She had seen him, it appeared, I
know not where, soon after his arrival in the East, and was vastly
amused at his little affectations. He had picked up a few
sentences of the Romantic, with which he affected to give orders to
his Greek servant. I can't tell whether Lady Hester's mimicry of
the bard was at all close, but it was amusing; she attributed to
him a curiously coxcombical lisp.
Another person whose style of speaking the lady took off very
amusingly was one who would scarcely object to suffer by the side
of Lord Byron - I mean Lamartine, who had visited her in the course
of his travels. The peculiarity which attracted her ridicule was
an over-refinement of manner: according to my lady's imitation of
Lamartine (I have never seen him myself), he had none of the
violent grimace of his countrymen, and not even their usual way of
talking, but rather bore himself mincingly, like the humbler sort
of English dandy. {21}
Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised everything approaching
to exquisiteness. She told me, by-the-bye (and her opinion upon
that subject is worth having), that a downright manner, amounting
even to brusqueness, is more effective than any other with the
Oriental; and that amongst the English of all ranks and all classes
there is no man so attractive to the Orientals, no man who can
negotiate with them half so effectively, as a good, honest, open-
hearted, and positive naval officer of the old school.
I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could deal fiercely with
those she hated. One man above all others (he is now uprooted from
society, and cast away for ever) she blasted with her wrath. You
would have thought that in the scornfulness of her nature she must
have sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness than of skill; but
this was not so, for with all the force and vehemence of her
invective she displayed a sober, patient, and minute attention to
the details of vituperation, which contributed to its success a
thousand times more than mere violence.
During the hours that this sort of conversation, or rather
discourse, was going on our tchibouques were from time to time
replenished, and the lady as well as I continued to smoke with
little or no intermission till the interview ended. I think that
the fragrant fumes of the latakiah must have helped to keep me on
my good behaviour as a patient disciple of the prophetess.
It was not till after midnight that my visit for the evening came
to an end. When I quitted my seat the lady rose and stood up in
the same formal attitude (almost that of a soldier in a state of
"attention") which she had assumed at my entrance; at the same time
she let go the drapery which she had held over her lap whilst
sitting and allowed it to fall to the ground.
The next morning after breakfast I was visited by my lady's
secretary - the only European, except the doctor, whom she retained
in her household. This secretary, like the doctor, was Italian,
but he preserved more signs of European dress and European
pretensions than his medical fellow-slave. He spoke little or no
English, though he wrote it pretty well, having been formerly
employed in a mercantile house connected with England. The poor
fellow was in an unhappy state of mind. In order to make you
understand the extent of his spiritual anxieties, I ought to have
told you that the doctor {22} (who had sunk into the complete
Asiatic, and had condescended accordingly to the performance of
even menial services) had adopted the common faith of all the
neighbouring people, and had become a firm and happy believer in
the divine power of his mistress. Not so the secretary. When I
had strolled with him to a distance from the building, which
rendered him safe from being overheard by human ears, he told me in
a hollow voice, trembling with emotion, that there were times at
which he doubted the divinity of "miledi." I said nothing to
encourage the poor fellow in that frightful state of scepticism
which, if indulged, might end in positive infidelity. I found that
her ladyship had rather arbitrarily abridged the amusements of her
secretary, forbidding him from shooting small birds on the
mountain-side. This oppression had arouses in him a spirit of
inquiry that might end fatally, perhaps for himself, perhaps for
the "religion of the place."
The secretary told me that his mistress was greatly disliked by the
surrounding people, whom she oppressed by her exactions, and the
truth of this statement was borne out by the way in which my lady
spoke to me of her neighbours. But in Eastern countries hate and
veneration are very commonly felt for the same object, and the
general belief in the superhuman power of this wonderful white
lady, her resolute and imperious character, and above all, perhaps,
her fierce Albanians (not backward to obey an order for the sacking
of a village), inspired sincere respect amongst the surrounding
inhabitants. Now the being "respected" amongst Orientals is not an
empty or merely honorary distinction, but carries with it a clear
right to take your neighbour's corn, his cattle, his eggs, and his
honey, and almost anything that is his, except his wives. This law
was acted upon by the princess of Djoun, and her establishment was
supplied by contributions apportioned amongst the nearest of the
villages.
I understood that the Albanians (restrained, I suppose, by the
dread of being delivered up to Ibrahim) had not given any very
troublesome proofs of their unruly natures.
