Has she fortune, beauty, rank, they avail her nothing; for two long years she must not speak before her step-mother, save to reply to some question that may be put to her; and, should she herself become a parent, she has yet a sterner and a more difficult task to learn; for she cannot even fondle her infant before witnesses; but must fly and hide herself in her own chamber when she would indulge the outpourings of maternal love.
How melancholy a contrast does this Armenian barbarism afford to the beautiful devotedness of every inmate of a Turkish harem to the comfort and happiness of infancy! There it is difficult to decide which is really the mother of the rosy, laughing, boisterous baby that is passed from one to the other; and welcome to the heart and arms of all. The little plump, spoilt, mischievous urchin, whose life is one long holyday of fun and frolic; and whose few fleeting tears throw all around him into commotion. An infant is common property in a Turkish harem—a toy and a treasure alike to each; whether it be the child of the stately Hanoum whose will is law, or of the slave whose duty is obedience; and, it is certain that, if children could really be “killed with kindness,” the Ottoman Empire, in as far as the Turks themselves are concerned, would soon be a waste.
There can, I think, be no doubt that the life of cold, monotonous, heart-shutting ceremony led by the Armenians among themselves, has been in a great degree the cause of the stolidity of character with which I have elsewhere reproached them. It would, perhaps, be difficult to find a finer race of men in the world, as far as their personal appearance is concerned: while it is certain that no where could they be exceeded in mental, or I should rather say, moral inertness. In all affairs of commerce, where the subject may be reduced by rule, and decided by calculation, they are competent alike to undertake and to comprehend it: but once endeavour to while them beyond the charmed circle of their money-bags; to detach their thoughts for a moment from their piastres; and they cannot utter three consecutive sentences to which it is not a waste of time to listen.
That they are a most valuable portion of the population admits of no dispute; their steady commercial habits, their unquestioning submission to “the powers that be;” their plodding, unambitious natures, fit them admirably for their position in Turkey. Had they more mental energy, more self-appreciation, and more moral development, they could not continue to be the tame listless imitators, and idolaters of their masters that they now are.