74 



PEOF. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D.LITT., ON 



as the standard which fashionable society at the great 

 European capitals is thought to recognize. Hence we find 

 original Turkish romancers introduce into their own civilization 

 such European inventions as the bride's white satin dress or the 

 wedding tour. The Turkish lady of these ideals is made 

 to possess the accomplishments of the European lady of fashion ; 

 the standard of etiquette is gradually transplanted from the 

 West to the East. 



Eor several purposes what is fashionable is of greater con- 

 sequence than what is right. It is possible that many of these 

 books are what Horace would call ]jcccare doccntes historicc ; but 

 the standard from which they are intelligible is the European 

 standard of what is right and wrong ; whereas the state of 

 society assumed in the native romances perpetuated by the Arab 

 storytellers is the barbarous standard of the Caliphate. The 

 French novel appears to be performing the tremendous service 

 of revolutionizing taste in the Turkish empire, by representing 

 the social conditions which we connect ordinarily with Islam 

 as barbarous and unknown to the fashionable world. In the 

 Turkish and Arabic literature that proceeds from the pens of 

 Mohammedans who have allowed themselves to be taught by 

 Europe, the advance on the style of older times is as great as 

 that which the English literature of the present day exhibits 

 over that of the eighteenth century, l^robably other European 

 literatures are now exercising their influence besides that of 

 France. Since the interest taken by the German empire in 

 Turkey, German literature has begun to penetrate there also ; 

 and the works of English writers are also invading the East in 

 Turkish or Arabic dress. Tiie works by which the people are 

 morally educated are everywhere those which tliey read for 

 pleasure, in which the instruction is conveyed without intellec- 

 tual eHbrt, and the perusal of which neither constitutes a study 

 nor interferes with work. And from the education of the 

 Mohammedan world by the novel literature of the West, radical 

 reformation may be expected. 



Lastly, it remains to be seen whether Islam wdll be able to 

 claim for its own what it derives from Europe ; whether, as has 

 sometimes happened, the discoveries in ethics which are the 

 product of experience, will be able to be represented as the 

 outcome of the national religion. Mr. Schuyler, the excellence 

 of whose judgment his readers have often occasion to admire, 

 points out with justice that art and science, which we now 

 associate with Christianity so closely, were at one time 

 regarded as its enemies : and so seems to regard it as con- 



