If I had been pleased with Logotheti in the heat and hurry of a ball room, I was infinitely more delighted with him in the bosom of his family. His gentle and courtly manners, and his unaffected and fluent conversation, rendered him a charming companion; and the hours flew so swiftly in his society, and that of his amiable family, that dinner was announced before the morning had appeared to be half spent.
At half past nine, we were in the ball-room, which I entered on the arm of Logotheti, and I was considerably startled during our progress up stairs by the manner of his reception. Our host and hostess met us on the first landing-place, where they bent down and kissed the hem of his garment, despite his efforts to prevent this truly Oriental salutation. Their example was followed by all those who made way for us; and, as he led me through the noble saloon in which we were to dance, and seated me in the centre of the sofa, at the upper end of a drawing-room that opened into it, every one rose, and continued standing until he had taken possession of a chair.
Coffee having been handed round, Logotheti conducted me back into the saloon, where we opened the ball with a Polonaise; after which, quadrilles, waltzes, cotillons, and mazurkas, followed each other in rapid succession; and, after having been introduced to more persons than I could possibly recognise should I ever meet them again, and dancing until near six o’clock in the morning, I walked another Polonaise with our agreeable host, and quitted the ball-room with more regret than I ever experienced on a similar occasion.
We remained the morrow at the Fanar, and I carried away with me no memories save those of kindness and courtesy. Seldom, very seldom indeed, have I passed three days of such unalloyed gratification as those for which I am indebted to Logotheti and his friends.
No circumstance impressed me more strongly during this very agreeable visit, than the rapid strides which the Constantinopolitan Greeks are making towards civilization. The Turks have a thousand old and cherished superstitions that tend to clog the chariot wheels of social progression, and which it will require time to rend away; the Armenians, who consider their Moslem masters as the ne plus ultra of human perfection, are yet further removed from improvement than the Turks; while the Greeks, lively and quick-minded, seize, as it were by intuition, minute shades of character as well as striking points of manners. Locomotive, physically as well as mentally, they indulge their erratic tastes and propensities by travel; they compare, estimate, and adopt; they pride themselves in their progress; they stand forth, scorning all half measures, as declared converts to European customs; and they fashion their minds as well as their persons, after their admitted models.
The Turk is the more stately, the more haughty, and the more self-centered, of the inhabitants of the East; but in all that relates to social tactics he is very far inferior to the keen, shrewd, calculating, intriguing, Greek.
The Moslem will fix his eye upon a distant and important object, and work steadily onwards until he has attained it; but, meanwhile, the active Greek will have clutched a score of minor advantages, which probably, in the aggregate, are of more than equal weight. It is the collision of mind and matter—the elephant and the fox. Intellectual craft has been the safety-buoy of the Greeks; had they been differently constituted, they would long ere this have been swept from the face of the earth, or have become mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” As it is, there is so strong a principle of moral life in this portion of the Greek nation, that, were they only more united among themselves, and less a prey to intestine jealousies and heart-burnings, it is probable that in these times, when Turkey lies stretched like a worsted giant at the mercy of the European powers, the heel of the Greeks might be shod with an iron, heavy enough to press her down beyond all means of resuscitation; in possession, as they are, of the confidence of those in power.
Animal force has subjugated the Greeks—subjugated, but not subdued them; their physical power has departed, but their moral energy remains unimpaired; and it is doubtful whether human means will ever crush it.