read Mr. Vambéry's letter with great interest, but that Government had not yet received any information regarding the matter therein mentioned." Again I was on the right side and had the priority in point of information; thus naturally the weight of my writings continually increased.
Without desiring or seeking it I was acknowledged in England as the Asiatic politician and the staunch friend of the realm. Year after year I received invitations to give lectures about the present and the future condition of England in Asia, and when, tired of writing, I longed for a little change and recreation, I travelled to England, where in various towns—London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c.—I gave lectures for a modest honorarium. On these occasions I drew the attention of the public to their commercial and political interests in the Orient, and urged them to exercise their civilising influence over Asia. Foreigners who for years together concern themselves about the weal or woe of a land not their own belong certainly to the rarities, and consequently I was received everywhere in England with open arms and made much of by all classes of society.
This was very patent during the critical time in the spring of 1885, and the ovations I received in London and other towns of the United Kingdom I shall never forget. On the 2nd of May I gave a lecture in the great hall of Exeter Hall about the importance of Herat. On my arrival I found the house full to overflowing with a very select audience. Lord Houghton, who presided at this meeting, thanked me in the name of the nation, and the next day almost all the newspapers had leading articles about the services I had rendered, and the resoluteness with which I always met the woeful optimism and blunders of leading politicians led astray by party spirit.
A few days later I spoke under the auspices of the Constitutional Union, before an aristocratic Conservative gathering in Willis's Rooms, on the subject, "England and Russia in Afghanistan, or who shall be lord and master in Asia?" The heads of English aristocracy were present, and when on the platform behind me I recognised a duke, many lords, marshals, generals, ex-ministers, and several famous politicians and writers of Great Britain I was really overcome.
My thoughts wandered back into the past. I remembered the chill autumn night, which I, a beggar, spent under the seat on the promenade at Presburg. I thought of the scorn, the contempt, and the misery to which I had been exposed as the little Jew boy and the hungry student, and comparing the miserable past with the brilliant present, I could not help marvelling at the strange dispensations of fate. Modesty forbids me to speak of the manner in which Lord Hamilton, Lord Napier of Magdala, Lord Cranbrook, and others expressed themselves both before and after my lecture about my person and my work, but I repeat it, my modesty is not the feigned, hateful modesty of the craft. Suffice it to say that I had the satisfaction of warning the proud English aristocracy against the sinful optimism of the Liberals then in power. If this episode stands out as the crowning point of my political labours it also shows the magnanimity and noble-mindedness of the Englishman (so often condemned for his insular pride) where it concerns the impartial acknowledgment of merit and the interests of his fatherland!
In the zeal with which I had taken up the political questions of England all these points did not present themselves to me till afterwards. There was one incident with regard to this matter which deserves mention. When, after the conclusion of the last Afghan War, 1880, the Liberal party came into power, they did all they could to upset the politics of their opponents, and decided to give back to the Afghans the important frontier station, Kandahar. I then addressed an open letter to Lord Lytton, at that time Viceroy of India, in which I warned him against this step, and pointed out the danger which would ensue. This letter was reproduced by the whole Press, and a few days after I read in the German papers the following despatch:
"London, 22nd February.
"An important meeting being held to-day in favour of the continuance of the occupation of Kandahar, a letter of Vambéry's to Lytton has come very opportunely. It is therein stated that to give up Kandahar would do irreparable damage to England's prestige in Asia, for the Asiatics could look upon it only as a sign of weakness. Vambéry further asserts that the occupation of Kandahar under safe conditions would decidedly not show a deficit, but, on the contrary, be profitable to India, for the Kandaharis are the best traders of all Central Asia. Finally, Vambéry points out that the Russians, even without the occupation of Merv, would within a few years stand before the gates of Kandahar."
Lord Lytton himself wrote to me as follows about this matter.—
"Knebworth Park,
"Stevenage, Herts,
"February 22, 1885."Dear Professor Vambéry,—"I am very much obliged to you for your interesting and valuable letter about Kandahar, and you have increased my obligation by your permission to publish it, of which I have availed myself. I little thought, when I had the honour of making your acquaintance many years ago at Lord Houghton's [see [p. 255]], that I should live to need and receive your valued aid in endeavouring to save England's Empire in the East from the only form of death against which not even the gods themselves can guard their favourites—death by suicide. I fear, however, that its present guardians, who have Moses and the prophets, are not likely to be converted—even by one of the dead. At least, the only form of conversion to which they seem disposed, is one which threatens to reverse the boast of Themistocles by converting a great Power into a little one.
"Believe me, dear Professor Vambéry,
"Very sincerely yours,
"Lytton."
In non-English Europe great statesmen seldom or never condescend to write in such terms to mere journalists! And where such encouragements, characteristic of a free nation, are bestowed on the ambitious writer, they urge him on with still greater enthusiasm. And, further, what must be the feelings of the writer who knows all about England's glorious doings in Asia, and from his earliest youth has dreamed of political freedom; who, hampered hitherto by the mediæval prejudices still prevalent in Austria, finds himself all at once able to move and act without restraint, and has not to be ashamed of his low birth? One may say what one likes against the English (and they have no doubt some very glaring faults), but this one thing must be allowed—before all things they are men, and only after that are they British. In the enlightened nineteenth century they have made more progress than any, and a part such as that played by Disraeli and others would be perfectly impossible not only in Germany and Austro-Hungary—still more or less imbued with the spirit of mediævalism—but even in liberty-boasting France. And I further ask who could possibly remain indifferent while keenly watching the rôle played on the world's stage by this small group of islands, how it rules over several hundred millions of people of all colours, tongues, and religions, and educates them up to better things!
This extraordinary and almost phenomenal energy must surely excite the admiration of any thinking man interested in the history of humanity. When even Rome in the zenith of its glory impresses us with the magnitude of its power, how could the actions and operations of Albion, so infinitely greater, mightier and more impressive, leave us indifferent? These and similar ideas from the very first attracted me towards England; I felt interested in all her doings, and when it came to the question of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia, I naturally always took the side of England. Besides, could I, or dare I, have acted differently considering the outrageous interference of Russia in the Hungarian struggle for independence in 1848, and also mindful of the fact that the government of the Czar, that frightful instrument of tyranny, that pool of all imaginable slander and abuse, that disgrace to humanity, must on no account be strengthened and supported in its thirst for conquest? In proportion as the dominion of the Czar grows in Asia, so do his means increase for checking the liberty of Europe, and the easier will it be for Russia to perform acts of benevolence and friendship towards those of our sovereigns who long for absolutism. England's greatness can never damage, but rather profit us; as the worthy torch-bearer of nineteenth-century culture no liberal-minded man will follow her successful operations in Asia with envious eyes.
And so my literary activity was a thorn in the eyes of the cunning Muscovites, and the ways and means they used to counteract it are not without interest. One day in Pest I received a visit from a well-known Russian statesman, who introduced himself to me with the following remark, "When the great Greek General fled to Persia, he presented himself before Cyrus the greatest enemy of the Greeks. I have come to Hungary to pay my respects to you." Of course I received him as pleasantly as possible, and when the wily diplomatist looked round my poor abode he remarked with a smile, "You work a great deal, and yet you do not appear to be very well off. You would probably be in better circumstances if you did not work so much." I replied, also with a smile, that I had accustomed myself to a Dervish life in Asia, that it suited me admirably both morally and physically, and that with reference to the intellectual result, I felt no desire or need to make any change. "Just so," remarked the Muscovite, looking me straight in the face, and soon turned the conversation on to other subjects. Various other attempts were made to turn me aside from the path I pursued and to discredit me in the eyes of England and of the Continent. But their trouble was all in vain, for the bitter hostility of a despotic Government and their venomous darts must remain without effect against the expressed approval of a free nation and the approbation of the whole liberal West.
In the spring of 1885, during my stay in London, I received invitations to various other towns. A war between England and Russia was then pending in consequence of the Pendjdeh affair. The number of letters and telegrams I daily received became so numerous, that I could only master them with the assistance of a private secretary, who had offered his services gratis, from purely patriotic motives. I accepted invitations only to some of the principal provincial towns, as the labour of travelling every day to be honoured every evening with a public reception in a different place, give a lecture and attend a banquet, was too tiring and proved too much for my physical strength. As the most memorable evenings of this tour I would mention my début at Newcastle-on-Tyne and at Brighton. In the first-named great industrial town of the North of England, I gave my lecture, or rather my discourse, in the large theatre. The house was filled to the top, one could have walked over the heads, and the galleries were full to overflowing. Tailor's apprentice, servant, tutor, Effendi, Dervish, I have been pretty well everything in my life, but a stage hero I was now to be for the first time, and although not seized with the fever of the footlights, the masses before me and their enthusiastic reception had an unusual effect upon me. I spoke for an hour and a half, often interrupted for several minutes at a time by loud applause, and when, referring to the danger which threatened the Indian Empire, I called out to my audience, "The spirits of the heroes fallen in the struggle for India, who have enabled this small island to found one of the greatest Asiatic Empires, who have made you mighty and rich, their spirits ask you now, Will you allow the fruits of our labour to perish, and the most precious pearl of the British crown to fall into the enemy's hand?" the frantic, "No! No!" from all parts of the house almost moved me to tears, and I saw with astonishment what a pitch of excitement these people of the foggy North can be led up to. A similar scene awaited me at Brighton, where my speech had also a wonderful effect upon my hearers. At the close of the lecture many, as usual, pressed forward on to the platform to shake hands. Among others an elegantly dressed, elderly lady came up to me, took both my hands and said in a choking voice: "Oh, my dear, precious England, you have indeed done it good service. Sir, it is a glorious, golden land; continue to promote its welfare; God in heaven will reward you." The poor woman trembled as she said this, and as long as I live I shall never forget the look of agitation depicted on her face.
I must not omit to mention some of the very characteristic proofs of friendship I received on this lecturing tour from private individuals hitherto absolutely unknown to me. At several railway stations the door of my compartment suddenly opened and dainty luncheon baskets plentifully filled were pushed in with inscriptions such as: "From an admirer," or, "from a grateful Englishman." The most remarkable of all these tokens of appreciation was the hospitality shown me by Mr. Russell Shaw in London. He offered it me by letter in Budapest, and on my arrival in London I was met at the station by a footman, who handed me a letter, in which Mr. Shaw put his carriage at my disposal. The footman looked after my luggage, we drove to the West End, stopped at No. 26, Sackville Street, and I was led to the richly furnished apartments made ready for my reception. Here I found everything that could make me comfortable; the finest cigars, liqueurs, a beautiful writing-table, stamps, &c.; everything was put at my disposal, and I had scarcely finished my toilet when the cook came to ask what were my favourite dishes, and what time I wished to lunch and to dine. Not until afternoon did my host appear, after he had begged permission to introduce himself. Of course I received Mr. Shaw in the most friendly manner in his own house. He left me after having asked me to invite as many guests as I liked, and freely to dispose of his kitchen, cellar, and carriage. For three weeks I remained in this hospitable house. Mr. Shaw hardly ever showed himself, and only on the day of my departure he paid me another visit, asked if I had been comfortable and satisfied about everything, and, wishing me a prosperous journey, he left me. I have never seen him again. He was unquestionably a true type of English amiability!
Is it surprising, then, that these and other spontaneous expressions of appreciation made my political labours appear to me in quite a different light from what I had ever thought or expected? I realised, of course, that it was not only my political writings which made me of so much weight, but that it was founded on my purely scientific labours, which, although unknown to the public at large, had won me credit with the influential and governing circles of England. Political writings, after all, can only be appreciated as an excursion from the regions of more serious literature; and just as newspaper writing in itself is naturally not highly rated, so strictly and exclusively theoretical writing bears rather too often the character of sterility. True, not every science can be animated and popularised by practical application, but when the study has to be kept alive by active intercourse with far distant nations, politics, as the connecting link between theory and practice, become an absolute necessity, and the lighter literary occupation is as unavoidable as it is energising and beneficial in its effect upon the mind.
After I had spent a few hours with comparative grammars and text-editions, or had been occupied with purely ethnographical studies, I always felt a desire to write a newspaper article, and to refresh myself from the monotony of word-sifting in the field of political speculation. The best time of the day, that is to say, the morning hours, I spent exclusively in serious study, and at the age between thirty and fifty I could also devote a few hours in the evening to graver study. In the forenoon, between ten and twelve, and in the afternoon, between two and five, I used to apply myself to politics and journalism, with the help of a secretary. Through practice and custom I had now got so far that I could dictate two or even three leading articles or other matters in different languages at the same time. When I approached the fifties, however, such tours de force gave me headaches and congestion, and I had to abandon them; but long after I had passed the fifties I continued to dictate extempore—in fact, I generally wrote and worked from memory even in my scientific studies. Except the notes I wrote down during my Dervish tour in Arabic letters and in the Hungarian language, I have never had a notebook, and consequently never collected notes for future writings. Of course as was the material, so was the work produced, and it would be arrant self-deceit to try to conceal the blunders and defects under which so many of my literary productions laboured because of my mode of working. No, vanity has not altogether blinded me. Uncommon and curious as my schooling had been, equally curious was my subsequent literary productivity, and if there be anything to make me reflect with satisfaction upon those twenty years of literary activity, it is my untiring zeal and the strict adherence to my device "Nulla dies sine linea," in which I spent the beautiful summer of my life. Nothing of any kind or description either in my private or public life has ever made me break this rule, and no pleasures of any kind could ever replace for me the sweet hours of study or deter me from my once formed resolution.
I had the good fortune never to have sought or known what is vulgarly called entertainment, recreation, or diversion. As in the years of my trying apprenticeship I had to spend eight or ten hours a day in teaching, and devoted six hours to my private studies, so, thanks to my perfectly healthy constitution, I have been able till close upon the sixties to work at first for ten and later on for six hours daily, apart from the time spent in reading the newspapers and scientific periodicals. During the whole of my life I have only very rarely visited the theatre, and concerts were not in my line either, as I had no knowledge of the higher art of music. Social evenings, where I might have refreshed myself in conversation with my fellow-labourers, and have profited by an interchange of ideas, would have been very welcome to me, but in my native land, where society had only political aspirations and ideals at heart, there was no one who cared for the practical science of the East, no one interested in the actual condition of Asia, and with the few scholars, mostly philologists, who in the evenings used to frequent the ale-houses, I could not associate, because spirituous drinks and excess of any kind have always been obnoxious to me. A home—a "sweet home"—in the English sense of the word, has never fallen to my lot, even on ever so modest a scale, for my wife, a homely, kind-hearted, and excellent woman, was ill for many years, and if it had not been for the beautiful boy with whom she presented me, I should never have known what domestic happiness was. My study and my library were the stronghold of my worldly bliss, the fortress from which I looked upon three continents, and by a lively correspondence with various lands in Europe, Asia, and America, could maintain my personal and scientific relationships. Mentally I lived continually in the most diverse lands and tongues, and through my correspondence with Turks, Persians, Ozbegs, Kirgizes, Germans, French, English, and Americans, I could remain conversant with the different idioms, and also continually be initiated in the smallest details of the political, commercial, and religious relationships of those distant lands. My post was, as it were, the link of union between the distant regions in which I had lived, and where I always loved to dwell in fancy.
I attribute it more to this than to my inborn linguistic talent, that after more than a quarter of a century I was able to speak correctly and fluently the various Asiatic and European languages. Hungarian, German, Slovak (Slav), Serbian, Turkish, Tartar, Persian, French, Italian, and English were all equally familiar to me, and the greater or lesser perfection of accent and of syntactic forms depended chiefly upon the longer or shorter practice I had had in speaking with natives. I cannot say the same for the writing in these languages. Here the Latin proverb, "Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales," did not hold good, for although I could write in several languages, I cannot say that I could write any one language ready for the Press, i.e., without any mistakes. In former days I used to write Hungarian a good deal and fairly well. But afterwards I wrote mostly in German and English, and all that I have published since 1864 has been written in one or other of these two languages. In order to obtain more fluency of expression, i.e., to feel more at home in a foreign tongue, I used at one time to read for half an hour or more a day in the particular language. Thus I became familiar with the manner of speaking, or rather the peculiarities of expression in that tongue, and when I had thus learned to think fluently in English, German, or Turkish, I also managed to obtain a certain amount of fluency in writing. I fear there can be no question with me of a mother-tongue, and the argument that the language in which one involuntarily thinks is one's real mother-tongue I cannot agree with, were it only for this one reason, that long practice and custom enabled me to think in any language with which I had been familiarised for some length of time. From my earliest youth I had read a good deal of German. I had studied in that language; and afterwards in Hungary of all foreign languages I came most in contact with German, and it seemed to come most easy to me. But afterwards I wrote English quite as easily—that is to say, after I had spent a few weeks in England, and although I never got so far as to be taken for a native, as was the case with Turkish, French, German, and Persian, I had the satisfaction of reading in the criticisms at the time that the absence of the foreign accent in my conversation and my idiomatic style were remarkable.
From these observations about the linguistic conditions and changes during the fairly long term of my literary activity I will now pass on to a subject which has given rise to various conjectures in the circle of my acquaintance, and will not be without interest to the general reader. I refer to the material benefits derived from my literary labours, which, on account of their many-sidedness, and the international character of my pen, have been considerably overrated. I have already mentioned how much I made by my first book of travels published by Murray, and expressed at the time the bitter disappointment I experienced, how different was what I had hoped for and what I got. Subsequent English publications fared not much better; none of them brought me in more than £200 sterling, most of them barely half that sum. In Germany the honorarium paid for literary work was still poorer and closer, and 500 thaler (£75) was the highest sum ever paid me for any of my popular writings. I purposely say "popular," because for purely scientific works I received nothing, and my two volumes of Chagataic and Uiguric studies and my "Sheibaniade" alone have cost me some thousand florins, not reckoning the expenses incurred with my Ursprung der Magyaren and Türkenvolk, for which I never received a penny.
Journalism was a good deal more profitable, especially in England, where some periodicals paid twenty or thirty guineas per sheet. I came to the conclusion that one hour of English article-writing pays better than six hours of German literary work, with this difference, however, that German periodicals lend themselves to the most theoretical, widely speculative subjects, while the English Reviews, in their eagerness for matter of fact, accept only practically written articles of immediate interest. German Review literature seems only lately to have realised that it is possible to write essays about serious matters without wearying the reader with a heavy style and endless notes, and one frequently meets now in the German periodicals with attractively written articles about the political and commercial relations of distant countries and people.
This was not the case when I began my literary career. German Orientalists, unquestionably the most learned and solid in the world, have always occupied themselves preferably with the past of the Asiatic civilised world, with textual criticisms of well-known classical works and grammatical niceties in the Semitic and Aryan tongues, while the practical knowledge of the East, until quite lately, for want of national political interest, was not at all encouraged. England, on the other hand, on account of her Indian Empire, and her many commercial ties all over the Asiatic continent, has for long enough evinced a lively interest in the manners and customs of the Orientals, and since English writers have dealt largely with these, the general public has been interested mostly in this branch of Oriental literature. Of course the former traveller, once retired into his library, cannot so easily come forward with new practical suggestions. It is but seldom that he can offer a new contribution, and in spite of the excellent honorarium, the productions of his pen become gradually less, and do not give him a secured existence as is the case, for instance, with literary writers, or scholars who can write in an interesting and popular style upon some subject which is of all-engrossing interest in everyday life.
Taking everything into consideration, I must look upon my many years of literary labour only from the moral standpoint, and as such my reward has been rich and abundant. A collection of criticisms and discussions, which, quite accidentally, came into my possession, contains very nearly two hundred articles in German, French, English, Italian, Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, and Modern Greek, which make laudatory mention of my literary work. The number of criticisms of which I have never heard may possibly run into many hundreds more; witness the many letters I have received from all parts of the world, and which on the whole have rather burdened than edified me. In spite of gross mistakes and many shortcomings, my literary labour has secured me a position far beyond my boldest expectations, and would justify the saying, "Et voluisse sat est." Work has kept me in good health, it has made me happy and therefore rich, and work is consequently to my mind the greatest benefactor and the greatest blessing in the world.
The Triumph of my Labours