VI
February 11, 1913.
Dear Mr. Whitman,—I delayed answering your last letter as I was awaiting the arrival of the book you promised to send me. Now that your most interesting and fascinatingly written study on Germany[[40]] has arrived I hasten to express to you my best thanks for the pleasure I have derived from your book, as well as for your kind reference to my Essays on Sultan Abdul Hamid.[[41]]
In writing about leading contemporaries we are apt to get into a predicament, evidently not unfamiliar to you, which causes us a great deal of trouble. Those who know cannot write and those who write most do not know. At all events the personality of Abdul Hamid is a landmark in the history of the Osmanides which will be often spoken of.
The Persian poet whom I quote at the end of my article on Abdul Hamid is Saadi, and the quotation is derived from the “Gulistan.”
Yours sincerely,
A. VAMBÉRY.
[40]. “German Memories.” Wm. Heinemann.
[41]. Nineteenth Century and After, June and July 1909.