'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎464] (523/714)

464 PERSIA
CHAPTER XV
institutions and reforms
And the nations far away
Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say
To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Enceladus will arise.
Longfellow, Enceladus.
Depressing as is the picture which I have been compelled in the
interests of truth to draw of Persian administration, and sore as is
Ambiguous the need for a fundamental change in the principles upon
panorama ^ i s conducted, the present reign has yet witnessed
the introduction of a series of reforms into the country which
honourably differentiate it from any immediately preceding epoch.
An examination of these reforms, and of their history, is a task of
alternate congratulation and dismay. On the one hand we see the
imperious and irresistible influence of the West, and of what we
term civilisation, successfully beating down the barriers of ancient
Oriental prejudice. On the other hand, and side by side with this
welcome spectacle, we observe superstition resurgent, reformatory
zeal baffled, and the vis inertice supreme. We know not whether to
give the rein to our hopes or to our despair. Is Persia about to
enter, nay, has she already entered, the comity of civilised nations, or
does she still sit a contented outcast without the gate ? From the
evidence which will be forthcoming in this chapter, added to that
which has already been adduced, the reader must shape his own
j udgment. For my own part, I would solicit, in the interests of my
subject, a friendly and even a lenient consideration; knowing well,
as I do, that the ways of the East and West are wide asunder as
the poles ; that what we call civilisation and sometimes rashly
confuse with progress, is viewed by Oriental peoples in a wholly
different perspective; and that different nations have their own
peculiar way of finding salvation. Moreover, what may seem but
a foot-pace to ourselves, may resemble the rush of a locomotive
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