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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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Untitled Article
' * One day , whilst lingering in th ^ walks in the rear of the hospital , his ear was struck with the plaintive notes of a voice in tlie adjacent garden ; —curiosity prompted him to see who the minstrel was , and clambering to an aperture in the dividing wall , he saw a beautiful girl , who sat in mournful abstraction beneath a tree , plucking the leaves from a rose-bud as she sang her plaintive ditty . "
The gentleman , as in duty bound s leaps over " the dividing wall , ' * and consoles the pretty maniac ; she entreats him to come again , and he repeats his visits ; " she becomes every day mare composed , " till the acquaintance is discovered , and the lady removed to another part of the grounds ; then she relapses , and tbe matron informs her friends of the cause . The gentleman is invited to renew his visits , he cures her disorder , and with her illness
her memory vanishes , love goes out , and she marries another ! What has all this to do with the iEgean ? Why , truly , the youth died at Smyrna , which is abundant reason for telling the story ! After such a picture of English manners , we may be pardoned for suspecting that Mr . Emerson ' s sketches are rather more picturesque than characteristic , his style being evidently somewhat Venetian * Of the personal appearance of the Turks we have the following account :
" Taken en masse the Turks are the finest looking race of men in the world : their oval heads , " ( the Turks are noted for their round heads , but no matter , ) " their oval heads , arching brows , jetty eyes , and aquiline noses , their lofty figures and stately mien , are all set off to full advantage by their ample robes and graceful turbans ; all is ease and proportion about a Turk ; there are no angles or straight lines in his features or person ; in all we find the pure curve of manly beauty and majestic grace . "—Vol . I . p . 85 .
* ' Nature , " it seems , " has done her part , " and the Turk by his *< fine sense of personal neatness , " and his taste for *• ample robes and graceful turbans , " adorns her performance ; but this is not all : ' There is , probably , no sensation in existence more luxurious than that which one feels when reclifting in the saloon of the public bath , after having passed its ordeal of steaming , perspiring , purifying , and shampooing ,
wrapped in a light silk gown , seated on a delicious sofa , and taking alternate draughts of his eliibonque and transparent coffee : the mind seems equally purified with the body ; he feels as if he had driven off all the cares of humanity ; he is conscious solely of ease and delicious luxury j and he rises to depart with every joint so free and every limb so lithe , that his step has all the firmness and grace of an Apollo . "
So much for description ! In philosophical speculation and critical suggestion the " Letters" abound . " The prohibition of wine , " says our author , " w , no doubt , the main oause of the prevailing passion for this exhilirating beverage among the Mussulmen ; but its own merits must recommend it to the Greeks , who are equally attached to it , and who labour under no such penal restrictions "—P . 114 . The most notable theory ( and it is set forth with great care and at length ) is the geographical subjugation of women !
" I have invariably observed , " says Mr . Emerson , " that the farther we progress towards the South in any country , the situation of females becomes more deplorable and unhappy . In Northern latitudes alone woman is the better half of creation ; as we draw towards more genial climes , she gradually merges into equality , inferiority , a deprivation of her rights and dignity , and at lust , in the vicinity of the line , a total denial of a reasoning' principle or an immortal essence . "
Untitled Article
Letters from the jEgzan . 195
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 195, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/43/
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