hanum Zeyneb
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 32
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... useless resignation. Their number, fortunately, grows every day. More and more impatiently am I waiting for the result of a Revolution intelligently arranged, the aim of which will be the Liberty of the Individual, and the uplifting of the race. And yet a revoltie though I was, I think I envied my grandmother's calm happiness. "My poor little girls," she used to say, " your young days are so much sadder than mine. At your age I didn't think of changing the face of the world, nor working for the betterment of the human race, still less for raising the status of women. Our mothers taught us the Koran, and we had confidence in its laws. If one of us had less happiness than another, we never thought of revolting; 'it was written, ' we said, and we had not the presumption to try to change our destiny." "Grandmother," I asked her, " is it our fault if we are unhappy? We have read so many books which have shown us the ugly side of our life in comparison with the lives of the women of the West. We are young. We long for just a little joy; and, grandmother," I added slowly, and with emphasis, " we want to be free, to find it ourselves." Did she understand? That I cannot tell, for she did not answer, but her eyes were fixed on us in unending sadness; then suddenly she dropped them again on to her embroidery. In the autumn or in the spring our darling grandmother came to fetch us to stay with her in her lovely home at Smyrna. I must add, to point out to you another beautiful feature of our Turkish life, that this woman was not my father's own mother. She was my late grandfather's seventh and only living widow, but she treated all my grandfather's children with equal tenderness. Rarely is it otherwise...
