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THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._


ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY:

His Life and Adventures.

Imperial 16mo, cloth, 6s. Boys' Edition, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt
edges, 5s.


THE STORY OF HUNGARY.

Fully Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. (THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
SERIES.)

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.


[Illustration: VAMBÉRY AFTER HIS RETURN FROM CENTRAL ASIA.

_Photographed in Teheran, 1863._

_Frontispiece to Vol._ II.]




THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES

THE MEMOIRS OF ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BUDAPEST

VOLUME II

[Illustration: Logo]

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1904


(_All rights reserved._)




Contents


CHAPTER VII.
                                                PAGE
FROM LONDON TO BUDAPEST                          237


CHAPTER VIII.

MY POLITICAL CAREER AND POSITION IN ENGLAND      283


CHAPTER IX.

THE TRIUMPH OF MY LABOURS                        317


CHAPTER X.

AT THE ENGLISH COURT                             329


CHAPTER XI.

MY INTERCOURSE WITH SULTAN ABDUL HAMID           343


CHAPTER XII.

MY INTERCOURSE WITH NASREDDIN SHAH AND HIS
SUCCESSOR                                        391


CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRUGGLE'S END, AND YET NO END               411


APPENDICES                                       459




Illustrations


PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AFTER HIS RETURN FROM
CENTRAL ASIA                              _Frontispiece_

PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AND HIS TARTAR, 1864 _Facing page_ 393




From London to Budapest




CHAPTER VII

FROM LONDON TO BUDAPEST


I have often been asked how it was that, after the bitter disappointment
I had experienced in my native land on my return from Asia, and after
the brilliant reception accorded to me in England, I yet preferred to
settle down permanently in Hungary.

People have been surprised that I should choose a quiet literary career,
whereas my many years of intimate intercourse with various Eastern
nations might have been turned to so much better account, and a
practical, active career would have been so much more in keeping with my
character. All these questions were asked of me at the time in London,
but filled as I then became with a sense of oppression and a great
longing for home I could not give a satisfactory answer to these
queries. Now that the cloud has lifted, and my vision is clear, now that
sober reflection has taken the place of former rapture and exultation,
the causes which influenced my decision are perfectly clear. I see now
that I could not have acted differently; that the step I took was
partly the result of my personal inclination and views of life, and
partly influenced by the circumstances of my birth and bringing up, and
the notions then generally prevailing in Hungary; nor have I cause or
ground to regret my decision.

In the first place I have to confess that in England, notwithstanding
the noisy, brilliant receptions I had, and all the attention paid to me,
no one ever made me any actual proposal with a view to my future
benefit, and no one seemed at all disposed to turn to account my
practical experiences in the service of the State or of private
enterprise. The Memorandum about the condition of things in Central
Asia, written at the time in Teheran at the request of the British
Ambassador there, had duly found its way to Lord Palmerston, the Prime
Minister. The gray statesman received me most kindly; I was often a
guest at his private house, or dined with him at Mr. Tomlin's, of
Carlton House Terrace, or at Sir Roderick Murchison's, of 16, Belgrave
Square. At his initiative I was invited to other distinguished houses,
for the merry old gentleman was much entertained by my lively
conversation and my anecdotes from Asia, which I used to relate after
dinner when the ladies had retired. My stories about the white ass of
the English Embassy at Teheran, of diplomatic repute, and similar
amusing details of court life in Persia and the Khanates of Central
Asia, tickled the fancy of the most serious, sober-minded of these high
lords, and went the round in the fashionable West End circles. But for
all that they saw in me merely the "lively foreigner," the versatile
traveller, and if here and there some interest was shown in my future,
it amounted to asking what were my latest travelling plans, and when I
thought of setting out in search of fresh discoveries. As if I had not
been on the go for two-and-twenty years, ever since I was ten years old!
as if I had not battled and struggled and suffered enough! And now that
for the first time in my life I had lighted on a green bough and hoped
to have accomplished something, was I again straightway to plunge into
the vague ocean of destiny? "No, no," I reflected; "I am now thirty-two
years old, without for one moment having enjoyed the pleasures of a
quiet, peaceful life, and without possessing enough to permit myself the
luxury of resting on my own bed, or of working comfortably at my own
table." This uncertain, unsatisfactory state of things must come to an
end sometime; and so the desire for rest and peace necessarily overruled
any inclination for great and ambitious plans, and nipped in the bud all
projects which possibly might have made my career more brilliant, but
certainly not happier than it afterwards turned out.

The kind reader of these pages who is familiar with the struggles and
troubles of my childhood, who has followed me in thought on the thorny
path of early youth, and knows something of my experiences as
self-taught scholar and tutor, will perhaps accuse me of dejection, and
blame me for want of perseverance and steadiness of purpose. Possibly I
have disregarded the golden saying of my mother, "One must make one's
bed half the night, the better to rest the other half." I did give way
to dejection, but my resolve, however blameworthy it may be, should be
looked upon as the natural consequence of a struggle for existence which
began all too early and lasted sadly too long. Man is not made of iron,
too great a tension must be followed by a relaxation, and since the
first fair half of my life began to near its ending, my former iron will
also began to lose some of its force. The wings of my ambition were too
weak to soar after exalted ideals, and I contented myself with the
prospect of a modest professorship at the University of my native land
and the meagre livelihood this would give me.

In England, where a man in his early thirties is, so to speak, still in
the first stage of his life, and energy is only just beginning to swell
the sails of his bark, my longing for rest was often misunderstood and
disapproved of. In London I met a gentleman of sixty who wanted to learn
Persian and start a career in India; and I was going to stop my
practical career at the age of thirty-two! The difference seems
enormous, but in the foggy North man's constitution is much tougher and
harder than in the South. My physical condition, my previous sufferings
and privations, may to some extent account for my despondency; I had to
give in, although my object was only half gained.

Emotions of this kind overpowered me even in the whirl and rush of the
first months of my stay in London. Before long I had seen through the
deceptive glamour of all the brilliancy around me; and as I very soon
realised that my personal acquaintance with high society and the most
influential and powerful persons would hardly help me to a position in
England, I endeavoured at least to use the present situation as a step
towards a position at home, in the hope that the recognition I had
obtained in England would be of service to me in my native land, where
the appreciation of foreign lands is always a good recommendation. First
of all I set to work upon my book of travels, an occupation which took
me scarcely three months to accomplish, and which, written with the
experiences all yet fresh in my mind, resolved itself chiefly into a dry
and unadorned enumeration of adventures and facts. The introduction of
historical and philological notes would have been impossible in any
case, as my Oriental MSS. were detained in Pest as security on the money
loan, and also because in England everything that does not actually bear
upon political, economical, or commercial interests is looked upon as
superfluous ballast. When the first proof-sheets appeared of my
_Travels in Central Asia_ many of my friends regretted the brevity and
conciseness of the composition, but the style was generally approved of,
and after its publication the various criticisms and discussions of the
work eulogised me to such an extent, that my easily roused vanity would
soon have got the better of me, had I not been aware of the fact that
all this praise was to a great extent an expression of the hospitality
which England as a nation feels it its duty to pay to literary
foreigners. This, my literary firstfruits, necessarily contributed a
good deal to increase my popularity, and enlarged the circle of my
acquaintance in high society to which I had been semi-officially
introduced by my Asiatic friends. My fame now spread to all scientific,
industrial, and commercial circles all over England. I had no time to
breathe. The post brought me double as many invitations as before; I was
literally besieged by autograph hunters and photographers; and it is no
exaggeration to say that for months together I had invitations for every
meal of the day, and that my engagements were arranged for, days and
weeks beforehand.

Wearisome and expensive as this enjoyment of popularity was--for in my
outward appearance and bearing I could not neglect any of the prescribed
forms which mark the "distinguished foreigner"--my position afforded me
the opportunity of studying London society, and through it the aims and
objects of the highest representatives of Western culture, in a manner
which might otherwise not have come within my reach. When in my youth I
journeyed Westward I never went beyond the frontiers of Austria, and it
was always only in literary pursuits that I came in contact with Western
lands: hence I never saw any but the theoretical side of things. And now
I was transplanted from the depths of Asia, _i.e._, from the extreme end
of old-world culture and gross barbarism into the extreme of Western
civilisation and modern culture; and overpowering as was the impression
of all that I saw and experienced, equally interesting to me was the
comparison of the two stages of human progress.

What surprised me more than anything was the wealth, the comfort, and
the luxury of the English country houses, compared to which the rich
colouring of Oriental splendour--existing as a matter of fact mostly in
legends and fairy tales--cuts but a poor figure. As for me, who all my
life had only seen the smile of fortune from a distance, I was struck
with admiration. Most difficult of all I found it to get used to the
elaborate meals and the table pomp of the English aristocracy. I could
not help thinking of the time of my Dervishship, when my meals consisted
sometimes of begged morsels and sometimes of _pilaw_ which I cooked
myself. Now I had to eat through an endless series of courses, and drink
the queerest mixtures. During this period of my lionship it was
strangest of all to think of the miseries of my childish days and the
time when I was a mendicant student. It was the realisation of the fairy
tale of the beggar and the prince; and with reference to this I shall
never forget one night which I spent at the magnificent country house of
the Duke of A., not far from Richmond. I was guest there together with
Lord Clarendon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other English
notabilities. After dinner the company adjourned to the luxuriously
furnished smoke-room, and from there shortly before midnight every guest
was conducted to his respective bedroom by a lacquey preceding him with
two huge silver chandeliers. When the powdered footman dressed in red
silk velvet had ushered me into the splendidly furnished bedroom,
provided with every possible comfort and luxury, and began to take steps
to assist me in undressing, I looked at the man quite dumbfounded and
said with a friendly smile, "Thank you, I can manage alone." The footman
departed. I feasted my eyes upon all the grandeur around me. It was like
a cabinet full of precious curiosities and overflowing with silver
articles and wonderful arrangements of all sorts. When I turned back the
brocaded coverlet and lay down on the undulating bed, my fancy carried
me back twenty years, and I thought of my night quarters in the Three
Drums Street at Pest with the widow Schönfeld, where I had hired a bed
in company with a tailor's apprentice, he taking the head and I the
foot of the bed. Musing upon the strange alternations of man's lot, and
the difference between my condition then and now, I could not go to
sleep, but tossed about half the night on my silken couch. It was after
all merely a childish reflection, for, though now in splendour, I was
but a guest. But it is difficult to divest oneself of the impression of
the moment, and as often as I found myself in a similar position the
comparison between the mendicant student suffering want and the petted
lion of English society has brought me to a contemplative mood.

More even than by the wealth and prosperity I was struck by the spirit
of freedom which, notwithstanding the strictly aristocratic etiquette of
society, must surprise the South-Eastern European, and more still any
one who from the inner Asiatic world finds himself suddenly transplanted
to the banks of the Thames. Formerly, in my native land it was always
with unconscious awe and admiration that I looked up to a prince, a
count, or a baron, and afterwards in Asia I had to approach a Pasha,
Khan, or Sirdar with submissive mien, sometimes even with homage. And
now I was surprised to notice how little attention was paid to dukes,
lords, and baronets in the clubs and other public places in England.
When for the first time I went into the reading-room of the Athenæum
Club, and with my hat on stood reading the _Times_ opposite to Lord
Palmerston and at the same desk with him, I could hardly contain myself
for surprise, and my eyes rested more often on the strong features of
"Mister Pam" than on the columns of the city paper. Later on I was
introduced in the Cosmopolitan Club to the Prince of Wales, then
twenty-three years old. This club did not open till after midnight. When
I saw the future ruler of Albion sitting there at his ease, without the
other members taking the slightest notice of him, I fairly gasped at the
apparent indifference shown to the Queen's son. I could but approach the
young Prince with the utmost reverence and awe; and it was entirely
owing to the great affability and kindness of heart of this son of the
Queen that I plucked up courage to sit down and hold half an hour's
conversation with him. Since that time this specially English
characteristic of individual freedom and independence has often struck
me forcibly, and could not fail to strike any one accustomed to the
cringing spirit of Asia and the servility of Eastern Europe. Truly a
curious mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous, of really noble and
frivolous impressions, marked these first months of my sojourn in
England. Feelings of admiration and contempt, of delight and scorn
alternated within me; and when I ask myself now what it was that I
disliked about England, and drove me to unfavourable criticism, I would
mention in the first place the rigid society manners, utterly foreign to
me, which I found it hard to conform to and consequently detested. The
straitjacket of etiquette and society manners oppresses the English
themselves more than they care to acknowledge; how, then, must it affect
the Continental and the wanderer fresh from the Steppes of Asia? The
second reason which made the idea of a longer stay in London quite
impossible for me was the dislike, nay, the absolute horror I had of the
incessant hurrying, rushing, bustling crowds in the thoroughfares; the
desperate efforts to gain honour and riches, and the niggardly grudging
of every minute of time. Standing at the corner of Lombard Street or
Cheapside, or mixing with the crowds madly hurrying along Ludgate Hill,
I felt like a man suddenly transported to pandemonium. To see how these
masses push and press past one another, how the omnibus drivers swing
round the corners, regardless of danger to human life, for the mere
chance of gaining a few coppers more, and to realise how this same
struggle for existence goes on in all stages of society, in all phases
of life, relentless, merciless, was enough to make me think with longing
of the indolent life of Eastern lands; and, without admitting the
Nirvana theory, all this fuss and flurry seemed out of place and far too
materialistic. My nature altogether revolted against it.

Of course this view was quite erroneous. For what has made England great
was, and is, this very same prominent individuality, this restless
striving and struggling, this utter absence of all fear, hesitation, and
sentimentality where the realisation of a preconceived idea is
concerned. But unfortunately at that time I was still under the ban of
Asiaticism; and although the slowness, indolence, and blind fanaticism
of the Asiatics had annoyed me, equally disagreeable to me was the
exactly