In reciprocating your good wishes for the New Year,
I beg to remain, yours sincerely,
A. VAMBÉRY.
P.S.—Pray give my compliments to M. Chedo Mijatovich.[[38]] I am very glad that Bog dal srecu yunacku[[39]] to his countrymen.
[38]. The distinguished Servian historian and diplomatist, formerly Minister of Finance in Servia and Servian Minister in London, where he has since taken up his residence.
[39]. “God has given the good luck of heroes.”
VI
February 11, 1913.
Dear Mr. Whitman,—I delayed answering your last letter as I was awaiting the arrival of the book you promised to send me. Now that your most interesting and fascinatingly written study on Germany[[40]] has arrived I hasten to express to you my best thanks for the pleasure I have derived from your book, as well as for your kind reference to my Essays on Sultan Abdul Hamid.[[41]]
In writing about leading contemporaries we are apt to get into a predicament, evidently not unfamiliar to you, which causes us a great deal of trouble. Those who know cannot write and those who write most do not know. At all events the personality of Abdul Hamid is a landmark in the history of the Osmanides which will be often spoken of.