“from infancy is altogether interested in the topics of adults; and as the conversation of both sexes is said by those who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, the purity which is one of the greatest charms of childhood is absolutely unknown.”

Of the Turks (at Bagdad) Ida Pfeiffer writes (L.J.R.W., 202-203) that she found it

“very painful to notice the tone of the conversation that goes on in these harems and in the baths.  Nothing can exceed the demureness of the women in public; but when they come together in these places, they indemnify themselves thoroughly for the restraint.  While they were busy with their pipes and coffee, I took the opportunity to take a glance into the neighboring apartments, and in a few minutes I saw enough to fill me at once with disgust and compassion for these poor creatures, whom idleness and ignorance have degraded almost below the level of humanity.  A visit to the women’s baths left a no less melancholy impression.  There were children of both sexes, girls, women, and elderly matrons.  The poor children! how should they in after life understand what is meant by modesty and purity, when they are accustomed from their infancy to witness such scenes, and listen to such conversation?”

These Orientals are too coarse-fibred to appreciate the spotless, peach-down purity which in our ideal is a maiden’s supreme charm.  They do not care to prolong, even for a year what to us seems the sweetest, loveliest period of life, the time of artless, innocent maidenhood.  They cannot admire a rose for its fragrant beauty, but must needs regard it as a thing to be picked at once and used to gratify their appetite.  Nay, they cannot even wait till it is a full-blown rose, but must destroy the lovely bud.  The “civilized” Hindoos, who are allowed legally to sacrifice girls to their lusts before the poor victims have reached the age of puberty, are really on a level with the African savages who indulge in the same practice.  An unsophisticated reader of Kalidasa might find in the King’s comparison of Sakuntala to “a flower that no one has smelt, a sprig that no one has plucked, a pearl that has not yet been pierced,” a recognition of the charm of maiden purity.  But there is a world-wide difference between this and the modern sentiment.  The King’s attitude, as the context shows, is simply that of an epicure who prefers his oysters fresh.  The modern sentiment is embodied in Heine’s exquisite lines: 

DU BIST WIE EINE BLUME.

E’en as a lovely flower
So fair, so pure, thou art;
I gaze on thee and sadness
Comes stealing o’er my heart.

My hands I fain had folded
Upon thy soft brown hair,
Praying that God may keep thee
So lovely, pure, and fair.
—­Trans, of Kate Freiligrath Kroeker.

It is not surprising that this intensely modern poem should have been set to music—­the most modern of all the arts—­more frequently than any other verses ever written.  To Orientals, to savages, to Greeks, it would be incomprehensible—­as incomprehensible as Ruskin’s “there is no true conqueror of lust but love,” or Tennyson’s