Yet it was the nobles themselves who abolished at one sweep all the privileges of their order.  It was by their unanimous consent that the manumission of nearly eight millions of serfs was granted, at the same time converting the feudal holdings of some 500,000 families into absolute freeholds.

In Hungary it would appear that public opinion is generously receptive of new impulses, and in this particular the Hungarians resemble us, as they claim to do in many things, calling themselves “the English of the East.”

“It is curious,” said Baroness B——­ to me one day, “that with all our respect for British institutions, and everything that is English, that we fail to copy their straight good sense.  We have too many talkers, too few workers.  We are not yet a money-making nation; we have no idea of serious work, and our spirit for business is not yet developed.  Almost all industrial or commercial enterprises are in the hands of Jews, Armenians, Greeks, who are great scoundrels generally.”

“The Armenians are instinctive traders,” I remarked.

“Yes, true; just as we are the very reverse.  But this change has come over us.  Taking again our cue from England, we see that trade can be respectable, and those who follow it are respected—­with you at least.  We try to Englishify ourselves, and some of the younger members of the community make a funny hash of it.  For instance, a rich young country swell in our neighbourhood went over to England and came back in raptures with everything, and tried to turn everything upside down at home without accommodating his new ideas to the circumstances that were firmly rooted here.  You may see him now sit down to dinner with an English dresscoat over his red Hungarian waistcoat.  His freaks went far beyond this, and he came to be known as the ‘savage Englishman.’”

I asked my hostess if our English novels were much read.

“Everybody likes your English fiction,” replied Baroness B——.  “It is immensely read, and has helped to promote the knowledge of the language more perhaps than anything else.  We, too, have our writers of fiction.  Jokai is the most prolific, but he has got to be too much an imitator of the French school.  One of his earlier novels, ‘The New Landlord,’ has been translated into English, and gives a good picture of Hungarian life in the transition state of things.  For elegance of style he is not to be compared to Gzulai Paul and Baron Eoetvos.”

“There seems to be a growing interest in natural history and literature,” I remarked, “judging from the enormous increase of newspapers and journals which pass through the post, both foreign and local.”

“With regard to local journals,” replied the Baroness, “we have the ‘Osszehasonlito irodalomtoertenelmi Lapok’ (’Comparative Literary Journal’), which is published at Klausenburg, at Herrmannstadt, and at Kesmark in Upper Hungary.  There are Natural History Societies, who publish their reports annually.  Added to this, there are few towns of any size that have not their public libraries.  I speak specially of Transylvania, where we affect a higher degree of culture than in Hungary Proper.”