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.