If there be anything likely to weaken or shake one's patriotism, it is the narrow-mindedness and ridiculous prejudice of the Christian West against its fellow-countrymen of a different creed. I will take my own case as example. I was all ablaze with enthusiasm when in my childhood I became acquainted with the life of the national heroes of Hungary. The heroic epoch of 1848 filled my youthful heart with genuine pride, and even later in 1861, when I returned from Constantinople by the Danube boat, on landing at Mohacs I fell on my knees and kissed the ground with tears of true patriotic devotion in my eyes. I was intensely happy and in a rapture of delight, but had soon to realise that many, nay most people questioned the genuineness of my Hungarianism. They criticised and made fun of me, because, they said, people of Jewish origin cannot be Hungarians, they can only be Jews and nothing else. I pointed to the circumstance that in matters of faith, like most cultured people, I was really an agnostic and had long since left the precincts of Judaism.
I spoke of the dangers I had faced in order to investigate the early history of Hungary, surely a test of patriotism such as but few would be able to show. Many other arguments I brought forward, but all in vain; everywhere and on all occasions an ominous sneer, an insidious shrug of the shoulders, an icy indifference, or a silence which has a more deadly effect than any amount of talk. Add to this the deep and painful wound inflicted by the adverse criticism at home upon me and my travels, and I would ask the reader, Could I under these conditions persist in my national enthusiasm, could I stand up to defend Hungarian patriotism with the same ardent love of youth when as yet I had no anticipation of what was to happen to me? Even the most furious nationalist could not easily answer this question in the affirmative. Not his Jewish descent, but the prejudiced, unreasonable, and illiberal Christian world is to blame when the man of Jewish origin becomes cosmopolitan; and I am not sure whether those Jews who, in spite of the blunt refusals they receive, persist in pushing themselves within the national framework must be admired as martyrs or despised as intruders. The law, at all events, makes no difference, but usage and social convenience do not trouble themselves much about the law; and in this all European countries are alike, with the exception of England, where liberalism is not an empty term, where the Jew feels thoroughly English and is looked upon as such by the true Briton. I frankly admit that the weakening and ultimate loss of this warm national feeling deprives us of one of the most noble sentiments of humanity; for, with all its weakness and prejudices, the bond of national unity possesses always a certain charm and attraction; and through all the painful experiences of my life, the thought that the short-sightedness of society could not deprive me of my national right to the soil of my birth has comforted and cheered me. The land where I saw the light of day, where my cradle stood, and where I spent the golden days of childhood, is, and ever remains my Fatherland. It is my native soil, its weal and woe lie close to my heart, and I have always been delighted when in some way or other I could help a Hungarian.
3. Society.
If my ideas about religion and nationality are at variance with the prevailing notions in Western lands, this is still more the case with regard to our social standing. The European who has been in Asia for some length of time feels freer and less restricted there than in Europe, in spite of the anarchy, barbarism, and tyranny prevailing in the East. In the first place, as stranger and guest he has less to suffer from the despotism of the Government and the oppressive national customs. He stands under the protection of the dreaded West and is not subject to the laws of the land. He lives as an outlaw truly, and has to look after himself, but then he has the advantage of not being bound by any party spirit; no class prejudice exists here. In the East the highest in the land has to condescend to his inferiors, even princes are not exempt from this law, which is in accordance with the patriarchal spirit of the Government. I have witnessed simple peasants rebuking their landlord, without the latter daring to say a word of protest. With us in Europe the tax-paid official behaves not as the servant but the master of the public, and his arrogance is often very offensive. But still more objectionable is the conduct of the uneducated born aristocrats, who, on the strength of the problematic services of their forefathers, often without the least personal merit, exhibit an amount of pride as if the course of the universe depended upon them. I have never quite been able to understand why the born aristocrat should claim this exceptional position, which nowadays is not so much a matter of national law as of public opinion. If these privileges are a recognition and reward for services rendered, and to be continued from generation to generation, the harm done to society is incalculable, for the offspring only very seldom possess the intellectual heirloom of their ancestors, very seldom come up to the position they occupy, and moreover stand in the way of those better fitted to fill it. Of course in opposition to these views the succession theory is advanced, and in my discussions on this point I have often been met with the argument that as in the vegetable and animal kingdom there are superior species, this natural law also applies to the human race. The maxim, "Fortes creatur fortibus," is quoted, but one forgets that human strength, thanks to the advanced spirit of the age, consists now no longer in physical but in psychical qualities, and that greatness and perfection of intellectual power can be obtained only by study, zeal, and persevering intellectual labour—not exactly a favourite pastime of the born aristocrat, generally speaking. Vir non nascitur sed fit, says the old proverb; and although admitting advantages of birth in horses, dogs and other quadrupeds, we cannot do the same for the human race of the twentieth century.
What has been accomplished so far in literature, art, science and intellectual advancement generally is for the greater part the work of people not favoured by birth, but who in the hard struggle for existence have steeled their nerves and sharpened their wits. In the dark ages of crude thought, when the greatest amount of hereditary physical strength displayed in plundering, murdering and pillaging bore away the palm, there was some sense in hereditary aristocracy, but in modern times privileges of birth are nonsense, and where they do exist they are a disgrace to humanity, and a melancholy sign of the tardiness of society in certain countries. Curiously enough, even in our days people try to justify the existence of hereditary nobility by referring to the historical development of certain States. For instance, the decay and retrogression of Asiatic nations is attributed to the lack of an hereditary aristocracy, and Japan is quoted as an example of the mighty influence of inherited nobility. But the example is not to the point. The fact that Japan, in spite of the great natural endowments of its people, was up to the middle of the nineteenth century closed against all influences from the West, is due solely and entirely to the strictly feudal system of the land; and any one studying the struggle between the Daimos and Mikado-ism will perceive that in this Albion of the Far East modern civilisation and the elevation of the State have been introduced against the will and in spite of the nobility. If pedigreed nobility is really so essential to the well-being of a State, how can we account for the lamentable decay of Persia, where there has always been such a strongly pronounced aristocracy?
Holding such views it is only natural that I could never quite fit into the frame of Hungarian society, where aristocratic predilections predominate. In the springtime of 1848 the Hungarian Parliament, infected by the prevailing spirit of the age, did indeed abolish the rights of hereditary nobility, and, as was supposed, quite voluntarily. But as the middle class element has always been feebly represented in Hungary, and consequently public opinion never could exercise much persuasive force, this law is little more than a show-piece, and has never been really effective. As in the Middle Ages the tone-giving elements were looked upon as the real representatives of the Hungarian race in the motley chaos of nationalities, and therefore ipso facto belonged to the nobility, so it is now the social tendency of the country to look upon genuine Hungarian descent as an undeniable sign of nobility, and since the Government takes no measures to put a stop to the mischief—in fact, is not particularly chary in the grant of letters of nobility—every one who possibly can do so tries to prove his genuine unadulterated Hungarian descent by procuring a letter of nobility. This tendency, far from being a healthy sign, reminds one forcibly of a return to mediæval ways; it nips in the bud all notions of freedom; it cannot be to the benefit of our beautiful land and our gifted nation; it cannot help forward its healthy development, that much at least is clear as the day. Just as in the natural law a body cannot find a solid basis on a pointed but only on a flat surface, so also the peace, safety, and well-being of a State can not be securely founded on the heads of society but on the broad basis of the people. The present tendency of Hungarian society is, therefore, not at all to my liking. However, as autobiographer, I will not enter into any social-political discussions, but I cannot help saying that I, the self-made man, could not possibly live in close communion with such a society. He who has fought the hard fight and, per aspera ad astra, has endeavoured to succeed, does not find satisfaction for his ambition in a closer union with a caste which has long since lost its original significance. Altiora peto! And this worthier and higher recognition we are all entitled to claim, when we are conscious of having rendered ever so slight a service to our fellowmen and have contributed ever so little to the intellectual or material well-being of our country or of humanity in general. The chase after orders and decorations, the natural outcome of this aristocratic tendency, although quite the fashion not only in Hungary but in other countries of Europe as well, has never been my ambition either. If sovereigns were pleased to confer such distinctions upon me I have respectfully locked them up in my box, because a public refusal of them seemed to me making a useless parade of democracy, and because no one is entitled to respond to a courtesy with rudeness. I have never been able to understand how certain men, grown old in wisdom and experience, can find pleasure in bedizening themselves from head to toe with decorations and parading their titles. One calls it apologetically, "The vanity of scholars." But the learned should not commit themselves to such childish, ridiculous weakness. Official distinctions are very much like a command on the part of the State, "Honour this man!" which is quite superfluous, for he who is really worthy of honour will be honoured without any such authoritative command. But enough of this; all these and many other social peculiarities both at home and abroad have never had any attraction for me. To respect a man according to the length of his pedigree, or to honour him according to the superiority of his official dignity, is a thing beyond the capacity of the self-made man. Only the prerogatives of mind and heart command respect, they only are genuine, for they are not dependent on the whim or favour of others, but are based on character or honest labour.
It should also be noted that in Hungary society is far more absorbed in politics than is generally the case, and that science and intellectual labour of any kind are of secondary importance. From the point of view of utility my countrymen are perfectly right, for Hungary, in spite of its glorious past as an independent State, has a hard battle to fight with its neighbour, Austria; and since it is necessary for a nation to establish itself politically before it can take part in the labour of improving mankind at large, it is very natural that the mind of the nation should be set on political matters, and politics be looked upon as an eminently national question. But apart from this I could never get on with my literary studies at home because my favourite subject, the practical knowledge of the East, never excited much interest in Hungary. What does Hungary care about the rivalry between England and Russia in Central Asia, and what possible benefit can it derive from the literary, historical, and ethnographical details of inner Asiatic nations? Whatever my labours have yielded of interest in regard to the primitive history of Hungary, I have given to the public; but as the greater part of my literary activity was the result of my practical knowledge of Asia, the products of my pen have received far more notice outside of Hungary than at home. I have often been asked why as Hungarian by birth I did not confine myself exclusively to Hungarian topics, and why I entered the region of international literature? At home also I have often been blamed for this, but my critics seemed to forget that my preparatory and my later studies were international in themselves, and that with the best will in the world I could not have confined myself to purely national interests. And so it came about that mentally I remained a stranger in my native land, and in the isolation of the subject of my studies I lived for years confined to my own society, without any intellectual intercourse, without any interchange of ideas, without recognition! It was not an enviable position. I was a stranger in the place where I had passed my youth; a stranger in Turkey, Persia and Central Asia; as a stranger I made my début in England, and a stranger I remained in my own home; and all this because a singular fate and certain natural propensities forced me to follow a career which, because of its uncommonness, put me into an exceptional position. Had I persevered in the stereotyped paths of Orientalism, i.e., had I been able to give my mind exclusively to the ferreting out of grammatical niceties, and to inquiring into the speculations of theoretical explorers, I could have grown my Oriental cabbages in peace in the quiet rut of my professional predecessors. But how can one expect that a man who as Dervish, without a farthing in his pocket, has cut his way through the whole of the Islam world, who on the strength of his eminently practical nature has accommodated himself to so many different situations, and at last has been forced by circumstances to take a sober, matter-of-fact view of life—how can one expect such a man to bury himself in theoretical ideas, and to give himself up to idealistic speculations? A bookworm I could never be! When I was young, and fancy carried me away into higher spheres, I could derive a certain amount of pleasure from abstract questions, but in after years, when the bitter gravity of life forced me to take a realistic view of things, I preferably chose that region of literature where not merely laurels, but also tangible fruits, were to be found. I took into consideration that in the face of the expected opening up of Asia, and the animated interest of our world in the occurrences of the East, the discussion of the practical questions of the day would be more to the purpose, more likely to attract attention, and to be appreciated by the world at large than the theoretical investigation of past events, however significant in themselves. This is the reason why at an early date, without giving up my linguistic studies, I devoted myself to Asiatic politics.
Orthodox and narrow-minded philologists may object to this divergence from the trodden path, but I say, "Chacun à son gout," and every man has a perfect right to exert himself in the direction best suited to his tastes and his necessities. To me it was of the greatest moment not only to gain experience and fame, but above all, independence. I have never quite understood why the desire to become independent through the acquisition of earthly goods should be so objectionable in a scholar, for surely independence is the first requirement of human existence.
Strictly adhering to the principle, "Nulla dies sine linea," my pen has in the end procured me the material means for loosening the bonds in which the poor writer had languished for so many years. Sixty years had to pass over my head before I could declare, "Now at last I am free from all material care, henceforth no Government, no princely favour, no human whim, can check my thoughts." For the pursuit after filthy lucre, however humiliating and despicable it may appear, is, and ever has been, a cruel necessity, indispensable to the attainment of even the loftiest, noblest ideals. I cannot explain how or why, but in my inmost mind, in every fibre of my nature, I have always been a passionate, fanatical supporter of independent ideas. An English writer, Sidney Whitman, says that this passion is an outcome of my Jewish origin, because the Jews have always been conspicuous for their notions of independence. Possibly; but I attribute it in my case rather to the oppression, the ignominy, the insults to which I was exposed in my youth. Nor did I fare much better in after years. Everywhere and always I have had much to suffer from poverty, social prejudice, and the tyranny of Governments; and when at last, having overcome all, I attained to intellectual and material independence, I felt supremely happy in the enjoyment of my dearly bought liberty, and in this enjoyment found the only worthy reward for the hard struggle of my life. I have made no concealment of my views as to the prejudices, the weaknesses, the obscurantism, and the ignorance of society, and I did not care when on account of my views about religion, nationality, aristocracy, &c., so contrary to the generally conceived notions, I was looked upon as eccentric, extravagant, sometimes even as not quite in my right mind. I held, and ever will hold, to my principles, purified in the hard struggle for existence. And if the struggle for my material wants is at an end the mental struggle goes on always, and will probably continue to the last breath of my life.