Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/70

Rh founded by conquering races, so no doubt the peculiar sacredness of δίος Μενέλαος and the rest may be partly derived from the confusion which leads the inferior races to regard victorious foreigners as distinct and divine. That stream of tendency has mingled with others of more native origin to make up the transcendent attributes of kings. In advanced civilizations, the flattery of courtiers and theologians has fallen back on the naïve exaggerations of savages. From the early Greek adventurer who, landing on the coast that was to be Hellas, found, like Mr. Wallace in the Aru Islands, that he was believed by the simple folk to be able to control the weather, or from the diviner, with his magical drum and jar and sacred person, to the deified emperors of Rome or to the divine right of the Stuarts, is a long step in human history. Through it all the little germ of a childish delusion must have been working to ends of the utmost value in the construction of society — to ends of extraordinary importance when contrasted with the slightness of the means. The science which busies itself with these matters is not so new as we are apt to suppose. Professor Millar, in Adam Smith's time, worked by its method, as we have seen, and anticipated a great deal of what has since been advanced as original. But his investigation of the origin of rank omitted what, by the light of later researches, looks like a most Important factor, the factor which now exists as superstition, but in an immeasurably distant age was part of as rational a scheme of the universe as was within reach of our ancestors.

 

  — In Europe social life is diversified by court receptions, the opera, the theatre, balls, dinner-parties, garden-parties, rides and drives, walks, shopping, church-going, and foreign travel. All these have their counterpart more or less true or grotesque in Turkey. Take, first, court receptions. These, it is true are rare, but they are very magnificent when they do occur. The grandest was that held in 1868 at the fête of the circumcision of Youssouff Izzeddin Effendi. As this was a public occasion, answering to our court drawing-rooms, the wives and daughters of all the great pashas were obliged to present their congratulations in person to his Majesty; and, the strictest rule of all Turkish etiquette being for the time superseded by another even more stringent, no woman, whatever her rank, dare veil her face in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful. I leave it to the imagination of those ladies who have undergone the ordeal of preparing a train and a curtsy for our own court, what anxious cares were bestowed on ugly green and garnet-colored satin gowns, puffed pantaloons to match, on huge wadded paletots worn over the dress, and on French satin shoes. But, above all, the head-dress was the most difficult to arrange, many of the ladies having short-cropped hair. Everything depends on the set of the hôtose or coiffure of colored silk gauze, and on the blaze of jewels affixed to it; crescents of diamonds, aigrettes of diamonds, sapphires and rubies, pearls almost the size of strawberries, pear-shaped diamond earrings as large as hazel-nuts, or coronets resembling old-fashioned imperial crowns. Moreover, the head-dress must be most firmly attached, for, as with us, a court débutante has to exercise herself in the most graceful manner of bending low before royalty; there a lady has to practise how she may best advance demurely with a long square train passed between her feet, drop suddenly on her knees, dip her forehead three times to the ground, kiss the hem of the august personage's keurk, or furred robe, if that happens to be worn at the time, and, after all this, retreat with good grace, and without losing her jewelled cap at the feet of her imperial sovereign. Some of the younger married ladies were courageous enough to adopt the European corsage, combined with Turkish train and trousers; but the most amusing of all were three young khanums who appeared in white court dresses made in faultless Parisian style, trimmed with wreaths of white roses gemmed with dew, and very simple coiffures to match. These youthful princesses looked altogether lovely, and when they advanced up the crowded presence-chamber they excited murmurs of admiration; they also saluted the sultan by a deep curtsy only, he standing; but on passing to where the Validé Soultan was seated near her son, they made to her the customary acknowledgments. His Majesty was evidently much charmed by the grace and dignity of the sisters, and showed them marked attention by insisting that they should be seated — a sign of condescension and respect not extended to any other lady present. The Validé humored her son's whim, saying to the eldest of the young princesses, while patting her on the shoulder, and motioning her to be seated on the low cushions beside her, "Ghel, kiss'm, ghel! K'hosh gueldiniz, safa gueldiniz! Buyuriniz otouriniz!" (Come, my child, come! Be welcome. Sit beside me.)