Traditions have been most carefully respected in my father's family, as in all genuine old Turkish families. We have adopted or adapted as the case may be, any and all of the western customs which are compatible with the Orient. But we still jealously preserve certain quaint customs characteristic of the old Turkish civilization. The relations between the members of our family remain as in the past: most intimate and cordial, although outwardly somewhat ceremonious and the family has stuck together as much as the cosmopolitanism of its members and their frequent travels permitted. This blending of Eastern and Western customs, of Oriental and Occidental education and mode of living is a very natural occurrence in Turkish families such as ours. Identified with official positions which have placed them for generations in continuous touch with surrounding European countries and with the Western world, they had the duty at the same time of perpetuating Turkish traditions and the desire of assimilating any part of Western customs and education they deemed compatible with their own. Our family's governmental service dated back to the fifteenth century when it had been appointed “mufty” of Western Albania. By hereditary right it had ever since then to personify, represent and propagate Turkish customs and education in that outlying province of the Empire where it exerted a sort of political-religious governorship. But the constant relation with the Italians, Austrians, Dalmatians and Croatians of the neighbouring states gave it an opportunity to learn, appreciate and assimilate certain Western ideals. In recent years this double influence of the East and the West became if anything more pronounced. My grandfather having died when my uncle and my father were very young, they were brought up by my grandmother, and the dear old lady succeeded so thoroughly in her task that she had the satisfaction of seeing, before she died, her two sons representing at the same time their country as Ambassador to France and Ambassador to Italy. The delicate Oriental touch imparted by this lady of another age is still to-day very much alive in members of the family. Although a man of a certain age and having filled the highest dignities in the Government, my father still to-day gets up respectfully when my uncle--his elder brother--enters the room. Although we discuss freely any subject among ourselves, without distinction of age, although the greatest cordiality and intimacy exists between all of us, none of the younger members of the family would, for instance, think of smoking before one of his seniors unless he had been especially invited to do so. Although each of us travels extensively and at times lives far away for years, the ties uniting us to each other are as strong and as “clannish” as they were generations ago.