I received hospitable welcome at Beyrout from the Europeans as well
as from the Syrian Christians, and I soon discovered that their
standing topic of interest was the Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived
in an old convent on the Lebanon range, at the distance of about a
day's journey from the town. The lady's habit of refusing to see
Europeans added the charm of mystery to a character which, even
without that aid, was sufficiently distinguished to command
attention.
Many years of Lady Hester's early womanhood had been passed with
Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent, and during that inglorious period
of the heroine's life her commanding character, and (as they would
have called it in the language of those days) her "condescending
kindness" towards my mother's family, had increased in them those
strong feelings of respect and attachment, which her rank and
station alone would have easily won from people of the middle
class. You may suppose how deeply the quiet women in Somersetshire
must have been interested, when they slowly learned by vague and
uncertain tidings that the intrepid girl who had been used to break
their vicious horses for them was reigning in sovereignty over the
wandering tribes of Western Asia! I know that her name was made
almost as familiar to me in my childhood as the name of Robinson
Crusoe--both were associated with the spirit of adventure; but
whilst the imagined life of the cast-away mariner never failed to
seem glaringly real, the true story of the Englishwoman ruling over
Arabs always sounded to me like fable.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105