Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/186

 literature of the West. Some of the Turkish ladies eagerly imbibe the new social ideas.

Pierre Loti's romance is not merely a pathetic story. It is a contribution to the sociology of the Near East. The heroine voices the aspirations of the new woman of Turkey. She cries out for light, for liberty in the supreme matter of choice in love, and for contact with the great world outside of the seraglio. The novel describes faithfully the narrow environment in which harem women live. Loti shows how the disenchanted yearn for love. The heroine of the story says:—

The heroine of Loti's romance refers to the loneliness of seraglio life:—