Selections from the Prose Writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman: For the Use of SchoolsNewman, John Henry
Religion
Selections from the Prose Writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman: For the Use of Schools
Newman, John Henry
English essays -- 19th century
M. Volney corroborates this account of them:
"Their behavior," he says, "is serious, austere,
and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the
gayety of the French appears to them a fit of
delirium. When they speak, it is with 20
deliberation, without gestures and without passion;
they listen without interrupting you; they are
silent for whole days together, and they by no
means pique themselves on supporting
conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and 25
on business. They have no idea of our
troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and
forwards for amusement. Continually seated,
they pass whole days smoking, with their legs
crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost 30
without changing their attitude." Englishmen
present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the
French; as a late English traveler brings before
us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:
"Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the least
able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any 5
people I have ever seen. To impede an
Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to
stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb
the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him
to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The 10
one nation at rest is as much tormented as
Prometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture
feeding on him; the other in motion is as
uncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]
[38] Formby's Visit, p. 70.
However, the barbarian, when roused to action, 15
is a very different being from the barbarian
at rest. "The Turk," says Mr. Thornton, "is
usually placid, hypochondriac, and
unimpassioned; but, when the customary sedateness of
his temper is ruffled, his passions ... are 20
furious and uncontrollable. The individual seems
possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a
multitude; and all ties, all attachments, all
natural and moral obligations, are forgotten or
despised, till his rage subsides." A similar 25
remark is made by a writer of the day: "The Turk
on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk
reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a
vigor, and displays a dexterity, which few
Europeans would be capable of emulating; no 30
horsemen surpass the Turks; and, with all the
indolence of which they are accused, no people
are more fond of the violent exercise of riding."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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