Alexander William Kinglake

“ I rebel as stoutly as I can against this horrible corvee—I try not to deceive you—I try to set down the thoughts which are fresh within me, and not to pretend any wishes, or griefs, which I do not really feel, but no sooner do I cease from watchfulness in this regard, than my right hand is, as it were, seized by some false demon, and even now, you see, I have been forced to put down such words and sentences as I ought to have written if really and truly I had wished to disturb the Saints' days of the beautiful Smyrniotes! ”

“ You would have thought that this practical dreaming must have soon brought Carrigaholt to a bad end, but he was in much less danger than you would suppose; for besides that the new visions of happiness almost always came in time to counteract the fatal completion of the preceding scheme, his high breeding and his delicately sensitive taste almost always came to his aid at times when he was left without any other protection; and the efficacy of these qualities in keeping a man out of harm’s way is really immense. ”

“ In all the Ottoman dominions, and very frequently too in the kingdom of Otho, the Greeks wear turbans or other head-dresses, and shave their heads, leaving only a rat's-tail at the crown of the head; they of course keep themselves covered within doors as well as abroad, and they never remove their head-gear merely on account of being in a church; but when the Greek stops to worship at his proper shrine, then, and then only, he always uncovers ”

“ Endure their fiery eyes as best you may, and ride on slowly and reverently, for facing you from the side of the transom, that looks long-wise through the street, you see the one glorious shape transcendant in its beauty ”

“ A man under the influence of a bean dietary (for this is the principal food of the Greeks during their fasts) will be in an apt humour for enriching the shrine of his saint, and passing a knife through his next-door neighbour. The moneys deposited upon the shrines are appropriated by priests; the priests are married men, and have families to provide for; they "take the good with the bad," and continue to recommend fasts. ”

“ In all baseness and imposture there is a coarse, vulgar spirit, which, however artfully concealed for a time, must sooner or later show itself in some little circumstance sufficiently plain to occasion an instant jar upon the minds of those whose taste is lively and true. ”

“ Not even the diplomatic representatives of the Hellenic kingdom are free from the habit of depreciating their brethren. I recollect, that at one of the ports in Syria, a Greek vessel was rather unfairly kept in quarantine by order of the Board of Health, which consisted entirely of Europeans. A consular agent from the kingdom of Greece had lately hoisted his flag in the town, and the captain of the vessel drew up a remonstrance, which he requested his consul to present to the Board. ”

“ The men perform this duty at the doors of their houses—the women at the windows, which the custom of Greek towns has so decidedly appropriated to them as the proper station of their sex, that a man would be looked upon as utterly effeminate if he ventured to choose that situation for the keeping of the saints' days. I was present one day at a treaty for the hire of some apartments at Smyrna, which was carried on between Carrigaholt and the Greek woman to whom the rooms belonged. ”

“ Indeed the people, by their frequent migrations from the limits of the constitutional kingdom, to the territories of the Porte, seem to show, that, on the whole, they prefer "groaning under the Turkish yoke," to the honor of "being the only true source of legitimate power," in their own land.
For myself, I love the race ”

“ The Osmanlees are, of course, by nature, by religion, and by politics, the strong foes of the Hellenic people, and as the Greeks, poor fellows! happen to be a little deficient in some of the virtues which facilitate the transaction of commercial business (such as veracity, fidelity, &c.) , it naturally follows that they are highly unpopular with the European merchants. ”

“ It is usual for Europeans to carry long sticks with them for the express purpose of keeping off the chosen people. I always felt ashamed to strike the poor fellows myself, but I confess to the amusement with which I witnessed the observance of this custom by other people ”

“ It seems as though the power of expressing regrets and desires by written symbols were coupled with a condition that the writer should from time to time express the regrets and desires of other people—as though, like a French peasant under the old regime, one were bound to perform a certain amount of work upon the public highways. ”

“ Now, these are the persons through whom, either directly or indirectly, is derived the greater part of the information which you gather in the Levant, and therefore you must make up your mind to hear an almost universal and unbroken testimony against the character of the people, whose ancestors invented Virtue. ”