The fact that this Hungarian, who had been so much fêted abroad, was of obscure origin, without family relations, and, moreover, of Jewish extraction, spoiled the interest for many, and they forcibly suppressed any feelings of appreciation they may have had. The Catholic Church, that hotbed of intolerance and blind prejudice, was the first in attack. It upbraided me for figuring as a Protestant and not as a Catholic, as if I, the freethinker, took any interest in sectarian matters!
I was the first non-Catholic professor appointed according to Imperial Cabinet orders to occupy a chair of the philosophical faculty at the Pest University. Thus not to give offence to this University—unjustly called a Catholic institution—by appointing a so-called Protestant, i.e., a heretic, the title of professor was withheld from me, and for three years I had to content myself with the title of lector and the modest honorarium of 1,000 florins a year—a remuneration equal to that of any respectable nurse in England when besides her monthly wages we take into account her full keep! Truly, from a material point of view, my laborious and perilous travels had not profited me much!
To justify this humiliation certain circles at home took special care to depreciate me at every possible opportunity. Wise and learned men, for instance, professed to have come to the conclusion that my travels in the Far East, and the dangers and fatigues I had professed to have gone through, were a physical impossibility on account of my lame leg. "The Jew lies; he is a swindler, a boaster, like all his fellow-believers." Such were the comments, not merely in words, but actually printed in black and white; and when I introduced myself officially to the Rector of the University, afterwards Catholic bishop of a diocese, I was greeted with the following gracious words, "Do you suppose we are not fully informed as to the treacherousness of your character? We are well aware that your knowledge of Oriental languages is but very faulty and that your fitness to fill the chair is very doubtful. But we do not wish to act against His Majesty's commands, and to this coercion only do you owe your appointment." Such was the gracious reception I had, and such were the encouraging words addressed to me after the learned Orientalists of Paris and London had loaded me with praise and honour, and after I had accomplished, in the service of my people, a journey which, as regards its perilousness, privations, and sufferings, can certainly not be called a pleasure trip.
As it is only natural that small communities on the lower steps of civilisation are either too lazy or too incapable to think, and are guided in their opinion by the views of the higher and leading ranks of society, I am not surprised that in certain circles of Hungary for years together I was looked upon with suspicion, and that my book of travels, which in the meantime had been translated for several Eastern and Western nations into their mother-tongue, was simply discredited at home. Similar causes have elsewhere, under similar conditions, produced similar effects. When the nickname of "Marco Millioni" could be given to the celebrated Venetian who traded all over Asia, why should I mind their treatment of me in Hungary, where, apart from national archæological considerations, nobody evinced any great interest in the distant East? Among the millions of my countrymen there was perhaps no more than one who had ever heard the names of Bokhara and Khiva, and under the extremely primitive cultural conditions of those days geographical explorations were not likely to excite very great interest. The nation, languishing in the bonds of absolutism, and longing for the restoration of Constitutional rights, was only interested in politics; and, since the few scientists, who in their inmost minds were convinced of the importance of my undertaking, had become prejudiced by the reception I had received abroad and were now filled with envy, my position was truly desperate, and for years I had to bear the sad consequences of ill-will. When the first Turkish Consul for Hungary appeared in Budapest he was asked on all sides whether it was really true that I knew Turkish, and when he replied that I spoke and wrote Turkish like a born Osmanli, everybody was greatly surprised. One of my kind friends and patrons said to me in reply to my remark that I should talk Persian with Rawlinson, "You can make us believe this kind of thing, but be careful not to take in other people." A few weeks later Rawlinson took me for a born Persian, but at home they said it was unheard of for a Hungarian scientist to be able to speak Persian. So deplorably low was the standard of Hungarian learning in those days!
Under these conditions the reader may well be surprised, and I must confess that I am surprised myself now, that my deeply-wounded ambition did not revolt against these saddest of all experiences, but that I meekly bore these constant insults and calumnies. This extraordinary humility in the character of a man who in every fibre of his body was animated by ambition and a desire for fame, as I was in those days, has long been an enigma to me. I have accused myself of lack of courage and determination, and I should blush for shame at the memory of this weakness if it were not for the extenuating circumstance that I was utterly exhausted and wearied with my twenty years' struggle for existence, and that my strong craving for a quiet haven of rest was a further extenuation. What did I care that my supposed merits were not appreciated at home, since in the far advanced West the worth of my labours had been so amply recognised? Why should I trouble myself about the adverse criticism of my rivals and ill-wishers since I had at last found a quiet corner, and in possession of my two modestly furnished rooms could comfort myself with the thought that I had now at last found a home, and with the scanty but certain income of some eighty florins per month I could sit down in peace to enjoy the long wished-for pursuit of quiet, undisturbed literary labour? When I had completed the furnishing of my humble little home, and, sitting down on the velvet-covered sofa, surveyed the little domain, which now for the first time I could call my own, I experienced a childish delight in examining all the little details which I had provided for my comfort. Thirty-three years long I had spent in this earthly vale of misery, a thousand ills, both physical and mental, to endure, before it was granted me to experience the blissful consciousness, henceforth no longer to be tossed about, the sport of fortune, no longer to be exposed to gnawing uncertainty, but quietly and cheerfully to pursue the object of my life, and by working out my experiences to benefit the world at large. To other mortals, more highly favoured by birth, my genuine satisfaction and delight may appear incomprehensible and ridiculous: one may object that I longed for rest too soon, and that the small results were scarcely worthy of all the hard labour. But he whom Fate has cast about for years on the stormy ocean hails with delight even the smallest and scantiest plot of solid land, and he who has never known riches or abundance enjoys his piece of dry but certain bread as much as the richest dish.
Such were the feelings which animated me when I settled down in surroundings altogether apart from my studies, my desires and views of life, and such also were the feelings which made me proof against all the attacks and slights of a criticism animated more by ignorance than intentional ill-will. I simply revelled in the enjoyment of these first weeks and months of my new career. The healthy hunger for work acted like a precious tonic, the old indestructible cheerfulness returned, and when after my daily labour of eight or ten hours I went for a walk in the country I fancied myself the happiest man on earth. On account of the marked difference of treatment I had received in England and in Hungary, and in order not to subject myself to unnecessary slights, I had at home avoided all social intercourse as far as I possibly could. Thus on the one hand I had all the more leisure for my work, and on the other hand, through my large correspondence with foreign countries, I was led to remove the centre of gravity of my literary operations and the chief aim and object of my pursuits to foreign lands. At first this necessity troubled me; but the remark of my noble patron, Baron Eötvös, that Hungary never could be the field of my literary labours, and that I should benefit my native land far more by putting the products of my pen upon the world's market in foreign languages soon comforted me. I wrote mostly in German and English, and enlarged my mind in various branches of practical and theoretical knowledge of Asiatic peoples and countries. Two years had scarcely passed before my pen was the most in request on subjects of the geographical, ethnographical, philological, scientific, and political literature of Central Asia—in fact, of the whole Moslemic East. During this period I saw the realisation of the boldest ideas of my early days, and only now began to reap the benefit of my studies. I read the different European and Asiatic languages without the help of a dictionary, and as in most of them I had had practical experience, I could understand them the more easily, and also write in them. Gradually I had got together a small library of special books, and on account of the lively correspondence I kept up with my fellow-literati and friends of Oriental study, I was enabled to work with energy far from the centre of my studies as linguist, ethnographer, and editor. Now and then the want of intellectual stimulus and personal intercourse with my fellow-labourers made itself felt. I longed particularly for an interchange of ideas with authorities on the East, as in Pest itself I could only meet with a few orthodox scholars of Ural-Altaic comparative philology; but in the zeal and enthusiasm for one's undertaking one easily dispenses with encouragement, and with the device, "Nulla dies sine linea," which I always conscientiously followed, I must ultimately reach the goal and overcome all obstacles.
With industry and perseverance, energy and untiring zeal, I could conquer anything except the stupidity of human nature galled by envy. The more I worked to keep up my literary repute and the repute I had gained as traveller, the more furiously raged my opponents, and the more they endeavoured to discredit me, and to accuse me of all imaginable mistakes and misrepresentations. Once when I complained about this to Baron Eötvös, this noble and high-minded man rightly remarked, "The regions of your travels and studies are unknown in this land, and you cannot expect society to acknowledge its ignorance and incapacity to understand. It is far easier and more comfortable to condemn one whom it does not understand as a liar and a deceiver." Now this was exactly my position; all the same it grieved me to meet with so much opposition on every side. Not in any period of my life, when some public acknowledgment on the part of the Academy or of the newly-established Hungarian Government would have been such a help to one of my almost childish sensitiveness, had I ever received the slightest token of appreciation of my labours. Twelve years after my return from Central Asia I was elected ordinary member of the Academy, and then only after several quite insignificant men had preceded me, and I simply could not be passed over any longer. Others of higher birth, but without any literary pretensions, were made honorary members or even placed on the directing staff. As regards the State's want of appreciation of my work, although I may now look upon it as of no significance, it made me feel very sore at the time, especially during the Coronation festivities when Hungarian literati and artists were picked out and I was utterly ignored. At other times they were glad enough to distinguish me as the only Magyar who had brought Hungarian knowledge on to the world's stage, and had been instrumental in making the name of the Hungarian Academy known to the Western world. I could give many other proofs of this intentional neglect and ignoring of my claims, but why should I weary the reader any longer with revelations of wounded vanity? The conviction that I had become a stranger in my own land impressed itself more and more upon me; the false position in which I was placed must necessarily become more and more conspicuous. No wonder, then, that I grew indifferent towards the place which formerly had been the object of all my desires, and I now began to long for England, the foreign land where I was better understood and more appreciated, and where I had found more interest in my studies and more encouragement of my efforts.
Nothing, therefore, was more natural than that in these circumstances I should undertake a journey abroad, to cheer and comfort myself by personal contact with congenial society. These motives drew me towards Germany, France, and particularly England. In Germany I made the acquaintance of distinguished Orientalists whose theoretical knowledge excited my admiration as much as their practical incapacity and awkwardness surprised me. They were kind, modest, worthy men, who, since I was outside their particular set, met me very pleasantly, but they looked very doubtful when I seemed not to be acquainted with their theories or betrayed an insufficient knowledge of their treatises, notes, and glossaries. They listened to me, but I saw at once that they looked upon me as a dilettante, outside the pale of learning. This opinion of my literary accomplishments was not altogether unjust, for I was and remained always a practical Orientalist, and these theorists might have remembered that a mere bookman could not possibly have travelled through so many Islamic lands as Dervish and faced all dangers and vicissitudes in close intercourse with the people.
In France I fared somewhat better. Here the political situation had revealed the necessity of practical knowledge of Asiatic conditions, and side by side with the theoretical guardians of Oriental science there had at all times been a considerable number of practical authorities on Asia, who now received me very warmly. Of the personages with whom I became acquainted in Paris I will mention in the first place Napoleon III., who admitted me to an audience more because it was the fashion than to satisfy his scientific curiosity. When I entered the Tuileries in company with Prince Metternich, then Austrian Ambassador at Paris, and caught sight of the Emperor before the Pavillon de l'Horloge as he was taking leave of Queen Christina of Spain, the vision of this thick-set man, with his flabby features and pale, faded eyes, made a miserable impression upon me. And still more lamentable was the result of my half-hour's interview with him. He appeared to have been preparing himself for my visit, for on his writing-table, covered with papers and documents, I saw spread out the map which accompanied the English edition of my Travels, and, after the usual ceremonies, he told me to sit down by him and began to converse about Hungary. When I remarked that I had undertaken these travels into the interior of Asia at the request of the Academy, the Emperor replied he had heard a good deal in praise of Hungary, and after receiving some information as to the intellectual efforts of Hungary, he led the conversation on to Central Asia. At first he attempted to give the conversation a more scientific character, and, with reference to his Jules César, which had just appeared, he began to talk about the ethnical origin of the Parthians. Gradually he dropped into a consideration of the political condition of Central Asia, and put to me the question whether in the Memorandum I had presented to Lord Palmerston I had touched upon the politico-economic relations between Central Asia and India, and wherein lay the danger for England. My explanations did not seem to suit his preconceived notions, for he tried to refute my views as regards the danger to English interests by pointing out the strong position England held in India, so gloriously maintained in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, while Russia was only just beginning to make conquests in Central Asia. When I replied that Russia's object was not so much to conquer India, but rather to cripple the English military forces, in order to tie the hands of one of the chief opponents of Russia's designs upon Constantinople, the Emperor was driven into a corner and said: "Such an eventuality is a long way off yet, and as to this point in the Oriental question, there are yet other factors to be considered." Leaving the discussion of politics, which did not seem to please the Emperor, he suddenly turned the conversation again upon my travels, and began to compliment me on my adventures and the linguistic proficiency which had so helped me to success. He said, "You have evidently a great talent for acting, and the fact that you, with your physical weakness (hinting at my lameness), have been able to go through so many fatigues, is altogether astonishing."
I had occasion later on to meet the Emperor in the salon of the Princess Mathilde, but I must honestly say that I could not discern a trace of that greatness of which for years I had heard so much. He could be affable and pleasant; between taciturnity and gravity he simulated the deep thinker, but his pale eyes and artificial speech soon betrayed the adventurer who had been elevated to his exalted position by the inheritance of a great name and the wantonness of the nation. His minister, Count Drouyn de Lhuys, was somewhat more inquisitive and better informed; but the most interesting personality of my Parisian acquaintance was decidedly the great Guizot, to whom I was introduced in the Rue de Bac at the salon of Madame Mohl. The old gentleman, then in his 78th year, was full of sparkling humour, and his memory was quite marvellous. He seemed to be most amused to hear me hold a lively conversation in various European and Asiatic languages, and he made a point of bringing me in contact with several more nationalities with the object of confusing me. Monsieur Guizot took a warm interest in me; at his suggestion I was invited to the various salons, but all these civilities could not chain me to the Parisian world. In the leading themes, belle lettres, music, and plastic art, I was an ignoramus and had not a word to say; the superfine manners of society worried me, for I missed here the lively interest in things Asiatic which in the London circles, in spite of the no less strict etiquette, was constantly evinced. Men such as Barthélemy de St. Hilaire, Garcin de Tassy, Pavet de Courteille, and other experts, had a strong fascination for me, but generally speaking France left me cold, for I missed even the great cosmopolitan ideas, the lively interest in the movements of mankind in the far-away corners of the globe, and I realised that national vanity would not so easily admit a stranger to its platform.