Hungary and Transylvania: With Remarks on Their Condition, Social, Political and Economical, Volume 2

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Lea & Blanchard, 1850 - Hungary

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Page 300 - Hungarian ; or that it is disgraceful to the age in which we live, that Protestants should be excluded from a whole country on account of their faith; yet indubitable as are these facts, it may nevertheless be very impolitic to seek to remedy them by violent means.] The act has passed, however, which declares that in ten years' time no Croat shall be eligible to a public office who cannot read and write the Magyar language, and the consequence has been, the creation of a feeling of hatred against...
Page 74 - ... consequence is, that I feel myself congealing into prose very fast, and more full of arguments than of poetical fancies. Perhaps it will not be until summer that I can thaw myself back again into poetry. But the thing is useful, and I need the sort of balance furnished by a heavy mass of logical lumber. The more I think of the matter, the more I am convinced that it was with great reason that my father wished me to make myself acquainted with the philosophy of the age. That it is false and worthless...
Page 26 - ... examined, though it is well known that smugglers pass the frontiers at every hour of the day. The best answer to these objections, and one very difficult to controvert, is the simple fact that the plague has never entered Hungary since the border organization has been completed, where previously, ever since the first irruption of the Turks across the Danube, scarcely twenty years elapsed without its recurrence, although it has been as frequent and violent as ever in the neighbouring countries....
Page 91 - ... rarely quit them. This tenacity is an important fact, and ought to make the Magyars very cautious how they attempt to force prematurely any reform in language, religion, or customs, on such a people. They may, perhaps, be led ; — no one yet has been able to drive them. Rude as he is, the Wallack feels deeply ; he loves the land his fathers tilled, the house his fathers lived in, the soil where their bones have found a resting-place. Such sentiments may sometimes interfere with the schemes of...
Page 88 - ... Magyars. Mr. Paget's able and impartial work abounds with evidence upon this point. We subjoin a few extracts from his testimony, which may be taken without distrust, as he resided in the country in 1835, and published his book four years afterwards, long before the revolutionary disturbance began. " I knew an old Countess in Transylvania who used to lament that 'times were sadly changed, — peasants were no longer so respectful as they used to be ;' — she could remember walking to church...
Page 126 - Take care, Baron Wesselenyi, take care what you are about. Recollect that many of your family have been unfortunate !' (His father was confined for seven years in the Kuffstein.) ' Unfortunate, your majesty, they have been, but ever undeserving of their misfortunes !' was Wesselenyi's bold and honest answer.
Page 147 - It is no uncommon thing, for instance, in a one-storied house with a thatched-roof and an uncarpeted floor, to be shown into a bed-room where all the washing apparatus and toilet is of solid silver. It is an every-day occurrence in a house, where tea and sugar are considered expensive luxuries, to sit down to a dinner of six or eight courses. Bare white-washed walls and rich Vienna furniture ; a lady decked in jewels which might dazzle a court, and a handmaid without shoes and stockings ; a carriage...
Page 53 - The same crops are here repeated year after year, on the same spots ; the ground is only once turned up to receive the seed ; a fallow is unknown ; manure is never used, but is thrown away as injurious ; and yet with the greatest care and labour in other places, I never saw such abundant produce as ill-treated unaided Nature here bestows upon her children. Except the olive and orange, there is scarcely a product of Europe which does not thrive in the Banat I do not know that I can enumerate all the...
Page 251 - Szekler-land, that this simple faith has retained the greatest number of followers. Here, as elsewhere, they are said to be distinguished for their prudence and moderation in politics, their industry and morality in private life, and the superiority of their education to the generality of those of their own class.
Page 145 - Here, too, the flogging-block is in full vigour ; every landlord can order any of his tenants or servants, who may displease him, twenty-five lashes on the spot, and it is generally the first resource which occurs to him in any disputes about labour or dues.

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