And You
Have No Idea, From This Description, Of The Effect Which
Constantinople Produces On The Mind.
But if you were never
affected by a theatre, no words can work upon your fancy, and
typographical attempts to move it are of no use.
For, suppose we
combine mosque, minaret, gold, cypress, water, blue, caiques,
seventy-four, Galata, Tophana, Ramazan, Backallum, and so forth,
together, in ever so many ways, your imagination will never be able
to depict a city out of them. Or, suppose I say the Mosque of St.
Sophia is four hundred and seventy-three feet in height, measuring
from the middle nail of the gilt crescent surmounting the dome to
the ring in the centre stone; the circle of the dome is one hundred
and twenty-three feet in diameter, the windows ninety-seven in
number - and all this may be true, for anything I know to the
contrary: yet who is to get an idea of St. Sophia from dates,
proper names, and calculations with a measuring-line? It can't be
done by giving the age and measurement of all the buildings along
the river, the names of all the boatmen who ply on it. Has your
fancy, which pooh-poohs a simile, faith enough to build a city with
a foot-rule? Enough said about descriptions and similes (though
whenever I am uncertain of one I am naturally most anxious to fight
for it): it is a scene not perhaps sublime, but charming,
magnificent, and cheerful beyond any I have ever seen - the most
superb combination of city and gardens, domes and shipping, hills
and water, with the healthiest breeze blowing over it, and above it
the brightest and most cheerful sky.
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