Statesmen, Historians, and such, may think that, between the years
1871 and 1876, "the Egyptian Question" turned upon the extravagance of
ISMAIL PASHA, and the financial complications that followed thereupon.
Readers of the _Recollections of an Egyptian Princess_ (BLACKWOOD)
will know better. The real Egyptian Question of that epoch was,
whether the English Governess of the Khedive's daughter should get her
mistress's carriage at the very hour she wanted it; whether she should
have the best rooms in any palace or hotel she might chance to be
located in; and whether she should have her meals served at the time
and in the fashion she had been accustomed to in the family mansion
at Clapton or Camberwell. Many stirring passages in the book deal with
these and cognate matters. None delights my Baronite more than one
in which a driver named HASSAN figures. HASSAN, ordered for eight
o'clock, sometimes came at nine. Occasionally at six. "He asked for
'backseesh,' which" Miss CHENNELLS writes, "I did not consider myself
bound to give, as he never did anything for me." On two occasions,
her heart warming, she coyly pressed a florin into his hand, with dire
results. "He was," she records, "much worse after it" (the florin,
which he seems to have taken neat), "and would, when driving, stoop
down, and look through the front window of the brougham, shouting
'Backseesh!'" However, Miss CHENNELLS got even with HASSAN. She
followed her usual course when things went ill. She complained to her
pupil, the Princess. Next morning, when the unsuspecting HASSAN drove
into the court-yard, "he was told by the Eunuchs to descend from the
box, was conducted to an inner receptacle, and," Miss CHENNELLS grimly
adds, "then and there bastinadoed." Incidentally, in connection with
the English Governess's struggle for supremacy in the City of the
Pharaohs, we get pictures of life in the Harem, and glimpses of the
lavish magnificence of the Khedieval Court, with its French embroidery
on Eastern robes. It was with the object of describing these scenes,
viewed from a rare vantage point, that the story was written. But not
the least interesting character is that, unconsciously drawn, of the
prim, practical, precise English Governess, pushing her way through
the crowd of courtiers and Ethiopian slaves, peering through
gold-rimmed eyeglasses into the recesses of the Harem, and glaring
angrily at the hapless Eunuchs, who, going their morning rounds, visit
her bedroom, regardless of the twine with which, before entering on
her virgin slumbers, she had sedulously fastened the lockless door.
Altogether a delightful book, says PASSIM PASHA, the accredited
representative of the Baron DE BOOK-WORMS.
* * * * *
Those who like "Just a tale by twilight, When the lights are low, And
the glittering shadows Softly come and go," will do well to expend the
comparatively small sum of one shilling, which, in certain ready-money
quarters, is reduced to tenpence, or even ninepence, on _Grim Tales_,
written by E. NESBIT, of which "The Ebony Frame" (which should
have been called "The Speaking Likeness,") "The Mystery of the
Semi-Detached," "Life-size, in Marble," and "A Mass for the Dead,"
are the best, the last-mentioned being the only one that ends, as all
otherwise purposeless tales should end, happily. The Stories are
grim enough, in all conscience, but they are told in a hearty sort of
fashion, which, while relieving them of some of their weirdness, is
calculated to impress the reader with an idea of the honesty and _bona
fides_ of the narrator. Thus far,