A Response to Lady Montagu's Turkish Letters
“In the innermost, I found the lady siting on her sofa in a sable vest. She advanc’d to meet me and presented me half a dozen of her friends with great civility. She seem’d a very good woman, near 50 year old. I was surpiz’d to observe so little magnificence in her house, the furniture being all very moderate, and except the habits and number of slaves nothing about her that appear’d expensive. ” (pg. 180) The above quote is one of Lady Montagu’s more obvious statements about how she, and maybe more broadly the “West”, perceived the “Orient. ” Lady Montagu represents the general Western attitude towards the Orient, in that these people are extremely different from the West, and that their culture had not changed since the times of Homer. The line “I was supriz’d to observe so little magnificence in her house…” is a clear example of how she thought the people of the Orient should live, especially those of nobility. It is a reminder about what Dr. Eastman talked about during his presentation to our class when we saw the painting of the women sitting in a drawing room smoking a hookah and generally just being lazy.