THE CLASH OF CREEDS
LONDON, _Jan._ 1909.
I am indeed a _désenchantée_. I envy you even your reasonable illusions
about us. We are hopelessly what we are. I have lost all mine about
you, and you seem to me as hopelessly what you are.
The only difference between the spleen of London and the spleen of
Constantinople is that the foundation of the Turkish character is dry
cynicism, whilst the Englishman’s is inane doggedness without object.
In his fatalism the Turk is a philosopher. Your Englishman calls
himself a man of action, but he is a mere empiric.
I quite understand now, however, that you do not pity my countrywomen,
not because they do not need pity, but because for years you have
led only the life of the women of this country, women who start so
courageously to fight life’s battle and who ultimately have had to
bury all their life’s illusions. Now, I see only too well, there are
beings for whom freedom becomes too heavy a burden to bear. The women I
have met here, seem to have been striving all their lives to get away
from everything—home, family, social conventions. They want the right
to live alone, to travel as they like, to be responsible for their own
lives. Yet when their ambition is realised, the only harvest they reap
after a youth of struggle is that of disenchantment.
Yet I ask myself, is a lonely old age worth a youth of effort? Have
they not confused individual liberty, which is the right to live as one
pleases, with true liberty, which to my Oriental mind is the right to
choose one’s own joys and forbearances?
* * * * *
Is it not curious that here, in a Christian country, I see nothing of
the religion of Christ? And yet commentaries are not lacking. Every
sect has the presumption to suppose its particular interpretation of
the words of Christ is the only right interpretation, and Christians
have changed the meaning of His words so much, and seen Christ through
the prism of their own minds, that I, primitive being that I am, do
not recognise in their tangled creeds the simple and beautiful teaching
of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the carpenter Joseph.
Sometimes it seems to me that the religion of Christ has been brought
beyond the confines of absurdity. Would it not be better to try and
follow the example of Christ than to waste time disputing whether He
would approve of eating chocolate biscuits on fast-days and whether
wild duck is a fasting diet, whilst duck of the farmyard is forbidden?
To me, all this seems profanely childish.
The impression these numerous creeds make on me is like that of members
of the same family disputing with one another. What happens in the case
of families happens in the case of religion. From these discussions
over details follow, first mistrust, then dislike, then hatred, always
to the detriment of the best interest of them all.
I went to a Nonconformist chapel the other evening, but I could not
bring myself to realise that I was in a chapel at all. There was
nothing divine or sacred either in the building or the service. It was
more like a lecture by an eloquent professor. Nor did the congregation
worship as we worship in the East. It seemed to me, as if it was not
to worship God that they were there, but to appease the anger of some
Northern Deity, cold, intolerant, and wrathful—an idea of the Almighty
which I shall never understand.
It astonished me to hear the professor calling those present “miserable
sinners,” and as I was one of the congregation I was not a little hurt,
for I have nothing very serious on my conscience. But the Catholics,
in this respect, err as much as the Protestants. Why this hysteria
for sins you have not committed? Why this shame of one’s self, this
exaggerated humility, this continual fear? Why should you stand
trembling before your Maker?
[Illustration: THE BALCONY AT THE BACK OF ZEYNEB’S HOUSE
The house is covered with wistaria.]
[Illustration: ZEYNEB AND MELEK
The Yashmak is exceedingly becoming, the white tulle showing the lips
to great advantage.]
While I was still inside the chapel, a lady came up and was introduced
to me. We walked down the street together, and in the course of
conversation she discovered I was not even a Nonconformist, nor a Roman
Catholic, but a heathen. And she at once began to pity me, and show
me the advantages of her religion. But what could she teach me about
Christ that I did not already know? Unfortunately for her she knew
nothing of the religion of Mahomet, nor how broad-minded he was, nor
with what admiration he had spoken of the crucified Jesus, and how we
all loved Christ from Mahomet’s interpretation of His life and work.[24]
* * * * *
As usual here, as in other Christian countries, marriage seems an
everlasting topic of interest. I was hardly seven years old when I was
taken for the first time to a non-Turkish marriage. It was the wedding
of some Greek farm-people our governess knew. We were present at the
nuptial benediction, which took place inside the house and which seemed
to me interminable. After that, everyone, including the bride, partook
of copious refreshments. Then, when we had been taken for a drive in
the country, we returned to dinner, which was served in front of the
stable. After the meal we danced on the grass to the strains of a
violin, accordion, and triangle. That is the only Christian marriage
I had seen till 1908, and I was astonished to find how different a
Christian wedding is here.
What is the use of an organ for marrying people? And twelve
bridesmaids? The bridal pair themselves look extremely uncomfortable
at all this useless ceremonial, to which nobody pays any particular
attention. Every bride and bridegroom must know how unnecessary are
all these preparations, and how marriages bore friends. Yet they go on
putting themselves to all this useless trouble, and for what?
Each person invited, I am told, has to bring a present. What a wicked
expense to put their friends to. Oh, vanity of vanities!
How is it possible not to admire the primitive Circassians, who when
they love one another and wish to marry, walk off without consulting
anyone but themselves?
* * * * *
I am also disappointed at the manner in which divorce proceedings
are conducted in England. What a quantity of unkind words and vile
accusations! What a low handling and throwing of mud at each other,
what expense, what time and worry! And all simply to prove that two
people are not suited to live together.
To think that, with the possibility of such a life of tragedy, there
are still people who have the courage to get married! It seems to me
there are some who take marriage too seriously, others who do not take
it seriously enough, and that others again only take it seriously when
one of the partners wants to be liberated.
How sad it is! And what good can be said of laws, the work of human
beings, which not only do not help us in our misfortunes, but extend
neither pity nor pardon to those who try to suffer a little less.
During the time I lived away yonder and suffered from a total absence
of liberty, I imagined that Europe respected the happiness and the
misfortunes of individuals. How horrible it is to find in the daily
papers the names of people mercilessly branded by their fellow-men for
having committed no other fault than that of trying to be less unhappy,
for having the madness to wish to repair their wrecked existence. To
publish the reports of the evidence, the sordid gossip of menials,
the calumnies, the stolen letters, written under such different
circumstances, in moments of happiness, in absolute confidence, or
extreme mental agony, in which a woman has laid her soul bare, is
loathsome. Is it not worse than perjury to exact from a friend’s lips
what he only knows in confidence? Poor imprudent beings! They have had
their moments of sincerity: for this your sad civilisation of the West
makes them pay with the rest of their broken lives.
* * * * *
For a long time I have wanted to make the acquaintance of Mr. W. T.
Stead, who is known and respected in the East more perhaps than any
Englishman. I had no particular reason to go and see him except that he
knew my father at the first Hague Conference. So, one day I was bold
enough to jump into a hansom and drive to his office. I was asked whom
I wanted. I asked for Mr. Stead.
“Who wants him?” I was asked.
“I do,” I replied.
“Give me your card.” But as I had no card I wrote on a slip of paper:
“The daughter of a Turkish friend of the Hague Conference will be so
pleased to see you.”
He received me at once. There was so much to talk about. He spoke so
nicely of my poor dead father, questioned me about the Sultan, about
the country I had left, about the Balkans, about Crete, and the Turks
themselves. More than an hour we talked together, and when finally I
rose to go he said to me: “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No,” I said, thanking him very kindly.
“Then it was simply to see me,” he went on, “that you came.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is a friendly visit.” He laughed heartily.
“Do you know,” he said, “that is the first time that this has happened
in my life.”
Then he was kind enough to send for tea, and the tray was put down on
the table among the papers and the journals, and he showed me signed
portraits which he had collected during his travels, among them the one
that my dear father had given him at The Hague. He then gave me his
own, and signed it, “To my only Turkish lady friend.”
* * * * *
I saw him for a little while in Paris on his return from
Constantinople, and he came back really enthusiastic. He was much in
sympathy with the Young Turks, though he had much also to find fault
with. He despised but pitied Abdul Hamid, and hoped that an _entente_
between England and Turkey could be arranged, but his ideas were quite
unpractical. His policy was purely sentimental, and his suggestions
impossible.
* * * * *
I have had the pleasure, since I have been here, of seeing two
diplomatists with whose voices I was familiar for many years in
Constantinople. My father highly esteemed them both; they often came to
see him. When they had drunk their coffee, sometimes my father sent for
us to come and play and sing to them, and from behind a curtain they
courteously thanked us for our performance.
Although I had so often heard their voices I never had an opportunity
of seeing a photo of either of them, and I can’t tell whether I was
agreeably surprised or not. Have you ever tried putting a body to a
voice?
* * * * *
What a magnificent city London is! If you English are not proud of
it, you ought to be. It is not only grand and magnificent but has an
aristocratic look that despises mere ornament.
Here in London I have a feeling of security, which I have had nowhere
else in the world. It is the only capital in Europe I have so far seen
that gives me a sense of orderliness not dependent on authority. It
seems to me as if English character were expressed even in the houses
of the people. You can tell at a glance what kind of people dwell in
the house you are entering. How different is Paris! What a delight to
have no concierge, those petty potentates who, as it were, keep the key
of your daily life, and remedy there is none.
For the first time since I left Turkey I have had here the sensation of
real home life. As you know, we have no flats in Turkey, and have room
to move about freely—room for your delightful English furniture, which
to me is the most comfortable in the whole world.
Like ours, the houses here are made for use, and their wide doors and
broad passages seem to extend a welcome to you which French houses
hardly ever do. In France you smell economy before you even reach the
door-mat.
You who are in Turkey can now understand what I have suffered from this
narrowness of French domestic life. You can imagine my surprise when,
the morning after my arrival here, a big tray was sent into my room
with a heavy meal of eggs, bacon, fish, toast, marmalade, and what not.
I thought I must have looked ill and as if I needed extra feeding, and
I explained to my hostess that my white skin was not a sign of anæmia
but my Oriental complexion: all the eggs and bacon in the world would
not change the colour of my skin. She was not aware that the Mahometan
never eats pork, and like so many others, seemed to forget that bacon,
like pork, came from a forbidden source.
I do not find London noisy, but what noise there is one feels is
serving a purpose. Life seems so serious; everyone is busy crowding
into twelve hours the work of twenty-four. We Turks take no heed of the
passing hours.
The Englishmen remind me of the Turks. They have the same grave
demeanour, the same appearance of indifference to our sex, the same
look of stubborn determination, and, like the Turk, every Englishman
is a Sultan in his own house. Like the Turk, too, he is sincere and
faithful in his friendships, but Englishmen have two qualities that
the Turks do not possess. They are extremely good business men, and in
social relations are extremely prudent, although it is difficult to say
where prudence ends and hypocrisy begins.
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM OF A HAREM SHOWING A BRIDAL THRONE
On the Bridal Throne the Turkish woman sits on her wedding day to
receive her friends’ good wishes. It remains the chief seat in the
harem; in the Imperial Palace it is a fine throne, in poor houses only
a glorified chair, but it is always there.]
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE HAREM
This Turkish lady collected the ribbons of the battleships on the
Bosphorus, and they are hanging on the wall.]
But if Englishmen remind me of Turks, I can find nothing in common
between English and Turkish women. They are in direct contrast to
one another in everything. Perhaps it is this marked contrast that
balances our friendship. A Turkish woman’s life is as mysterious as
an Englishwoman’s life is an open book, which all can read who care.
Before I met the suffragettes, I knew only sporting and society women.
They were all passionately absorbed in their own amusements, which
as you know do not in the least appeal to me. I suppose we Turkish
women who have so much time to devote to culture become unreasonably
exacting. But everywhere I have been—in England, Germany, France,
Italy, and Spain—I have found how little and how uselessly the women
read, and how society plays havoc with their taste for good books.
Englishwomen are pretty, but are deficient in charm. They have no
particular desire and make no effort to please. You know the charm
of the Turkish woman. The Englishwoman is pig-headed, undiplomatic,
brutally sincere, but a good and faithful friend. The Turkish
woman—well, you must fill that in yourself! I am too near to focus her.
But now that I have seen the women of most countries, you may want to
know which I most admire.
Well, I will tell you frankly, the Turkish woman. An ordinary person
would answer, “Of course,” but you are not an ordinary person, so I
shall at once give you my reasons. It is not because I am a Turkish
woman myself, but because, in spite of the slavery of their existence,
Turkish women have managed to keep their minds free from prejudice.
With them it is not what people think they ought to think, but what
they think themselves. Nowhere else in Europe have I found women with
such courage in thinking.
In every country there are women—though they may be a mere handful—who
are above class, above nationality, and dare to be themselves.
These are the people I appreciate the most. These are the people I
shall always wish to know, for to them the whole world is kin.—Your
affectionate friend,
ZEYNEB.