Welcome to Litsy!

#wondrouswednesday @eggs

1. Hawaii, Italy, Aruba
2. Hiking or running
3. Tagged
4 That I had the day off and got to go for a hike (see #2) 🚶‍♂️🥾🙂

As you can probably tell from all the quotes I've been posting, I loved this book. Any early-18th century epistolary text documenting a European's impressions of the Ottoman Empire would be interesting in and of itself, but Lady Mary is the real star -observant, intelligent and caustic, an absolute joy to read. Her observations are fair and generally complimentary, and she displays a rare ability to consider another culture on its own terms.

“I can't forbear saying one word here of the French statues (for I never intend to mention any more of them) with their gilded full-bottomed wigs. If their King had intended to express, in one image, ignorance, ill taste and vanity, his sculptor could have made no other figure to represent the odd mixture of an old beau who had a mind to be a hero, with a bushel of curled hair on his head and a gilt truncheon in his hand.“

"I came in two days from Genoa through fine roads to this place. I have already seen what is showed to strangers in the town, which indeed is not worth a very particular description, and I have not respect enough for the holy handkerchief to speak long it."

Lady Mary, on the Shroud of Turin

"I am almost of opinion they have a right notion of life; while they consume it in music, gardens, wine and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains with some scheme of politics or studying some science to which we can never attain, or if we do, cannot persuade people to set that value upon it we do ourselves...but the good of fame, the folly of praise, hardly purchased, and when obtained, poor recompense for loss of time and health!"

"In the same animal is not seldom remarked the Greek perfidiousness, the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arrogance, the French loquacity, and all of a sudden he's seized with a fit of English thoughtfulness bordering a little upon dullness, which many of us have inherited from the stupidity of our Saxon progenitors."

-Lady Mary, on the "European mongrels" of Turkey

"...I assure you 'tis certainly false, though commonly believed in our parts of the world, that Mohammed excludes women from any share in a future happy state. He was too much a gentleman and loved the fair sex too well to use them so barbarously. On the contrary he promises a very fine paradise to Turkish women."

-Lady Mary, on Western misconceptions about women and Islam under Ottoman rule

“I am also charmed with many points of the Turkish law, to our shame be it spoken, better designed and better executed than ours, particularly the punishment of convicted liars (triumphant criminals in our country, God knows). They are burnt in the forehead with a hot iron, being proved the authors of any notorious falsehood.“

-Lady Mary, on zero-tolerance policing

“The smallpox, so fatal and so general among us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of engrafting...The old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox...and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle...The fever lasts two days, seldom three...I am well satisfied of the safety of the experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son.“

-Lady Mary, on Turkish vaccinations

"I happened to bespeak pigeons for my supper, upon which one of my janissaries went immediately to the cadi and ordered him to send in some dozens. The poor man answered that he had already sent about but could get none. My janissary, in the height of his zeal for my service locked him up prisoner in his room...and accordingly came very gravely to me to ask what should be done to him adding...that if I pleased he would bring me his head." ?

"Their whalebone petticoats out-do ours by several yards' circumference and cover some acres of ground. You may easily suppose how much this extraordinary dress sets off and improves the natural ugliness which God Almighty has been pleased to endow them all generally."

"The person is so much lost between headdress and petticoat, they have much occasion to write upon their backs 'this is a woman'..."

Lady Mary, on the women of Vienna and Bohemia

"...I was desired to observe a crucifix that they assured me had spoke very wisely to the Emperor Leopold. I won't trouble you with a catalogue of the rest of the lumber..."

"The cabinet of jewels did not appear to me so rich as I expected to see it."

"There is a large cabinet full of curiosities of clockwork, only one of which I thought worth observing."

Lady Mary, on Viennese tourist traps

"...I got immediately into bed and slept so well for three hours that I found myself perfectly recovered and have had spirits enough to go and see all that is curious in the town, that is to say, the churches, for there is nothing else worth seeing..."

Nice to see European tour packages haven't changed much in 300 years ?

"We were in hopes to reach Cologne. Our horses tired at Stamel, three hours from it, where I was forced to pass the night in my clothes in a room not at all better than a hovel. For though I have my own bed, I had no mind to undress, where the wind came in from a thousand places."

Who knew they had Econo Lodge in 18th-century Europe? ?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"I flatter myself, dear sister, that I shall give you some pleasure in letting you know that I am safely past the sea, though we had the ill fortune of a storm."

Read an abridged version, containing a selection of the Turkish Embassy Letters by Lady Montagu.

The letters offer an interesting depiction of Turkey in the 18th century, though the possible bias of the author (especially regarding race and social class) can be an issue for the authenticity of her portrayal. It is still a must-read for the historical value and the pleasant writing style!