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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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gtand . The Xurks are very backward in writing , there was not even a desk . The third room was the dining-room , worse furnished , if possible , that the other two . It
contained four cane-bottomed chairs , and a narrow table fixed against the wall , about eight feet long . Above this shabby table are no less than three lamps of
gilt bronze , each containing two wicks , and these were always lighted in the season , and the floor covered with hay , and a Turkey carpet over it . The lieutenant told me that he
himself had asked his friend Sidi Dahr , the very question that I asked . Seeing two napkins laid for one person , I expressed my wonder , as he had done before ; when Sidi told him , that
one was to be used at the repast , the other after . And now 1 am so reconciled to the idea , that I should not wonder if , on my suggestion , the fashionable
world in England took up the notion , for it is not exactly the thing to wipe one ' s mouth and fingers with a greasy napkin , when we have taken fruit or
coffee . He informed me that Sidi and he never dined together , but sometimes smoked and took lemonade in the library , and that Sidi did not sit crosslegged like other Turks : from
wliich we may entertain a reasonable hope of his coming ov $ r to us Christians in weightii 2 ? matters # s he grows older . t , j ( je t , w ^ s yastiy courteous to me when he found me once in the v ? library ; - expecting Mr Cockles by appointment . He
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asked me no questions : he did not stumble upon anything to hurt me ; and when I apologized for my bad Italian , he told me it was impossible for a stranger , as he was , to discover it , though he spoke as good Tuscan as if he were born in
Sienna . He is not very learned : for in looking over his books , and finding no histories , and only the ' Arabian Nights , ' and sundry works in poetry , I asked him for the
historianshe pointed to ' Ariosto' and ' Tasso , ' saying , " These are the pleasantest , and not the least true . " Surely he never read them : for they are poets , not historians , and deal in cutting things against those of his kidney .
This Turk , with many good qualities , had some worse . He retained in his house two young maidens of the Greek persuasion , natives of Armenia , whom he had recovered in war from
the Circassians , when they were infants . Neither he nor they themselves knew whether they are related , nor can they speak any other language than Italian . He had them instructed in
music , but would never allow them to be taught their letters ; so that the songs they sing are caught by ear . Their governness , an Italian of rank , was accused by one of th $ m of
attempting to persuade her tp leave her protector . This accu ~ sation was made against her will , and in ignorance of the consequences . He , finding her in tears , look her gently by the hand , and said , -
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High and Low Life in Italy . 101
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1837, page 101, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1834/page/29/
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