Sunday, March 26.—Lady Hester sent to my family a fine cluster of bananas, weighing perhaps twenty-five pounds. When she saw me, she said, in allusion to them, “I suppose you will not take any of my presents as usual. Do as you like: but why do I send things to your house? because in this country nothing marks the regard one person has for another so much as presents: and, if you hear the servants wish to denote the thorough contempt that a sultan, a pasha, or an emir has for any one, it will always be by saying he did not even give him a present to the value of a fig. In England, for example, it would be thought strange to send a couple of loaves of sugar to another man’s house, or a sheep, or a bag of coffee: but here it is done every day. In the same way, presents of clothes are very common: however, I will not trouble you that way any more if you don’t like it. But just tell me, when you first arrived in this country, and in a retired spot like this, where were you to get what was necessary to dress yourself as a Turk? it would have been impossible.”
This conversation arose from some expensive presents, which Lady Hester Stanhope had, on two or three occasions, just after our arrival, made to me and my family: such as some pieces of Damascus silks, a fine abah or cloak, exactly similar to the one she always wore, and a complete Turkish suit of clothes. I acknowledged in return how highly we were flattered by these tokens of regard, but requested leave to return the pieces of silk, and professed my willingness to keep the dress, as I could not absent myself to replenish my wardrobe, and I knew how much she disliked the European dress. I considered, too, though of course I did not say so, that her finances required that nothing should be spent unnecessarily, and I did not like to be supposed to encourage profusion; but she refused to take back anything, and said she would immediately have them burned in the courtyard, if I returned them. There was no disputing with her, so she gained her point. As for fruit and such things, I raised no objection, and Lady Hester seldom let a day pass without contributing to the comforts or luxuries of our table.
It was impossible to enjoy a calm for any length of time. In the morning, when I went to Lady Hester, I found her greatly ruffled. The conversation that ensued will explain the cause. “You suffer yourself,” said she, “and I have told you so over and over again, to be trampled on by these people; who, when they say you are a kind-hearted man, only laugh at you. Which do you think they like best, Logmagi, who abuses them well, or you, who are afraid of them?—why, Logmagi, to be sure. Captain Logmagi is genteel, is delightful in their eyes; because masters here are only known to be such by their severity. What did one of my black girls, Zayneb, tell me many a time? ‘Why don’t you flog me well, if I do what you dislike? I shall know then what you mean: but when you are preaching to me, and what you call giving me advice for my good, I only fancy it all a trick for some purpose.’ There was Giovanni, your old servant, how often did he say to me, after I took him—‘I don’t understand all that jargon, but I know what the whip means.’ Look again what they say about the prince”—(Pückler Muskau, of whom it appears they had heard something from the servants who had been to Sayda)—“‘That’s something like a man—he can put himself in a passion.’—Doctor, I can’t bear such cold milk and water people as you are, nor can they: I am like a hot iron—pour cold water on it, and see how it hisses.
“Women formerly found something like protection from men, and were not left alone in the world as they are now. What! shall I have a scoundrel of a fellow, like ——, come and stick his fingers in my face, and ‘you’ and ‘you’ me? but I’ll teach him better manners, or I’ll know why:—a set of beings, the slush of the earth! des âmes viles, as the prince calls them. I told Mr. Dundas that, now-a-days, one might think one’s self very well off, if, when some dirty fellow spits in one’s face, what was called a gentleman took out his white pocket-handkerchief and wiped it off, hoping one was not hurt!”
The conversation here took another turn. “I wish you,” said she, “to ask your little girl’s governess to come in, and iron some sheets for me: do you think she will do it? You may order Lunardi’s room to be cleaned out for her. As for my making company of her, you know it would be a farce: would it not? Not that a difference of rank makes any difference with me: for I have seen poor people, whose natural qualities, whose pure unsophisticated minds, whose real virtues have made me feel myself their inferior in those things, although so much their superior perhaps in judgment and talents. Such people are oftentimes preferable, in my opinion, to all those who read out of one book and then out of another, thinking one day according to one author, and the next day quite the contrary: just like teapots, drizzling out of the spout what was poured into them under the lid. As for me, I would destroy all books in a lump. It was a lucky thing for mankind that the Alexandrian library was destroyed: there was good reason for what the caliph did.”
March 29.—An answer to Lord Ebrington’s letter, of which the following is a copy, was written to-day:
Lady Hester Stanhope to the Viscount Ebrington.
Jôon, March 29, 1838.
My dear Lord Ebrington,
Your letter of the 26th of December reached me a few days ago; and it gave me great satisfaction to find you had not altogether forgotten me or my interests. I am so ignorant of what passes in Europe, generally speaking, that I was not aware that pensions were to be revised. The first I heard of it was from a traveller (Mr. Vesey Foster) having mentioned, about a fortnight ago, that such was the intention of Government: but, as I did not see him, I had no opportunity of inquiring into particulars. You tell me that you are on the committee, and that, whatever I have to say respecting my pension, I had better write it to you:—I have nothing to say. You can hardly suppose that I would owe a pension to the commiseration of a pettifogging committee, when I refused Mr. Fox’s liberal proposition of securing me a handsome income by a grant of Parliament: neither should I, under any circumstances, lower the name of my dear old King, or my own, by giving any explanation. It was His Majesty’s pleasure to give me a pension—that is sufficient—or ought to be sufficient. New-coined Royalties I do not understand, nor do I wish to understand them nor any of their proceedings. My ultimatum respecting my pension I have given to the Duke of Wellington, founded on the impudent letter of Colonel Campbell, a copy of which I enclose.