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."

Baroness B---- was very anxious to impress upon me that certainly in
Transylvania the ladies of good society do not affect "fast" manners or
style. "Very few amongst us," she said, "adopt the nasty habit of
smoking cigarettes. I am very sorry that Countess A---- has at