Indeed a general acquaintance with the different tribes and nations under heaven only serves to convince the cosmogonist, that all are of one family, have a common nature or origin, are but human, and liable to human frailties and passions. The most powerful emotions are felt in the bosoms of the savage and the polite. Ambition, love, hatred, revenge, and a like train of absorbing impulses, rule and sway wherever man has planted his footsteps. But how interesting to mark the influence of circumstances, to define the latitudes and longitudes of ideas and actions, to measure the rise and fall of the thermometer of life, according to the various climes on earth’s broad surface, to feel the pulse of the dissenting creeds and dogmas, in a word, to observe the same faculties under such varied culture.
In comparing the different grades of education and civilization, it is curious to observe how often an innate refinement of feeling equals, if not supersedes, the greatest efforts of cultivation, or the brightest results of philosophy. A lifetime spent in the schools often leaves the man far behind one, whose early years have passed in shrewd observation, and practical experience, for while the one is reasoning, abstracting, ruminating, the other experiments, and lo! he enters the very penetralia of the temple of wisdom. And where do we find the most susceptible hearts, the most poetical fancies, the purest aspirations of nature? Not among the dry and tutored reasoners of civilization, but where the mind of man has been untrammeled by rules and etiquettes, forms and ceremonies.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HAREM.
We cannot deny that habit is second nature—the axiom holds good in every form of social existence; yet there is a universal disposition to mutual criticism and condemnation, whether between nations or neighbors. There is always the vibrating why and wherefore, and each, approves his own course of action, without ceding to others the same privilege.
There is no doubt that the peculiar style of the toilet of the Turkish ladies would be deprecated by the belles of modern Christendom. Indeed, we have often heard these fastidious dames exclaim, in regarding representations of their Eastern rivals, “most horribly indecent,” while they turned their sensitive vision from the offenders against all delicacy. And, on the other hand, we have heard the Osmanli Hanums and Efendis express equal honor at the sight of a European lady, en costume de bal.
When the Marchioness of Londonderry presented herself at the palace of the sultan, en grand tenue for a reception, the gentlemen in waiting could scarcely persuade themselves to conduct her ladyship into the royal presence, so astonished were they at the display of the fair neck, shoulders, etc.
Both the Western and Eastern toilets may be styled décolletées, the one a horizontal, the other a longitudinal display of charms. But one thing may be said in favor of the Orientals, that they never appear in public without covering their necks and bosoms, and even veiling their features; they are only permitted to appear uncovered at home, and even then only in the presence of their nearest relatives. On the contrary, on the most public occasions, at the operas, balls, soirées, and many other grand assemblies, do the Western décolletées delight to vie with each other in their various styles of full dress; they are even so fastidious as to have no nomenclature but ankles, while they willingly pay their dollars to see a full extension of these same ankles on the stage.
The Turkish ladies with perfect indifference present their unslippered and even unhosed feet to any shop-boy, at the same time carefully concealing their shalvar, or full trowsers, which are fastened below the knee, and tucked up whenever they sally forth for a promenade à pied ou en voiture.