Excerpt from The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
The unchanging East reproduces to-day the manners and customs of long-past ages almost as faithfully and completely (to use a simile found in the beginning of this book) as the engraved copper-plate, worn by long use, continues to repeat its first impression. Parts of the picture have from much use become indistinct, some details have been obliterated, but the whole subject is there. Doubtless since Morier stime the wearing out of the plate has proceeded more rapidly, and the impression is more blurred and broken, but still this perpetuating of the storied past is the source of the peculiar interest which the study of oriental life has for the restless and progressive peoples of the West. To visit the East is still to step back into the vanished centuries, to see with our own eyes the actual mode of life of those bygone ages, and the very scene of those remote events and romantic incidents which have the charm of pious association and familiarity that flow from an early introduction to Holy Writ and Eastern fable. Thus such a book as the Ad ventures of Hajji Baba makes an appeal to memory and imagination that literature dealing with foreign countries other than Asiatic, or with newer peoples, cannot put forward. For while it is true that for the student of humanity no people or country is unworthy of observation, still for most of us Palestine and Persia possess an interest which Central Africa and South Sea Islands lack. When the author of Hajji Baba first began to write, public interest in Persia was more acute than it had ever been before, or probably has been since.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (Classic Reprint) (James Morier)