'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎15] (46/714)

INTRODUCTORY
nurtured children grow up into robust men. Conversely, female
beauty in early youth is followed by a premature decay and ugli
ness beyond words. Just as from a distance a town surrounded by
its orchards looks a gem of beauty, but shrinks upon nearer ap
proach into a collection of clay hovels; and just as in the exterior
of these houses, consisting of blank and unsightly walls of mud,
there is no hint of the flower-beds and tanks, of the taste and
comeliness that sometimes prevail within, so does the human ex
terior tell a contradictory tale of its inmate. Splendide mendax
might be taken as the motto of Persian character. The finest
domestic virtues co-exist with barbarity and supreme indifference
to suffering. Elegance of deportment is compatible with a coarse
ness amounting to bestiality. The same individual is at different
moments haughty and cringing. A creditable acquaintance with
the standards of civilisation does not prevent gross fanaticism and
superstition. Accomplished manners and a more than Parisian
polish cover a truly superb faculty for lying and almost scientific
imposture. The most scandalous corruption is combined with a
scrupulous regard for specified precepts of the moral law. Religion
is alternately stringent and lax, inspiring at one moment the bigot's
rage, at the next the agnostic's indifference. Government is both
patriarchal and Machiavellian—patriarchal in its simplicity of
structure. Machiavellian in its finished ingenuity of wrong doing.
Life is both magnificent and squalid ; the people at once despicable
and noble : the panorama at the same time an enchantment and a
fraud.
I desire before concluding to say a few words about the litera
ture to which the study of Persia has given birth, more especially
Literature ^ lite ra f ,nre 0 f discovery and travel. Few countries so
of travel sparsely visited have been responsible for so ample a
bibliography. The reason is obvious. To each new-comer the com
parative rarity of his experience has been conceded as the excuse
for a volume. In the category of these productions are to be found
works as painstaking and meritorious as ever passed through the
press. Nor is their value in any degree diminished, it is, on the
contrary, enhanced by the fact that the list of which I speak in
cludes some of the most worthless rubbish that ever blundered into
print. I shall hope shortly to publish in a supplementary volume
as complete a bibliography of Persian history and travel as my own
studies and existing sources of information have enabled me to