Eothen/Preface
PREFACE
ADDRESSED BY
THE AUTHOR TO ONE OF HIS FRIENDS.
When you first entertained the idea of travelling in the East, you asked me to send you an outline of the tour which I had made, in order that you might the better be able to choose a route for yourself. In answer to this request, I gave you a large French map, on which the course of my journeys had been carefully marked; but I did not conceal from myself, that this was rather a dry mode for a man to adopt, when he wished to impart the results of his experience to a dear and intimate friend. Now, long before the period of your planning an Oriental tour, I had intended to write some account of my Eastern Travels. I had, indeed, begun the task, and had failed; I had begun it a second time, and failing again, had abandoned my attempt with a sensation of utter distaste. I was unable to speak out, and chiefly, I think, for this reason—that I knew not to whom I was speaking. It might be you, or, perhaps, our Lady of Bitterness, who would read my story; or it might be some member of the Royal Statistical Society, and how on earth was I to write in a way that would do for all three?
Well—your request for a sketch of my tour suggested to me the idea of complying with your wish by a revival of my twice abandoned attempt. I tried, and the pleasure and confidence which I felt in speaking to you, soon made my task so easy, and even amusing, that after a while (though not in time for your tour), I completed the scrawl from which this book was originally printed.
The very feeling, however, which enabled me to write thus freely, prevented me from robing my thoughts in that grave and decorous style which I should have maintained if I had professed to lecture the public. Whilst I feigned to myself that you, and you only, were listening, I could not by possibility speak very solemnly. Heaven forbid that I should talk to my own genial friend, as though he were a great and enlightened Community, or any other respectable Aggregate!
Yet I well understood that the mere fact of my professing to speak to you rather than to the public generally could not perfectly excuse me for printing a narrative too roughly worded, and accordingly, in revising the proof sheets, I have struck out those phrases which seemed to be less fit for a published volume than for intimate conversation. It is hardly to be expected, however, that correction of this kind should be perfectly complete, or that the almost boisterous tone in which many parts of the book were originally written should be thoroughly subdued. I venture therefore, to ask, that the familiarity of language still possibly apparent in the work, may be laid to the account of our delightful intimacy, rather than to any presumptuous motive; I feel, as you know, much too timidly—too distantly, and too respectfully, towards the Public to be capable of seeking to put myself on terms of easy fellowship with strange and casual readers.
It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried to do this as well as I can, by my studiously unpromising title-page[1]) that the book is quite superficial in its character. I have endeavored to discard from it all valuable matter derived from the works of others, and it appears to me that my efforts in this direction have been attended with great success; I believe I may truly acknowledge, that from all details of geographical discovery, or antiquarian research—from all display of "sound learning, and religious knowledge"—from all historical and scientific illustrations—from all useful statistics—from all political disquisitions—and from all good moral reflections, the volume is thoroughly free.
My excuse for the book is its truth; you and I know a man fond of hazarding elaborate jokes, who, whenever a story of his happens not to go down as wit, will evade the awkwardness of the failure, by bravely maintaining that all he has said is pure fact. I can honestly take this decent, though humble mode of escape. My narrative is not merely righteously exact in matters of fact (where fact is in question), but it is true in this larger sense—it conveys—not those impressions which ought to have been produced upon any "well constituted mind," but those which were really and truly received at the time of his rambles, by a headstrong, and not very amiable traveller, whose prejudices in favor of other people's notions were then exceedingly slight. As I have felt, so I have written; and the result is, that there will often be found in my narrative a jarring discord between the associations properly belonging to interesting sites, and the tone in which I speak of them. This seemingly perverse mode of treating the subject is forced upon me by my plan of adhering to sentimental truth, and really does not result from any impertinent wish to teaze or trifle with readers. I ought, for instance, to have felt as strongly in Judea, as in Galilee, but it was not so in fact; the religious sentiment (born in solitude) which had heated my brain in the Sanctuary of Nazareth was rudely chilled at the foot of Zion, by disenchanting scenes. and this change is accordingly disclosed by the perfectly worldly tone in which I speak of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
My notion of dwelling precisely upon those matters which happened to interest me, and upon none other, would of course be intolerable in a regular book of travels. If I had been passing through countries not previously explored, it would have been sadly perverse to withhold careful description of admirable objects, merely because my own feelings of interest in them may have happened to flag; but where the countries which one visits have been thoroughly and ably described, and even artistically illustrated by others, one is fully at liberty to say as little (though not quite so much) as one chooses. Now a traveller is a creature not always looking at sights—he remembers (how often!) the happy land of his birth—he has, too, his moments of humble enthusiasm about fire and food—about shade and drink; and if he gives to these feelings anything like the prominence which really belonged to them at the time of his travelling, he will not seem a very good teacher: once having determined to write the sheer truth concerning the things which chiefly have interested him, he must and he will, sing a sadly long strain about Self; he will talk for whole pages together about his bivouac fire, and ruin the Ruins of Baalbec with eight often cold lines.
But it seems to me that the egotism of a traveller, however incessant—however shameless and obtrusive, must still convey some true ideas of the country through which he has passed. His very selfishness—his habit of referring the whole external world to his own sensations, compels him, as it were, in his writings, to observe the laws of perspective;—he tells you of objects, not as he knows them to be, but as they seemed to him. The people and the things that most concern him personally, however mean and insignificant, take large proportions in his picture, because they stand so near to him. He shows you his Dragomen, and the gaunt features of his Arabs—his tent—his kneeling camels—his baggage strewed upon the sand;—but the proper wonders of the land—the cities—the mighty ruins and monuments of bygone ages he throws back faintly in the distance. It is thus that he felt, and thus he strives to repeat the scenes of the Elder World. You may listen to him for ever without learning much in the way of statistics; but perhaps if you bear with him long enough, you may find yourself slowly and slightly impressed with the realities of eastern Travel.
My scheme of refusing to dwell upon matters which failed to interest my own feelings, has been departed from in one instance—namely, in my detail of the late Lady Hester Stanhope's conversation on supernatural topics; the truth is, that I have been much questioned on this subject, and I thought that my best plan would be to write down at once all that I could ever have to say concerning the personage whose career has excited so much curiosity amongst Englishwomen. The result is, that my account of the lady goes to a length which is not justified either by the importance of the subject, or by the extent to which it interested the narrator.
You will see that I constantly speak of "my People,"
"my Party," "my Arabs," and so on, using terms which might possibly seem to imply that I moved about with a pompous retinue. This of course was not the case. I travelled with the simplicity proper to my station, as one of the industrious class, who was not flying from his country because of ennui, but was strengthening his will, and tempering the metal of his nature for that life of toil and conflict in which he is now engaged. But an Englishman journeying in the East, must necessarily have with him Dragomen capable of interpreting the Oriental language; the absence of wheeled-carriages obliges him to use several beasts of burthen for his baggage, as well as for himself and his attendants; the owners of the horses or camels, with their slaves or servants, fall in as part of his train, and altogether the cavalcade becomes rather numerous, without, however, occasioning any proportionate increase of expense. When a traveller speaks of all these followers in mass, he calls them his "people," or his "troop," or his "party," without intending to make you believe that he is therefore a Sovereign Prince.
You will see that I sometimes follow the custom of the Scots in describing my fellow-countrymen by the names of their paternal homes.
Of course all these explanations are meant for casual readers. To you, without one syllable of excuse or deprecation, and in all the confidence of a friendship that never yet was clouded, I give this long-promised volume, and add but one sudden "Good-by!" for I dare not stand greeting you here.
- ↑ "Eōthen" is, I hope, almost the only hard word to be found in the book; it is written in Greek ἠῶθεν,—(Atticè with an aspirated ε instead of the η,)—and signifies, 'from the early dawn,"—"from the East."—Donn Lex., 4th edition.