Harriet Martineau - Eastern Life

Publisher: heptagon

Berlin 2013

ISBN: 978-3-934616-47-9

www.heptagon.de

The text was also published on the CD-ROM: »Sociological Classics, Berlin 2000.« The original book is: »Harriet Martineau: Eastern Life. A new edition, with illustrations, London 1875.«

It is nearly thirty years since I entered by travel upon my study of »Eastern Life, Present and Past«; yet, in preparing for the issue of a new Edition of the book in which I there recorded my impressions and thoughts, there has not been more than a moment's pause upon the question how to present it after so considerable a lapse of time. The practice of many authors, poets, essayists, philosophers, and, among the rest, travellers, – of altering passages of their works to make them accord with the latest views or impressions of the writer's, must operate either as an example or a warning in such a case as the present. Which should it be? – a warning or an example, – in case of such a lapse of years as must have wrought more or less change in the mind of the writer, and in the aspect of the objects described?

I must say that this is a matter on which I have never entertained any serious doubt. Even in the most questionable case of all that of works of the Imagination, and of productions of the great Masters of Expression, I have always regretted, as no doubt most readers have, the changes too often introduced by poets and essayists in the latest edition of their works, upon the assumption that experience and practice must have improved them, – giving them something more and different to say, and power to say it better.

Many, however, who would agree with me in regarding the practice of altering prose and polishing verse as a mistake, may consider books of Travel to be so essentially different from other books as to be treated in a wholly different manner.

If changes have been wrought in the scenery of a remote country, or if an ancient people has been brought nearer to us by the advancing civilisation of its inhabitants, the traveller, or his readers, may entertain a doubt whether his book should not be altered, so as to make it as like a picture of the present time as new impressions can make it. For my part, I am satisfied that this is a grave mistake. In writing of my Eastern travel my object was to present faithfully and vividly what I saw, and learned, and felt, and thought; and the book is reissued now unaltered, because I can answer only for what I witnessed; I have nothing to say about the consequences of the deaths of the rulers of Egypt, or of the creation of the Suez Canal, or about life in the Lebanon at this day; or about the exploration of Palestine.

An apt illustration of the case of a book of Travel which is still demanded after a course of years, and by a new generation, may be seen in the extraordinary interest which is inspired at this day by Abdallatif's narrative of his Egyptian travel in the twelfth century. Who that has read that book could possibly wish that a line of it had been altered to keep up with the changes constantly wrought by time upon the aspect, and the life, and the character of Egypt?

Are we not rather eager to see the wonders of the land as he saw them, – the colonnades gracing the sea-shore, before any hint had been offered of the destruction at work at their bases? When the traveller now sees the sparkling granite of one of those pillars emerging, as bright and as fresh as ever, from its grave in the barren sand hills, is he not thankful that we have Abdallatif's picture of the temple in its beauty, rather than any afterthought of its fate when one and another of its columns had been laid low? – Did not Abdallatif himself enjoy the thought of Father Abraham walking reverentially round the Great Pyramid, gazing at its smooth pictured sides? And would he have exchanged this vivid retrospect for the truest description of the changes wrought by the crumbling away of the surface, the blunting of the angles, the conversion of the shining stone mountain into a gigantic staircase, – such as it has by degrees become? The cause which Abdallatif himself assigns for the interest inspired by the Pyramids is that »they put us in possession of the life and actions of the men of those days.« – Again, we learn much that we could never otherwise have known of life in Egypt from Abdallatif's narrative of the event which he witnessed, – the failure of the Nile inundation, near the end of the twelfth century. Any future traveller, or Abdallatif himself, after twenty or thirty years, would have deprived us of important knowledge, of a key to various facts of human history, by altering the physician's record, to bring it into harmony with an average course of life in Egypt. On the one fearful and protracted occasion of cannibalism being common in Egypt, it is good that we should witness it through the eyes of the learned and accurate traveller. If he, or another in his name, should in the next generation suppress or alter the description because grain crops were waving on the river banks, and vineyards were stretching up the skirts of the hills, and there was certainly not a cannibal in the land, the world of readers would have been injured where they now are privileged. Great as is the occasion so well used by Abdallatif, and small as ordinary modern travel appears by the side of his, the illustration he affords of the true method of presenting personal travel to the world may be the more and not the less instructive. Nearly seven centuries after his time we may know, – as if by his own voice, – that the value of a record of foreign travel lies in its absolute fidelity to the impressions received, and the facts witnessed; and that any modifying touches, the growth of afterthought, are nearly certain to injure the picture, and to mislead the reader. It should be considered, also, that when the reissue of a book is desired by the public, the book demanded is that which the public knows and likes, and not a work of which any part, however small, is unknown. Something is offered which readers desire to accept; and if they consider themselves deceived by something different being put into their hands, the writer can scarcely complain of the imputation, however good his intention may have been.

For these reasons, if for no other, I should feel it my duty to issue unaltered a new edition of my rather old book. To myself its records are as fresh and true as ever, though thirty years have wrought great changes in the countries visited. As for my readers, it is certain that to this day the book serves the purposes of those who make it the companion of their Eastern Travel, while those who read it by the fireside are best pleased to accept it as it was written, – avoiding the risk of confusion of impressions, such as must too probably arise when a book is written in one posture or condition of mind, and altered or added to in another.

H. M.

THE KNOLL, AMBLESIDE,

June 4th, 1875.

In the autumn of 1846, I left home for, as I supposed, a few weeks, to visit some of my family and friends. At Liverpool I was invited by my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Richard V. Yates, to accompany them in their proposed travels in the East. By the zeal and kindness of those who saw what a privilege this journey would be, all obstacles in the shape of business and engagements were cleared away; and in a month, I was ready to set out with my kind friends. – At Malta, we fell in with Mr. Joseph C. Ewart, who presently joined our party, and remained with us till we reached Malta on our return. There is nothing that I do not owe to my companions for their unceasing care and indulgence; but one act of kindness I felt particularly. They permitted me to read to them my Egyptian journal (there was no time for the others); that I might have the satisfaction of knowing whether they agreed in my impressions of the facts which came under our observation. About these facts there is an entire agreement between them and me. – For the opinions expressed in this book no one is answerable but myself.