Here he
made the acquaintance of all the leading personages at the Ottoman
Porte, and learned colloquial Turkish in perfection. Petronievitch is
astute by education and position, but he has a good heart and a
capacious intellect, and his defects belong not to the man, but to
the man's education and circumstances. Although placable in his
resentments, he is without the usual baser counterpart of such pliant
characters, and has never shown himself deficient in moral courage.
Most travellers trace in his countenance a resemblance to the busts
and portraits of Fox. His moral character bears a miniature
resemblance to that which history has ascribed to Macchiavelli.
In the course of a very tortuous political career, he has kept the
advancement and civilization of Servia steadily in view, and has
always shown himself regardless of sordid gain. He is one of the very
few public men in Servia, in whom the Christian and Western love of
_community_ has triumphed over the Oriental allegiance to _self_, and
this disinterestedness is, in spite of his defects, the secret of his
popularity.
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