initial commit of ebook 29257HEADmain

1 files changed, 9519 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/29257.txt b/29257.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b40bca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29257.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9519 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Khalid, by Ameen Rihani
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Book of Khalid
+
+Author: Ameen Rihani
+
+Release Date: June 27, 2009 [EBook #29257]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF KHALID ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Todd Fine, Dan Horwood and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note regarding the illustrations
+
+  "The Book of Khalid" contains illustrations drawn by Khalil
+  Gibran, the other early Arab-American writer (author of "The
+  Prophet"), that are well-known and exceptional. There are no
+  captions in the original book, and are very difficult to describe
+  in words. Their locations in the text have been marked with the
+  text '[Illustration]'. The reader is encouraged to view these
+  illustrations in the HTML version of this ebook.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                          THE BOOK OF KHALID
+
+
+
+
+                                 THE
+                            BOOK OF KHALID
+
+                                  BY
+                             AMEEN RIHANI
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                        DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+                                 1911
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1911
+                       BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+                      _Published, October_, 1911
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK THE FIRST
+
+IN THE EXCHANGE
+
+ CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+         AL-FATIHAH                                                  v
+         TO MAN                                                      3
+       I PROBING THE TRIVIAL                                         5
+      II THE CITY OF BAAL                                           14
+     III VIA DOLOROSA                                               25
+      IV ON THE WHARF OF ENCHANTMENT                                34
+       V THE CELLAR OF THE SOUL                                     46
+      VI THE SUMMER AFTERNOON OF A SHAM                             58
+     VII IN THE TWILIGHT OF AN IDEA                                 70
+    VIII WITH THE HURIS                                             83
+
+BOOK THE SECOND
+
+IN THE TEMPLE
+
+         TO NATURE                                                  97
+       I THE DOWRY OF DEMOCRACY                                     99
+      II SUBTRANSCENDENTAL                                         115
+     III THE FALSE DAWN                                            125
+      IV THE LAST STAR                                             130
+       V PRIESTO-PARENTAL                                          143
+      VI FLOUNCES AND RUFFLES                                      154
+     VII THE HOWDAJ OF FALSEHOOD                                   167
+    VIII THE KAABA OF SOLITUDE                                     181
+      IX SIGNS OF THE HERMIT                                       192
+       X THE VINEYARD IN THE KAABA                                 202
+
+BOOK THE THIRD
+
+IN KULMAKAN
+
+         TO GOD                                                    217
+       I THE DISENTANGLEMENT OF THE ME                             219
+      II THE VOICE OF THE DAWN                                     231
+     III THE SELF ECSTATIC                                         239
+      IV ON THE OPEN HIGHWAY                                       249
+       V UNION AND PROGRESS                                        274
+      VI REVOLUTIONS WITHIN AND WITHOUT                            287
+     VII A DREAM OF EMPIRE                                         298
+    VIII ADUMBRATIONS                                              311
+      IX THE STONING AND FLIGHT                                    325
+       X THE DESERT                                                333
+         AL-KHATIMAH                                               341
+
+
+
+
+AL-FATIHAH
+
+
+In the Khedivial Library of Cairo, among the Papyri of the Scribe of
+Amen-Ra and the beautifully illuminated copies of the Koran, the
+modern Arabic Manuscript which forms the subject of this Book, was
+found. The present Editor was attracted to it by the dedication and
+the rough drawings on the cover; which, indeed, are as curious, if not
+as mystical, as ancient Egyptian symbols. One of these is supposed to
+represent a New York Skyscraper in the shape of a Pyramid, the other
+is a dancing group under which is written: "The Stockbrokers and the
+Dervishes." And around these symbols, in Arabic circlewise, these
+words:--"_And this is my Book, the Book of Khalid, which I dedicate to
+my Brother Man, my Mother Nature, and my Maker God._"
+
+Needless to say we asked at once the Custodian of the Library to give
+us access to this Book of Khalid, and after examining it, we hired an
+amanuensis to make a copy for us. Which copy we subsequently used as
+the warp of our material; the woof we shall speak of in the following
+chapter. No, there is nothing in this Work which we can call ours,
+except it be the Loom. But the weaving, we assure the Reader, was a
+mortal process; for the material is of such a mixture that here and
+there the raw silk of Syria is often spun with the cotton and wool of
+America. In other words, the Author dips his antique pen in a modern
+inkstand, and when the ink runs thick, he mixes it with a slabbering
+of slang. But we started to write an Introduction, not a Criticism.
+And lest we end by writing neither, we give here what is more to the
+point than anything we can say: namely, Al-Fatihah, or the Opening
+Word of Khalid himself.
+
+With supreme indifference to the classic Arabic proem, he begins by
+saying that his Book is neither a Memoir nor an Autobiography, neither
+a Journal nor a Confession.
+
+"Orientals," says he, "seldom adventure into that region of fancy and
+fabrication so alluring to European and American writers; for, like
+the eyes of huris, our vanity is soft and demure. This then is a book
+of travels in an impalpable country, an enchanted country, from which
+we have all risen, and towards which we are still rising. It is, as it
+were, the chart and history of one little kingdom of the Soul,--the
+Soul of a philosopher, poet and criminal. I am all three, I swear, for
+I have lived both the wild and the social life. And I have thirsted in
+the desert, and I have thirsted in the city: the springs of the former
+were dry; the water in the latter was frozen in the pipes. That is
+why, to save my life, I had to be an incendiary at times, and at
+others a footpad. And whether on the streets of knowledge, or in the
+open courts of love, or in the parks of freedom, or in the cellars and
+garrets of thought and devotion, the only _saki_ that would give me a
+drink without the asking was he who called himself Patience....
+
+"And so, the Book of Khalid was written. It is the only one I wrote in
+this world, having made, as I said, a brief sojourn in its civilised
+parts. I leave it now where I wrote it, and I hope to write other
+books in other worlds. Now understand, Allah keep and guide thee, I do
+not leave it here merely as a certificate of birth or death. I do not
+raise it up as an epitaph, a trade-sign, or any other emblem of
+vainglory or lucre; but truly as a propylon through which my race and
+those above and below my race, are invited to pass to that higher
+Temple of mind and spirit. For we are all tourists, in a certain
+sense, and this world is the most ancient of monuments. We go through
+life as those pugreed-solar-hatted-Europeans go through Egypt. We are
+pestered and plagued with guides and dragomans of every rank and
+shade;--social and political guides, moral and religious dragomans: a
+Tolstoy here, an Ibsen there, a Spencer above, a Nietzche below. And
+there thou art left in perpetual confusion and despair. Where wilt
+thou go? Whom wilt thou follow?
+
+"Or wilt thou tarry to see the work of redemption accomplished? For
+Society must be redeemed, and many are the redeemers. The Cross,
+however, is out of fashion, and so is the Dona Dulcinea motive.
+Howbeit, what an array of Masters and Knights have we, and what a
+variety! The work can be done, and speedily, if we could but choose.
+Wagner can do it with music; Bakunin, with dynamite; Karl Marx, with
+the levelling rod; Haeckel, with an injection of protoplasmic logic;
+the Pope, with a pinch of salt and chrism; and the Packer-Kings of
+America, with pork and beef. What wilt thou have? Whom wilt thou
+employ? Many are the applicants, many are the guides. But if they are
+all going the way of Juhannam, the Beef-packer I would choose. For
+verily, a gobbet of beef on the way were better than canned
+protoplasmic logic or bottled salt and chrism....
+
+"No; travel not on a Cook's ticket; avoid the guides. Take up thy
+staff and foot it slowly and leisurely; tarry wherever thy heart
+would tarry. There is no need of hurrying, O my Brother, whether
+eternal Juhannam or eternal Jannat await us yonder. Come; if thou
+hast not a staff, I have two. And what I have in my Scrip I will
+share with thee. But turn thy back to the guides; for verily we see
+more of them than of the ruins and monuments. Verily, we get more
+of the Dragomans than of the Show. Why then continue to move and
+remove at their command?--Take thy guidebook in hand and I will
+tell thee what is in it.
+
+"No; the time will come, I tell thee, when every one will be his own
+guide and dragoman. The time will come when it will not be necessary
+to write books for others, or to legislate for others, or to make
+religions for others: the time will come when every one will write his
+own Book in the Life he lives, and that Book will be his code and his
+creed;--that Life-Book will be the palace and cathedral of his Soul in
+all the Worlds."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST
+
+IN THE EXCHANGE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO MAN
+
+
+_No matter how good thou art, O my Brother, or how bad thou art, no
+matter how high or how low in the scale of being thou art, I still
+would believe in thee, and have faith in thee, and love thee. For do I
+not know what clings to thee, and what beckons to thee? The claws of
+the one and the wings of the other, have I not felt and seen? Look up,
+therefore, and behold this World-Temple, which, to us, shall be a
+resting-place, and not a goal. On the border-line of the Orient and
+Occident it is built, on the mountain-heights overlooking both. No
+false gods are worshipped in it,--no philosophic, theologic, or
+anthropomorphic gods. Yea, and the god of the priests and prophets is
+buried beneath the Fountain, which is the altar of the Temple, and
+from which flows the eternal spirit of our Maker--our Maker who
+blinketh when the Claws are deep in our flesh, and smileth when the
+Wings spring from our Wounds. Verily, we are the children of the God
+of Humour, and the Fountain in His Temple is ever flowing. Tarry, and
+refresh thyself, O my Brother, tarry, and refresh thyself._
+
+                                                               KHALID.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PROBING THE TRIVIAL
+
+
+The most important in the history of nations and individuals was once
+the most trivial, and vice versa. The plebeian, who is called to-day
+the man-in-the-street, can never see and understand the significance
+of the hidden seed of things, which in time must develop or die. A
+garter dropt in the ballroom of Royalty gives birth to an Order of
+Knighthood; a movement to reform the spelling of the English language,
+initiated by one of the presidents of a great Republic, becomes
+eventually an object of ridicule. Only two instances to illustrate our
+point, which is applicable also to time-honoured truths and
+moralities. But no matter how important or trivial these, he who would
+give utterance to them must do so in cap and bells, if he would be
+heard nowadays. Indeed, the play is always the thing; the frivolous is
+the most essential, if only as a disguise.--For look you, are we not
+too prosperous to consider seriously your ponderous preachment? And
+when you bring it to us in book form, do you expect us to take it into
+our homes and take you into our hearts to boot?--Which argument is
+convincing even to the man in the barn.
+
+But the Author of the Khedivial Library Manuscript can make his
+Genius dance the dance of the seven veils, if you but knew. It is
+to be regretted, however, that he has not mastered the most subtle
+of arts, the art of writing about one's self. He seldom brushes
+his wings against the dust or lingers among the humble flowers close
+to the dust: he does not follow the masters in their entertaining
+trivialities and fatuities. We remember that even Gibbon interrupts
+the turgid flow of his spirit to tell us in his Autobiography that he
+really could, and often did, enjoy a game of cards in the evening. And
+Rousseau, in a suppurative passion, whispers to us in his Confessions
+that he even kissed the linen of Madame de Warens' bed when he was
+alone in her room. And Spencer devotes whole pages in his dull and
+ponderous history of himself to narrate the all-important narration
+of his constant indisposition,--to assure us that his ill health more
+than once threatened the mighty task he had in hand. These, to be
+sure, are most important revelations. But Khalid here misses his cue.
+Inspiration does not seem to come to him in firefly-fashion.
+
+He would have done well, indeed, had he studied the method of the
+professional writers of Memoirs, especially those of France. For might
+he not then have discoursed delectably on The Romance of my Stick Pin,
+The Tragedy of my Sombrero, The Scandal of my Red Flannel, The
+Conquest of my Silk Socks, The Adventures of my Tuxedo, and such like?
+But Khalid is modest only in the things that pertain to the outward
+self. He wrote of other Romances and other Tragedies. And when his
+Genius is not dancing the dance of the seven veils, she is either
+flirting with the monks of the Lebanon hills or setting fire to
+something in New York. But this is not altogether satisfactory to the
+present Editor, who, unlike the Author of the Khedivial Library MS.,
+must keep the reader in mind. 'Tis very well to endeavour to unfold a
+few of the mysteries of one's palingenesis, but why conceal from us
+his origin? For is it not important, is it not the fashion at least,
+that one writing his own history should first expatiate on the humble
+origin of his ancestors and the distant obscure source of his genius?
+And having done this, should he not then tell us how he behaved in his
+boyhood; whether or not he made anklets of his mother's dough for his
+little sister; whether he did not kindle the fire with his father's
+Koran; whether he did not walk under the rainbow and try to reach the
+end of it on the hill-top; and whether he did not write verse when he
+was but five years of age. About these essentialities Khalid is
+silent. We only know from him that he is a descendant of the brave
+sea-daring Phoenicians--a title which might be claimed with justice
+even by the aborigines of Yucatan--and that he was born in the city of
+Baalbek, in the shadow of the great Heliopolis, a little way from the
+mountain-road to the Cedars of Lebanon. All else in this direction is
+obscure.
+
+And the K. L. MS. which we kept under our pillow for thirteen days
+and nights, was beginning to worry us. After all, might it not be
+a literary hoax, we thought, and might not this Khalid be a myth. And
+yet, he does not seem to have sought any material or worldly good
+from the writing of his Book. Why, then, should he resort to
+deception? Still, we doubted. And one evening we were detained by
+the sandomancer, or sand-diviner, who was sitting cross-legged on the
+sidewalk in front of the mosque. "I know your mind," said he,
+before we had made up our mind to consult him. And mumbling his
+"abracadabra" over the sand spread on a cloth before him, he took up
+his bamboo-stick and wrote therein--Khalid! This was amazing. "And I
+know more," said he. But after scouring the heaven, he shook his head
+regretfully and wrote in the sand the name of one of the hasheesh-dens
+of Cairo. "Go thither; and come to see me again to-morrow evening."
+Saying which, he folded his sand-book of magic, pocketed his fee,
+and walked away.
+
+In that hasheesh-den,--the reekiest, dingiest of the row in the Red
+Quarter,--where the etiolated intellectualities of Cairo flock after
+midnight, the name of Khalid evokes much resounding wit, and sarcasm,
+and laughter.
+
+"You mean the new Muhdi," said one, offering us his chobok of
+hasheesh; "smoke to his health and prosperity. Ha, ha, ha."
+
+And the chorus of laughter, which is part and parcel of a hasheesh
+jag, was tremendous. Every one thereupon had something to say on the
+subject. The contagion could not be checked. And Khalid was called
+"the dervish of science" by one; "the rope-dancer of nature" by
+another.
+
+"Our Prophet lived in a cave in the wilderness of New York for five
+years," remarked a third.
+
+"And he sold his camel yesterday and bought a bicycle instead."
+
+"The Young Turks can not catch him now."
+
+"Ah, but wait till England gets after our new Muhdi."
+
+"Wait till his new phthisic-stricken wife dies."
+
+"Whom will our Prophet marry, if among all the virgins of Egypt we can
+not find a consumptive for him?"
+
+"And when he pulls down the pyramids to build American Skyscrapers
+with their stones, where shall we bury then our Muhdi?"
+
+All of which, although mystifying to us, and depressing, was none the
+less reassuring. For Khalid, it seems, is not a myth. No; we can even
+see him, we are told, and touch him, and hear him speak.
+
+"Shakib the poet, his most intimate friend and disciple, will bring
+you into the sacred presence."
+
+"You can not miss him, for he is the drummer of our new Muhdi, ha, ha,
+ha!"
+
+And this Shakib was then suspended and stoned. But their humour, like
+the odor and smoke of gunjah, (hasheesh) was become stifling. So, we
+lay our chobok down; and, thanking them for the entertainment, we
+struggle through the rolling reek and fling to the open air.
+
+In the grill-room of the Mena House we meet the poet Shakib, who was
+then drawing his inspiration from a glass of whiskey and soda. Nay, he
+was drowning his sorrows therein, for his Master, alas! has
+mysteriously disappeared.
+
+"I have not seen him for ten days," said the Poet; "and I know not
+where he is.--If I did? Ah, my friend, you would not then see me here.
+Indeed, I should be with him, and though he be in the trap of the
+Young Turks." And some real tears flowed down the cheeks of the Poet,
+as he spoke.
+
+The Mena House, a charming little Branch of Civilisation at the gate
+of the desert, stands, like man himself, in the shadow of two terrible
+immensities, the Sphinx and the Pyramid, the Origin and the End. And
+in the grill-room, over a glass of whiskey and soda, we presume to
+solve in few words the eternal mystery. But that is not what we came
+for. And to avoid the bewildering depths into which we were led, we
+suggested a stroll on the sands. Here the Poet waxed more eloquent,
+and shed more tears.
+
+"This is our favourite haunt," said he; "here is where we ramble, here
+is where we loaf. And Khalid once said to me, 'In loafing here, I work
+as hard as did the masons and hod-carriers who laboured on these
+pyramids.' And I believe him. For is not a book greater than a
+pyramid? Is not a mosque or a palace better than a tomb? An object is
+great in proportion to its power of resistance to time and the
+elements. That is why we think the pyramids are great. But see, the
+desert is greater than the pyramids, and the sea is greater than the
+desert, and the heavens are greater than the sea. And yet, there is
+not in all these that immortal intelligence, that living, palpitating
+soul, which you find in a great book. A man who conceives and writes a
+great book, my friend, has done more work than all the helots that
+laboured on these pyramidal futilities. That is why I find no
+exaggeration in Khalid's words. For when he loafs, he does so in good
+earnest. Not like the camel-driver there or the camel, but after the
+manner of the great thinkers and mystics: like Al-Fared and
+Jelal'ud-Deen Rumy, like Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi, Khalid
+loafs. For can you escape being reproached for idleness by merely
+working? Are you going to waste your time and power in useless
+unproductive labour, carrying dates to Hajar (or coals to Newcastle,
+which is the English equivalent), that you might not be called an
+idler, a loafer?"
+
+"Indeed not," we reply; "for the Poet taking in the sea, or the woods,
+or the starry-night, the poet who might be just sharing the sunshine
+with the salamander, is as much a labourer as the stoker or the
+bricklayer."
+
+And with a few more such remarks, we showed our friend that, not being
+of india-rubber, we could not but expand under the heat of his
+grandiosity.
+
+We then make our purpose known, and Shakib is overjoyed. He offers to
+kiss us for the noble thought.
+
+"Yes, Europe should know Khalid better, and only through you and me
+can this be done. For you can not properly understand him, unless you
+read the _Histoire Intime_, which I have just finished. That will give
+you _les dessous de cartes_ of his character."
+
+"_Les dessons_"--and the Poet who intersperses his Arabic with fancy
+French, explains.--"The lining, the ligaments."--"Ah, that is exactly
+what we want."
+
+And he offers to let us have the use of his Manuscript, if we link his
+name with that of his illustrious Master in this Book. To which we
+cheerfully agree. For after all, what's in a name?
+
+On the following day, lugging an enormous bundle under each arm, the
+Poet came. We were stunned as he stood in the door; we felt as if he
+had struck us in the head with them.
+
+"This is the _Histoire Intime_," said he, laying it gently on the
+table.
+
+And we laid our hand upon it, fetching a deep sigh. Our misgivings,
+however, were lighted with a happy idea. We will hire a few boys to
+read it, we thought, and mark out the passages which please them most.
+That will be just what an editor wants.
+
+"And this," continued the Poet, laying down the other bundle, "is the
+original manuscript of my forthcoming Book of Poems.--"
+
+Sweet of him, we thought, to present it to us.
+
+"It will be issued next Autumn in Cairo.--"
+
+Fortunate City!
+
+"And if you will get to work on it at once,--"
+
+Mercy!
+
+"You can get out an English Translation in three month, I am sure--"
+
+We sink in our chair in breathless amazement.
+
+"The Book will then appear simultaneously both in London and Cairo."
+
+We sit up, revived with another happy idea, and assure the Poet that
+his Work will be translated into a universal language, and that very
+soon. For which assurance he kisses us again and again, and goes away
+hugging his Muse.
+
+The idea! A Book of Poems to translate into the English language! As
+if the English language has not enough of its own troubles! Translate
+it, O Fire, into your language! Which work the Fire did in two
+minutes. And the dancing, leaping, singing flames, the white and blue
+and amber flames, were more beautiful, we thought, than anything the
+Ms. might contain.
+
+As for the _Histoire Intime_, we split it into three parts and got our
+boys working on it. The result was most satisfying. For now we can
+show, and though he is a native of Asia, the land of the Prophets, and
+though he conceals from us his origin after the manner of the
+Prophets, that he was born and bred and fed, and even thwacked, like
+all his fellows there, this Khalid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CITY OF BAAL
+
+
+The City of Baal, or Baalbek, is between the desert and the deep
+sea. It lies at the foot of Anti-Libanus, in the sunny plains of
+Coele-Syria, a day's march from either Damascus or Beirut. It is a
+city with a past as romantic as Rome's, as wicked as Babel's; its
+ruins testify both to its glory and its shame. It is a city with a
+future as brilliant as any New-World city; the railroad at its
+gate, the modern agricultural implements in its fields, and the
+porcelain bath-tubs in its hotels, can testify to this. It is a city
+that enticed and still entices the mighty of the earth; Roman
+Emperors in the past came to appease the wrath of its gods, a German
+Emperor to-day comes to pilfer its temples. For the Acropolis in
+the poplar grove is a mine of ruins. The porphyry pillars, the
+statues, the tablets, the exquisite friezes, the palimpsests, the
+bas-reliefs,--Time and the Turks have spared a few of these. And when
+the German Emperor came, Abd'ul-Hamid blinked, and the Berlin Museum
+is now the richer for it.
+
+Of the Temple of Jupiter, however, only six standing columns remain;
+of the Temple of Bacchus only the god and the Bacchantes are missing.
+And why was the one destroyed, the other preserved, only the six
+columns, had they a tongue, could tell. Indeed, how many blustering
+vandals have _they_ conquered, how many savage attacks have they
+resisted, what wonders and what orgies have they beheld! These six
+giants of antiquity, looking over Anti-Lebanon in the East, and
+down upon the meandering Leontes in the South, and across the
+Syrian steppes in the North, still hold their own against Time and the
+Elements. They are the dominating feature of the ruins; they tower
+above them as the Acropolis towers above the surrounding poplars. And
+around their base, and through the fissures, flows the perennial
+grace of the seasons. The sun pays tribute to them in gold; the rain,
+in mosses and ferns; the Spring, in lupine flowers. And the
+swallows, nesting in the portico of the Temple of Bacchus, above
+the curious frieze of egg-decoration,--as curious, too, _their_ art of
+egg-making,--pour around the colossal columns their silvery notes.
+Surely, these swallows and ferns and lupine flowers are more
+ancient than the Acropolis. And the marvels of extinct nations can
+not hold a candle to the marvels of Nature.
+
+Here, under the decaying beauty of Roman art, lies buried the
+monumental boldness of the Phoenicians, or of a race of giants whose
+extinction even Homer deplores, and whose name even the Phoenicians
+could not decipher. For might they not, too, have stood here
+wondering, guessing, even as we moderns guess and wonder? Might not
+the Phoenicians have asked the same questions that we ask to-day: Who
+were the builders? and with what tools? In one of the walls of the
+Acropolis are stones which a hundred bricklayers can not raise an inch
+from the ground; and among the ruins of the Temple of Zeus are
+porphyry pillars, monoliths, which fifty horses could barely move, and
+the quarry of which is beyond the Syrian desert. There, now, solve the
+problem for yourself.
+
+Hidden in the grove of silver-tufted poplars is the little Temple of
+Venus, doomed to keep company with a Mosque. But it is a joy to stand
+on the bridge above the stream that flows between them, and listen to
+the muazzen in the minaret and the bulbuls in the Temple. Mohammad
+calling to Venus, Venus calling to Mohammad--what a romance! We leave
+the subject to the poet that wants it. Another Laus Veneris to another
+Swinburne might suggest itself.
+
+An Arab Prophet with the goddess, this time--but the River flows
+between the Temple and the Mosque. In the city, life is one such
+picturesque languid stream. The shop-keepers sit on their rugs in
+their stalls, counting their beads, smoking their narghilahs, waiting
+indifferently for Allah's bounties. And the hawkers shuffle along
+crying their wares in beautiful poetic illusions,--the flower-seller
+singing, "Reconcile your mother-in-law! Perfume your spirit! Buy a
+jasmine for your soul!" the seller of loaves, his tray on his head,
+his arms swinging to a measured step, intoning in pious thankfulness,
+"O thou Eternal, O thou Bountiful!" The _sakka_ of licorice-juice,
+clicking his brass cups calls out to the thirsty one, "Come, drink and
+live! Come, drink and live!" And ere you exclaim, How quaint! How
+picturesque! a train of laden camels drives you to the wall, rudely
+shaking your illusion. And the mules and donkeys, tottering under
+their heavy burdens, upsetting a tray of sweetmeats here, a counter of
+spices there, must share the narrow street with you and compel you to
+move along slowly, languidly like themselves. They seem to take Time
+by the sleeve and say to it, "What's your hurry?" "These donkeys,"
+Shakib writes, quoting Khalid, "can teach the strenuous Europeans and
+hustling Americans a lesson."
+
+In the City Square, as we issue from the congested windings of the
+Bazaar, we are greeted by one of those scrub monuments that are found
+in almost every city of the Ottoman Empire. And in most cases, they
+are erected to commemorate the benevolence and public zeal of some
+wali or pasha who must have made a handsome fortune in the promotion
+of a public enterprise. Be this as it may. It is not our business here
+to probe the corruption of any particular Government. But we observe
+that this miserable botch of a monument is to the ruins of the
+Acropolis, what this modern absolutism, this effete Turkey is to the
+magnificent tyrannies of yore. Indeed, nothing is duller, more stupid,
+more prosaic than a modern absolutism as compared with an ancient one.
+But why concern ourselves with like comparisons? The world is better
+to-day in spite of its public monuments. These little flights or
+frights in marble are as snug in their little squares, in front of
+their little halls, as are the majestic ruins in their poplar groves.
+In both instances, Nature and Circumstance have harmonised between
+the subject and the background. Come along. And let the rhymsters
+chisel on the monument whatever they like about sculptures and the
+wali. To condemn in this case is to praise.
+
+We issue from the Square into the drive leading to the spring at the
+foot of the mountain. On the meadows near the stream, is always to be
+found a group of Baalbekians bibbing _arak_ and swaying languidly to
+the mellow strains of the lute and the monotonous melancholy of Arabic
+song. Among such, one occasionally meets with a native who, failing as
+peddler or merchant in America, returns to his native town, and,
+utilising the chips of English he picked up in the streets of the
+New-World cities, becomes a dragoman and guide to English and American
+tourists.
+
+Now, under this sky, between Anti-Libanus rising near the spring,
+Rasulain, and the Acropolis towering above the poplars, around
+these majestic ruins, amidst these fascinating scenes of Nature,
+Khalid spent the halcyon days of his boyhood. Here he trolled his
+favourite ditties beating the hoof behind his donkey. For he
+preferred to be a donkey-boy than to be called a donkey at school.
+The pedagogue with his drivel and discipline, he could not learn to
+love. The company of muleteers was much more to his liking. The open
+air was his school; and everything that riots and rejoices in the
+open air, he loved. Bulbuls and beetles and butterflies, oxen and
+donkeys and mules,--these were his playmates and friends. And when he
+becomes a muleteer, he reaches in his first venture, we are told,
+the top round of the ladder. This progressive scale in his
+trading, we observe. Husbanding his resources, he was soon after, by
+selling his donkey, able to buy a sumpter-mule; a year later he
+sells his mule and buys a camel; and finally he sells the camel and
+buys a fine Arab mare, which he gives to a tourist for a hundred
+pieces of English gold. This is what is called success. And with the
+tangible symbol of it, the price of his mare, he emigrates to
+America. But that is to come.
+
+Let us now turn our "stereopticon on the screen of reminiscence,"
+using the pictures furnished by Shakib. But before they can be used to
+advantage, they must undergo a process of retroussage. Many of the
+lines need be softened, some of the shades modified, and not a few of
+the etchings, absolutely worthless, we consign to the flames. Who of
+us, for instance, was not feruled and bastinadoed by the town
+pedagogue? Who did not run away from school, whimpering, snivelling,
+and cursing in his heart and in his sleep the black-board and the
+horn-book? Nor can we see the significance of the fact that Khalid
+once smashed the icon of the Holy Virgin for whetting not his wits,
+for hearing not his prayers. It may be he was learning then the use of
+the sling, and instead of killing his neighbour's laying-hen, he broke
+the sacred effigy. No, we are not warranted to draw from these
+trivialities the grand results which send Shakib in ecstasies about
+his Master's genius. Nor do we for a moment believe that the
+waywardness of a genius or a prophet in boyhood is always a
+significant adumbration. Shakespeare started as a deer-poacher, and
+Rousseau as a thief. Yet, neither the one nor the other, as far as we
+know, was a plagiarist. This, however, does not disprove the contrary
+proposition, that he who begins as a thief or an iconoclast is likely
+to end as such. But the actuating motive has nothing to do with what
+we, in our retrospective analysis, are pleased to prove. Not so far
+forth are we willing to piddle among the knicknacks of Shakib's
+_Histoire Intime_ of his Master.
+
+Furthermore, how can we interest ourselves in his fiction of history
+concerning Baalbek? What have we to do with the fact or fable that
+Seth the Prophet lived in this City; that Noah is buried in its
+vicinity; that Solomon built the Temple of the Sun for the Queen of
+Sheba; that this Prince and Poet used to lunch in Baalbek and dine at
+Istachre in Afghanistan; that the chariot of Nimrod drawn by four
+phoenixes from the Tower of Babel, lighted on Mt. Hermon to give said
+Nimrod a chance to rebuild the said Temple of the Sun? How can we
+bring any of these fascinating fables to bear upon our subject? It is
+nevertheless significant to remark that the City of Baal, from the
+Phoenicians and Moabites down to the Arabs and Turks, has ever been
+noted for its sanctuaries of carnal lust. The higher religion, too,
+found good soil here; for Baalbek gave the world many a saint and
+martyr along with its harlots and poets and philosophers. St. Minius,
+St. Cyril and St. Theodosius, are the foremost among its holy
+children; Ste. Odicksyia, a Magdalene, is one of its noted daughters.
+These were as famous in their days as Ashtarout or Jupiter-Ammon. As
+famous too is Al-Iman ul-Ouzaai the scholar; al-Makrizi the historian;
+Kallinichus the chemist, who invented the Greek fire; Kosta ibn Luka,
+a doctor and philosopher, who wrote among much miscellaneous rubbish a
+treaty entitled, On the Difference Between the Mind and the Soul; and
+finally the Muazzen of Baalbek to whom "even the beasts would stop to
+listen." Ay, Shakib relates quoting al-Makrizi, who in his turn
+relates, quoting one of the octogenarian Drivellers, _Muhaddetheen_
+(these men are the chief sources of Arabic History) that he was told
+by an eye and ear witness that when this celebrated Muazzen was once
+calling the Faithful to prayer, the camels at the creek craned their
+necks to listen to the sonorous music of his voice. And such was their
+delight that they forgot they were thirsty. This, by the way of a
+specimen of the _Muhaddetheen_. Now, about these historical worthies
+of Baalbek, whom we have but named, Shakib writes whole pages, and
+concludes--and here is the point--that Khalid might be a descendant of
+any or all of them! For in him, our Scribe seriously believes, are
+lusty strains of many varied and opposing humours. And although he had
+not yet seen the sea, he longed when a boy for a long sea voyage, and
+he would sail little paper boats down the stream to prove the fact. In
+truth, that is what Shakib would prove. The devil and such logic had a
+charm for us once, but no more.
+
+Here is another bubble of retrospective analysis to which we apply the
+needle. It is asserted as a basis for another astounding deduction
+that Khalid used to sleep in the ruined Temple of Zeus. As if ruined
+temples had anything to do with the formation or deformation of the
+brain-cells or the soul-afflatus! The devil and such logic, we repeat,
+had once a charm for us. But this, in brief, is how it came about.
+Khalid hated the pedagogue to whom he had to pay a visit of courtesy
+every day, and loved his cousin Najma whom he was not permitted to
+see. And when he runs away from the bastinado, breaking in revenge the
+icon of the Holy Virgin, his father turns him away from home.
+Complaining not, whimpering not, he goes. And hearing the bulbuls
+calling in the direction of Najma's house that evening, he repairs
+thither. But the crabbed, cruel uncle turns him away also, and bolts
+the door. Whereupon Khalid, who was then in the first of his teens,
+takes a big scabrous rock and sends it flying against that door. The
+crabbed uncle rushes out, blustering, cursing; the nephew takes up
+another of those scabrous missiles and sends it whizzing across his
+shoulder. The second one brushes his ear. The third sends the blood
+from his temple. And this, while beating a retreat and cursing his
+father and his uncle and their ancestors back to fifty generations. He
+is now safe in the poplar grove, and his uncle gives up the charge.
+With a broken noddle he returns home, and Khalid with a broken heart
+wends his way to the Acropolis, the only shelter in sight. In relating
+this story, Shakib mentions "the horrible old moon, who was wickedly
+smiling over the town that night." A broken icon, a broken door, a
+broken pate,--a big price this, the crabbed uncle and the cruel father
+had to pay for thwarting the will of little Khalid. "But he entered
+the Acropolis a conqueror," says our Scribe; "he won the battle." And
+he slept in the temple, in the portico thereof, as sound as a
+muleteer. And the swallows in the niches above heard him sleep.
+
+In the morning he girds his loins with a firm resolution. No longer
+will he darken his father's door. He becomes a muleteer and
+accomplishes the success of which we have spoken. His first beau ideal
+was to own the best horse in Baalbek; and to be able to ride to the
+camp of the Arabs and be mistaken for one of them, was his first great
+ambition. Which he realises sooner than he thought he would. For
+thrift, grit and perseverance, are a few of the rough grains in his
+character. But no sooner he is possessed of his ideal than he begins
+to loosen his hold upon it. He sold his mare to the tourist, and was
+glad he did not attain the same success in his first love. For he
+loved his mare, and he could not have loved his cousin Najma more.
+"The realisation is a terrible thing," writes our Scribe, quoting his
+Master. But when this fine piece of wisdom was uttered, whether when
+he was sailing paper boats in Baalbek, or unfurling his sails in New
+York, we can not say.
+
+And now, warming himself on the fire of his first ideal, Khalid will
+seek the shore and launch into unknown seas towards unknown lands.
+From the City of Baal to the City of Demiurgic Dollar is not in fact a
+far cry. It has been remarked that he always dreamt of adventures, of
+long journeys across the desert or across the sea. He never was
+satisfied with the seen horizon, we are told, no matter how vast and
+beautiful. His soul always yearned for what was beyond, above or
+below, the visible line. And had not the European tourist alienated
+from him the love of his mare and corrupted his heart with the love of
+gold, we might have heard of him in Mecca, in India, or in Dahomey.
+But Shakib prevails upon him to turn his face toward the West. One
+day, following some tourists to the Cedars, they behold from
+Dahr'ul-Qadhib the sun setting in the Mediterranean and make up their
+minds to follow it too. "For the sundown," writes Shakib, "was more
+appealing to us than the sunrise, ay, more beautiful. The one was so
+near, the other so far away. Yes, we beheld the Hesperian light that
+day, and praised Allah. It was the New World's bonfire of hospitality:
+the sun called to us, and we obeyed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+VIA DOLOROSA
+
+
+In their baggy, lapping trousers and crimson caps, each carrying a
+bundle and a rug under his arm, Shakib and Khalid are smuggled through
+the port of Beirut at night, and safely rowed to the steamer. Indeed,
+we are in a country where one can not travel without a passport, or a
+password, or a little pass-money. And the boatmen and officials of the
+Ottoman Empire can better read a gold piece than a passport. So,
+Shakib and Khalid, not having the latter, slip in a few of the former,
+and are smuggled through. One more longing, lingering glance behind,
+and the dusky peaks of the Lebanons, beyond which their native City of
+Baal is sleeping in peace, recede from view. On the high sea of hope
+and joy they sail; "under the Favonian wind of enthusiasm, on the
+friendly billows of boyish dreams," they roll. Ay, and they sing for
+joy. On and on, to the gold-swept shores of distant lands, to the
+generous cities and the bounteous fields of the West, to the Paradise
+of the World--to America.
+
+We need not dwell too much with our Scribe, on the repulsive details
+of the story of the voyage. We ourselves have known a little of the
+suffering and misery which emigrants must undergo, before they reach
+that Western Paradise of the Oriental imagination. How they are
+huddled like sheep on deck from Beirut to Marseilles; and like cattle
+transported under hatches across the Atlantic; and bullied and
+browbeaten by rough disdainful stewards; and made to pay for a
+leathery gobbet of beef and a slice of black flint-like bread: all
+this we know. But that New World paradise is well worth these passing
+privations.
+
+The second day at sea, when the two Baalbekian lads are snug on deck,
+their rugs spread out not far from the stalls in which Syrian cattle
+are shipped to Egypt and Arab horses to Europe or America, they
+rummage in their bags--and behold, a treat! Shakib takes out his
+favourite poet Al-Mutanabbi, and Khalid, his favourite bottle, the
+choicest of the Ksarah distillery of the Jesuits. For this whilom
+donkey-boy will begin by drinking the wine of these good Fathers and
+then their--blood! His lute is also with him; and he will continue to
+practise the few lessons which the bulbuls of the poplar groves have
+taught him. No, he cares not for books. And so, he uncorks the bottle,
+hands it to Shakib his senior, then takes a nip himself, and,
+thrumming his lute strings, trolls a few doleful pieces of Arabic
+song. "In these," he would say to Shakib, pointing to the bottle and
+the lute, "is real poetry, and not in that book with which you would
+kill me." And Shakib, in stingless sarcasm, would insist that the
+music in Al-Mutanabbi's lines is just a little more musical than
+Khalid's thrumming. They quarrel about this. And in justice to both,
+we give the following from the _Histoire Intime_.
+
+"When we left our native land," Shakib writes, "my literary bent was
+not shared in the least by Khalid. I had gone through the higher
+studies which, in our hedge-schools and clerical institutions, do not
+reach a very remarkable height. Enough of French to understand the
+authors tabooed by our Jesuit professors,--the Voltaires, the
+Rousseaus, the Diderots; enough of Arabic to enable one to parse and
+analyse the verse of Al-Mutanabbi; enough of Church History to show
+us, not how the Church wielded the sword of persecution, but how she
+was persecuted herself by the pagans and barbarians of the earth;--of
+these and such like consists the edifying curriculum. Now, of this
+high phase of education, Khalid was thoroughly immune. But his
+intuitive sagacity was often remarkable, and his humour, sweet and
+pathetic. Once when I was reading aloud some of the Homeric effusions
+of Al-Mutanabbi, he said to me, as he was playing his lute, 'In the
+heart of this,' pointing to the lute, 'and in the heart of me, there
+be more poetry than in that book with which you would kill me.' And
+one day, after wandering clandestinely through the steamer, he comes
+to me with a gesture of surprise and this: 'Do you know, there are
+passengers who sleep in bunks below, over and across each other? I saw
+them, billah! And I was told they pay more than we do for such a low
+passage--the fools! Think on it. I peeped into a little room, a dingy,
+smelling box, which had in it six berths placed across and above each
+other like the shelves of the reed manchons we build for our
+silk-worms at home. I wouldn't sleep in one of them, billah! even
+though they bribe me. This bovine fragrance, the sight of these fine
+horses, the rioting of the wind above us, should make us forget the
+brutality of the stewards. Indeed, I am as content, as comfortable
+here, as are their Excellencies in what is called the Salon. Surely,
+we are above them--at least, in the night. What matters it, then, if
+ours is called the Fourth Class and theirs the Primo. Wherever one is
+happy, Shakib, there is the Primo.'"
+
+But this happy humour is assailed at Marseilles. His placidity and
+stolid indifference are rudely shaken by the sharpers, who differ
+only from the boatmen of Beirut in that they wear pantaloons and
+intersperse their Arabic with a jargon of French. These brokers,
+like rapacious bats, hover around the emigrant and before his
+purse is opened for the fourth time, the trick is done. And with
+what ceremony, you shall see. From the steamer the emigrant is led
+to a dealer in frippery, where he is required to doff his baggy
+trousers and crimson cap, and put on a suit of linsey-woolsey and a
+hat of hispid felt: end of First Act; open the purse. From the dealer
+of frippery, spick and span from top to toe, he is taken to the
+hostelry, where he is detained a fortnight, sometimes a month, on
+the pretext of having to wait for the best steamer: end of Second Act;
+open the purse. From the hostelry at last to the steamship agent,
+where they secure for him a third-class passage on a fourth-class
+ship across the Atlantic: end of Third Act; open the purse. And now
+that the purse is almost empty, the poor emigrant is permitted to
+leave. They send him to New York with much gratitude in his heart
+and a little trachoma in his eyes. The result being that a month
+later they have to look into such eyes again. But the purse of the
+distressed emigrant now being empty,--empty as his hopes and
+dreams,--the rapacious bats hover not around him, and the door of
+the verminous hostelry is shut in his face. He is left to starve
+on the western shore of the Mediterranean.
+
+Ay, even the droll humour and stolidity of Khalid, are shaken,
+aroused, by the ghoulish greed, the fell inhumanity of these sharpers.
+And Shakib from his cage of fancy lets loose upon them his hyenas of
+satire. In a squib describing the bats and the voyage he says: "The
+voyage to America is the Via Dolorosa of the emigrant; and the Port of
+Beirut, the verminous hostelries of Marseilles, the Island of Ellis in
+New York, are the three stations thereof. And if your hopes are not
+crucified at the third and last station, you pass into the Paradise of
+your dreams. If they are crucified, alas! The gates of the said
+Paradise will be shut against you; the doors of the hostelries will be
+slammed in your face; and with a consolation and a vengeance you will
+throw yourself at the feet of the sea in whose bosom some charitable
+Jonah will carry you to your native strands."
+
+And when the emigrant has a surplus of gold, when his capital is such
+as can not be dissipated on a suit of shoddy, a fortnight's lodging,
+and a passage across the Atlantic, the ingenious ones proceed with the
+Fourth Act of _Open Thy Purse_. "Instead of starting in New York as a
+peddler," they say, unfolding before him one of their alluring
+schemes, "why not do so as a merchant?" And the emigrant opens his
+purse for the fourth time in the office of some French manufacturer,
+where he purchases a few boxes of trinketry,--scapulars, prayer-beads,
+crosses, jewelry, gewgaws, and such like,--all said to be made in the
+Holy Land. These he brings over with him as his stock in trade.
+
+Now, Khalid and Shakib, after passing a fortnight in Marseilles, and
+going through the Fourth Act of the Sorry Show, find their dignity as
+merchants rudely crushed beneath the hatches of the Atlantic steamer.
+For here, even the pleasure of sleeping on deck is denied them. The
+Atlantic Ocean would not permit of it. Indeed, everybody has to slide
+into their stivy bunks to save themselves from its rising wrath. A
+fortnight of such unutterable misery is quite supportable, however, if
+one continues to cherish the Paradise already mentioned. But in this
+dark, dingy smelling hole of the steerage, even the poets cease to
+dream. The boatmen of Beirut and the sharpers of Marseilles we could
+forget; but in this grave among a hundred and more of its kind, set
+over and across each other, neither the lute nor the little that
+remained in that Ksarah bottle, could bring us any solace.
+
+We are told that Khalid took up his lute but once throughout the
+voyage. And this when they were permitted one night to sleep on deck.
+We are also informed that Khalid had a remarkable dream, which, to our
+Scribe at least, is not meaningless. And who of us, thou silly Scribe,
+did not in his boyhood tell his dreams to his mother, who would turn
+them in her interpretation inside out? But Khalid, we are assured,
+continued to cherish the belief, even in his riper days, that when you
+dream you are in Jannat, for instance, you must be prepared to go
+through Juhannam the following day. A method of interpretation as
+ancient as Joseph, to be sure. But we quote the dream to show that
+Khalid should not have followed the setting sun. He should have turned
+his face toward the desert.
+
+They slept on deck that night. They drank the wine of the Jesuits,
+repeated, to the mellow strains of the lute, the song of the bulbuls,
+intoned the verses of Al-Mutanabbi, and, wrapping themselves in their
+rugs, fell asleep. But in the morning they were rudely jostled from
+their dreams by a spurt from the hose of the sailors washing the deck.
+Complaining not, they straggle down to their bunks to change their
+clothes. And Khalid, as he is doing this, implores Shakib not to
+mention to him any more that New-World paradise. "For I have dreamt
+last night," he continues, "that, in the multicoloured robes of an
+Arab amir, on a caparisoned dromedary, at the head of an immense
+multitude of people, I was riding through the desert. Whereto and
+wherefrom, I know not. But those who followed me seemed to know; for
+they cried, 'Long have we waited for thee, now we shall enter in
+peace.' And at every oasis we passed, the people came to the gate to
+meet us, and, prostrating themselves before me, kissed the fringe of
+my garment. Even the women would touch my boots and kiss their hands,
+exclaiming, '_Allahu akbar!_' And the palm trees, billah! I could see
+bending towards us that we might eat of their fruits, and the springs
+seemed to flow with us into the desert that we might never thirst. Ay,
+thus in triumph we marched from one camp to another, from one oasis to
+the next, until we reached the City on the Hills of the Cedar Groves.
+Outside the gate, we were met by the most beautiful of its tawny
+women, and four of these surrounded my camel and took the reins from
+my hand. I was then escorted through the gates, into the City, up to
+the citadel, where I was awaited by their Princess. And she, taking a
+necklace of cowries from a bag that hung on her breast, placed it on
+my head, saying, 'I crown thee King of--' But I could not hear the
+rest, which was drowned by the cheering of the multitudes. And the
+cheering, O Shakib, was drowned by the hose of the sailors. Oh, that
+hose! Is it not made in the paradise you harp upon, the paradise we
+are coming to? Never, therefore, mention it to me more."
+
+This is the dream, at once simple and symbolic, which begins to worry
+Khalid. "For in the evening of the day he related it to me," writes
+Shakib, "I found him sitting on the edge of his bunk brooding over I
+know not what. It was the first time he had the blues. Nay, it was the
+first time he looked pensive and profound. And upon asking him the
+reason for this, he said, 'I am thinking of the paper-boats which I
+used to sail down the stream in Baalbek, and that makes me sad.'"
+
+How strange! And yet, this first event recorded by our Scribe, in
+which Khalid is seen struggling with the mysterious and unknown, is
+most significant. Another instance, showing a latent phase, hitherto
+dormant, in his character, we note. Among the steerage passengers is a
+Syrian girl who much resembles his cousin Najma. She was sea-sick
+throughout the voyage, and when she comes out to breathe of the fresh
+air, a few hours before they enter the harbour of New York, Khalid
+sees her, and Shakib swears that he saw a tear in Khalid's eye as he
+stood there gazing upon her. Poor Khalid! For though we are
+approaching the last station of the Via Dolorosa, though we are
+nearing the enchanted domes of the wonder-working, wealth-worshipping
+City, he is inexplicably sad.
+
+And Shakib, directly after swearing that he saw a tear in his eye,
+writes the following: "Up to this time I observed in my friend only
+the dominating traits of a hard-headed, hard-hearted boy, stubborn,
+impetuous, intractable. But from the time he related to me his dream,
+a change in his character was become manifest. In fact a new phase was
+being gradually unfolded. Three things I must emphasise in this
+connection: namely, the first dream he dreamt in a foreign land, the
+first time he looked pensive and profound, and the first tear he shed
+before we entered New York. These are keys to the secret chamber of
+one's soul."
+
+And now, that the doors, by virtue of our Scribe's open-sesames, are
+thrown open, we enter, _bismillah_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ON THE WHARF OF ENCHANTMENT
+
+
+Not in our make-up, to be sure,--not in the pose which is preceded by
+the tantaras of a trumpet,--do the essential traits in our character
+first reveal themselves. But truly in the little things the real self
+is exteriorised. Shakib observes closely the rapid changes in his
+co-adventurer's humour, the shadowy traits which at that time he
+little understood. And now, by applying his palm to his front, he
+illumines those chambers of which he speaks, and also the niches
+therein. He helps us to understand the insignificant points which mark
+the rapid undercurrents of the seemingly sluggish soul of Khalid. Not
+in vain, therefore, does he crystallise for us that first tear he shed
+in the harbour of Manhattan. But his gush about the recondite beauty
+of this pearl of melancholy, shall not be intended upon the gustatory
+nerves of the Reader. This then we note--his description of New York
+harbour.
+
+"And is this the gate of Paradise," he asks, "or the port of some
+subterrestrial city guarded by the Jinn? What a marvel of enchantment
+is everything around us! What manifestations of industrial strength,
+what monstrosities of wealth and power, are here! These vessels
+proudly putting to sea; these tenders scurrying to meet the Atlantic
+greyhound which is majestically moving up the bay; these barges
+loading and unloading schooners from every strand, distant and near;
+these huge lighters carrying even railroads over the water; these
+fire-boats scudding through the harbour shrilling their sirens; these
+careworn, grim, strenuous multitudes ferried across from one enchanted
+shore to another; these giant structures tickling heaven's sides;
+these cable bridges, spanning rivers, uniting cities; and this
+superterrestrial goddess, torch in hand--wake up, Khalid, and behold
+these wonders. Salaam, this enchanted City! There is the Brooklyn
+Bridge, and here is the Statue of Liberty which people speak of, and
+which are as famous as the Cedars of Lebanon."
+
+But Khalid is as impassive as the bronze goddess herself. He leans
+over the rail, his hand supporting his cheek, and gazes into the ooze.
+The stolidity of his expression is appalling. With his mouth open as
+usual, his lips relaxed, his tongue sticking out through the set
+teeth,--he looks as if his head were in a noose. But suddenly he
+braces up, runs down for his lute, and begins to serenade--Greater New
+York?
+
+    "On thee be Allah's grace,
+     Who hath the well-loved face!"
+
+No; not toward this City does his heart flap its wings of song. He is
+on another sea, in another harbour. Indeed, what are these wonders as
+compared with those of the City of Love? The Statue of Eros there is
+more imposing than the Statue of Liberty here. And the bridges are
+not of iron and concrete, but of rainbows and--moonshine! Indeed, both
+these lads are now on the wharf of enchantment; the one on the
+palpable, the sensuous, the other on the impalpable and unseen. But
+both, alas, are suddenly, but temporarily, disenchanted as they are
+jostled out of the steamer into the barge which brings them to the
+Juhannam of Ellis Island. Here, the unhappy children of the steerage
+are dumped into the Bureau of Emigration as--such stuff! For even in
+the land of equal rights and freedom, we have a right to expect from
+others the courtesy and decency which we ourselves do not have to
+show, or do not know.
+
+These are sturdy and adventurous foreigners whom the grumpy officers
+jostle and hustle about. For neither poverty, nor oppression, nor both
+together can drive a man out of his country, unless the soul within
+him awaken. Indeed, many a misventurous cowering peasant continues to
+live on bread and olives in his little village, chained in the fear of
+dying of hunger in a foreign land. Only the brave and daring spirits
+hearken to the voice of discontent within them. They give themselves
+up to the higher aspirations of the soul, no matter how limited such
+aspirations might be, regardless of the dangers and hardship of a long
+sea voyage, and the precariousness of their plans and hopes. There may
+be nothing noble in renouncing one's country, in abandoning one's
+home, in forsaking one's people; but is there not something remarkable
+in this great move one makes? Whether for better or for worse, does
+not the emigrant place himself above his country, his people and his
+Government, when he turns away from them, when he goes forth propelled
+by that inner self which demands of him a new life?
+
+And might it not be a better, a cleaner, a higher life? What say our
+Masters of the Island of Ellis? Are not these straggling, smelling,
+downcast emigrants almost as clean inwardly, and as pure, as the
+grumpy officers who harass and humiliate them? Is not that spirit of
+discontent which they cherish, and for which they carry the cross, so
+to speak, across the sea, deserving of a little consideration, a
+little civility, a little kindness?
+
+Even louder than this Shakib cries out, while Khalid open-mouthed
+sucks his tongue. Here at the last station, where the odours of
+disinfectants are worse than the stench of the steerage, they await
+behind the bars their turn; stived with Italian and Hungarian fellow
+sufferers, uttering such whimpers of expectancy, exchanging such
+gestures of hope. Soon they shall be brought forward to be examined by
+the doctor and the interpreting officer; the one shall pry their
+purses, the other their eyes. For in this United States of America we
+want clear-sighted citizens at least. And no cold-purses, if the
+matter can be helped. But neither the eyes, alas, nor the purses of
+our two emigrants are conformable to the Law; the former are filled
+with granulations of trachoma, the latter have been emptied by the
+sharpers of Marseilles. Which means that they shall be detained for
+the present; and if within a fortnight nothing turns up in their
+favour, they shall certainly be deported.
+
+Trachoma! a little granulation on the inner surface of the eyelids,
+what additional misery does it bring upon the poor deported emigrant?
+We are asked to shed a tear for him, to weep with him over his blasted
+hopes, his strangled aspirations, his estate in the mother country
+sold or mortgaged,--in either case lost,--and his seed of a new life
+crushed in its cotyledon by the physician who might be short-sighted
+himself, or even blind. But the law must be enforced for the sake of
+the clear-sighted citizens of the Republic. We will have nothing to do
+with these poor blear-eyed foreigners.
+
+And thus our grievous Scribe would continue, if we did not exercise
+the prerogative of our Editorial Divan. Rather let us pursue our
+narration. Khalid is now in the hospital, awaiting further development
+in his case. But in Shakib's, whose eyes are far gone in trachoma, the
+decision of the Board of Emigration is final, irrevokable. And so,
+after being detained a week in the Emigration pen, the unfortunate
+Syrian must turn his face again toward the East. Not out into the
+City, but out upon the sea, he shall be turned adrift. The grumpy
+officer shall grumpishly enforce the decision of the Board by handing
+our Scribe to the Captain of the first steamer returning to Europe--if
+our Scribe can be found! For this flyaway son of a Phoenician did not
+seem to wait for the decision of the polyglot Judges of the Emigration
+Board.
+
+And that he did escape, we are assured. For one morning he eludes the
+grumpy officer, and sidles out among his Italian neighbours who were
+permitted to land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone
+and thank Allah that he is free. But before he can enjoy his freedom,
+before he can sit down and chuckle over the success of his escapade,
+he must bethink him of Khalid. He will not leave him to the mercy of
+the honourable Agents of the Law, if he can help it. Trachoma, he
+knows, is a hard case to cure. And in ten days, under the care of the
+doctors, it might become worse. Straightway, therefore, he puts
+himself to the dark task. A few visits to the Hospital where Khalid is
+detained--the patients in those days were not held at Ellis
+Island--and the intrigue is afoot. On the third or fourth visit, we
+can not make out which, a note in Arabic is slipt into Khalid's
+pocket, and with a significant Arabic sign, Shakib takes himself off.
+
+The evening of that very day, the trachoma-afflicted Syrian was absent
+from the ward. He was carried off by Iblis,--the porter and a few
+Greenbacks assisting. Yes, even Shakib, who knew only a few English
+monosyllables, could here make himself understood. For money is one of
+the two universal languages of the world, the other being love.
+Indeed, money and love are as eloquent in Turkey and Dahomey as they
+are in Paris or New York.
+
+And here we reach one of those hedges in the _Histoire Intime_ which
+we must go through in spite of the warning-signs. Between two
+paragraphs, to be plain, in the one of which we are told how the two
+Syrians established themselves as merchants in New York, in the other,
+how and wherefor they shouldered the peddling-box and took to the
+road, there is a crossed paragraph containing a most significant
+revelation. It seems that after giving the matter some serious
+thought, our Scribe came to the conclusion that it is not proper to
+incriminate his illustrious Master. But here is a confession which a
+hundred crosses can not efface. And if he did not want to bring the
+matter to our immediate cognisance, why, we ask, did he not re-write
+the page? Why did he not cover well that said paragraph with crosses
+and arabesques? We do suspect him here of chicanery; for by this
+plausible recantation he would shift the responsibility to the
+shoulders of the Editor, if the secret is divulged. Be this as it may,
+no red crosses can conceal from us the astounding confession, which we
+now give out. For the two young Syrians, who were smuggled out of
+their country by the boatmen of Beirut, and who smuggled themselves
+into the city of New York (we beg the critic's pardon; for, being
+foreigners ourselves, we ought to be permitted to stretch this term,
+smuggle, to cover an Arabic metaphor, or to smuggle into it a foreign
+meaning), these two Syrians, we say, became, in their capacity of
+merchants, smugglers of the most ingenious and most evasive type.
+
+We now note the following, which pertains to their business. We learn
+that they settled in the Syrian Quarter directly after clearing their
+merchandise. And before they entered their cellar, we are assured,
+they washed their hands of all intrigues and were shrived of their
+sins by the Maronite priest of the Colony. For they were pious in
+those days, and right Catholics. 'Tis further set down in the
+_Histoire Intime_:
+
+"We rented a cellar, as deep and dark and damp as could be found. And
+our landlord was a Teague, nay, a kind-hearted old Irishman, who
+helped us put up the shelves, and never called for the rent in the
+dawn of the first day of the month. In the front part of this cellar
+we had our shop; in the rear, our home. On the floor we laid our
+mattresses, on the shelves, our goods. And never did we stop to think
+who in this case was better off. The safety of our merchandise before
+our own. But ten days after we had settled down, the water issued
+forth from the floor and inundated our shop and home. It rose so high
+that it destroyed half of our capital stock and almost all our
+furniture. And yet, we continued to live in the cellar, because,
+perhaps, every one of our compatriot-merchants did so. We were all
+alike subject to these inundations in the winter season. I remember
+when the water first rose in our store, Khalid was so hard set and in
+such a pucker that he ran out capless and in his shirt sleeves to
+discover in the next street the source of the flood. And one day, when
+we were pumping out the water he asked me if I thought this was easier
+than rolling our roofs in Baalbek. For truly, the paving-roller is
+child's play to this pump. And a leaky roof is better than an
+inundated cellar."
+
+However, this is not the time for brooding. They have to pump ahead to
+save what remained of their capital stock. But Khalid, nevertheless,
+would brood and jabber. And what an inundation of ideas, and what
+questions!
+
+"Think you," he asks, "that the inhabitants of this New World are
+better off than those of the Old?--Can you imagine mankind living in a
+huge cellar of a world and you and I pumping the water out of its
+bottom?--I can see the palaces on which you waste your rhymes, but
+mankind live in them only in the flesh. The soul I tell you, still
+occupies the basement, even the sub-cellar. And an inundated cellar at
+that. The soul, Shakib, is kept below, although the high places are
+vacant."
+
+And his partner sputters out his despair; for instead of helping to
+pump out the water, Khalid stands there gazing into it, as if by some
+miracle he would draw it out with his eyes or with his breath. And the
+poor Poet cries out, "Pump! the water is gaining on us, and our shop
+is going to ruin. Pump!" Whereupon the lazy, absent-minded one resumes
+pumping, while yearning all the while for the plashing stone-rollers
+and the purling eaves of his home in Baalbek. And once in a
+pinch,--they are labouring under a peltering rain,--he stops as is his
+wont to remind Shakib of the Arabic saying, "From the dripping ceiling
+to the running gargoyle." He is labouring again under a hurricane of
+ideas. And again he asks, "Are you sure we are better off here?"
+
+And our poor Scribe, knee-deep in the water below, blusters out
+curses, which Khalid heeds not. "I am tired of this job," he growls;
+"the stone-roller never drew so much on my strength, nor did
+muleteering. Ah, for my dripping ceiling again, for are we not now
+under the running gargoyle?" And he reverts into a stupor, leaving the
+world to the poet and the pump.
+
+For five years and more they lead such a life in the cellar. And they
+do not move out of it, lest they excite the envy of their compatriots.
+But instead of sleeping on the floor, they stretch themselves on the
+counters. The rising tide teaches them this little wisdom, which keeps
+the doctor and Izraeil away. Their merchandise, however,--their
+crosses, and scapulars and prayer-beads,--are beyond hope of recovery.
+For what the rising tide spares, the rascally flyaway peddlers carry
+away. That is why they themselves shoulder the box and take to the
+road. And the pious old dames of the suburbs, we are told, receive
+them with such exclamations of joy and wonder, and almost tear their
+coats to get from them a sacred token. For you must remember, they are
+from the Holy Land. Unlike their goods, they at least are genuine. And
+every Saturday night, after beating the hoof in the country and making
+such fabulous profits on their false Holy-Land gewgaws, they return to
+their cellar happy and content.
+
+"In three years," writes our Scribe, "Khalid and I acquired what I
+still consider a handsome fortune. Each of us had a bank account, and
+a check book which we seldom used.... In spite of which, we continued
+to shoulder the peddling box and tramp along.... And Khalid would say
+to me, 'A peddler is superior to a merchant; we travel and earn money;
+our compatriots the merchants rust in their cellars and lose it.' To
+be sure, peddling in the good old days was most attractive. For the
+exercise, the gain, the experience--these are rich acquirements."
+
+And both Shakib and Khalid, we apprehend, have been hitherto most
+moderate in their habits. The fact that they seldom use their check
+books, testifies to this. They have now a peddleress, Im-Hanna by
+name, who occupies their cellar in their absence, and keeps what
+little they have in order. And when they return every Saturday night
+from their peddling trip, they find the old woman as ready to serve
+them as a mother. She cooks _mojadderah_ for them, and sews the
+bed-linen on the quilts as is done in the mother country.
+
+"The linen," says Shakib, "was always as white as a dove's wing, when
+Im-Hanna was with us."
+
+And in the Khedivial Library Manuscript we find this curious note upon
+that popular Syrian dish of lentils and olive oil.
+
+"_Mojadderah_," writes Khalid, "has a marvellous effect upon my humour
+and nerves. There are certain dishes, I confess, which give me the
+blues. Of these, fried eggplants and cabbage boiled with corn-beef on
+the American system of boiling, that is to say, cooking, I abominate
+the most. But _mojadderah_ has such a soothing effect on the nerves;
+it conduces to cheerfulness, especially when the raw onion or the leek
+is taken with it. After a good round pewter platter of this delicious
+dish and a dozen leeks, I feel as if I could do the work of all
+mankind. And I am then in such a beatific state of mind that I would
+share with all mankind my sack of lentils and my pipkin of olive oil.
+I wonder not at Esau's extravagance, when he saw a steaming mess of
+it. For what is a birthright in comparison?"
+
+That Shakib also shared this beatific mood, the following quaint
+picture of their Saturday nights in the cellar, will show.
+
+"A bank account," he writes, "a good round dish of _mojadderah_, the
+lute for Khalid, Al-Mutanabbi for me,--neither of us could forego his
+hobby,--and Im-Hanna, affectionate, devoted as our mothers,--these
+were the joys of our Saturday nights in our underground diggings. We
+were absolutely happy. And we never tried to measure our happiness in
+those days, or gauge it, or flay it to see if it be dead or alive,
+false or real. Ah, the blessedness of that supreme unconsciousness
+which wrapped us as a mother would her babe, warming and caressing our
+hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought.
+We only knew that peddling is a pleasure, that a bank account is a
+supreme joy, that a dish of _mojadderah_ cooked by Im-Hanna is a royal
+delight, that our dour dark cellar is a palace of its kind, and that
+happiness, like a bride, issues from all these, and, touching the
+strings of Khalid's lute, mantles us with song."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE CELLAR OF THE SOUL
+
+
+Heretofore, Khalid and Shakib have been inseparable as the Pointers.
+They always appeared together, went the rounds of their peddling orbit
+together, and together were subject to the same conditions and
+restraints. Which restraints are a sort of sacrifice they make on the
+altar of friendship. One, for instance, would never permit himself an
+advantage which the other could not enjoy, or a pleasure in which the
+other could not share. They even slept under the same blanket, we
+learn, ate from the same plate, puffed at the same narghilah, which
+Shakib brought with him from Baalbek, and collaborated in writing to
+one lady-love! A condition of unexampled friendship this, of complete
+oneness. They had both cut themselves garments from the same cloth, as
+the Arabic saying goes. And on Sunday afternoon, in garments spick and
+span, they would take the air in Battery Park, where the one would
+invoke the Statue of Liberty for a thought, or the gilded domes of
+Broadway for a metaphor, while the other would be scouring the horizon
+for the Nothingness, which is called, in the recondite cant of the
+sophisticated, a vague something.
+
+In the Khedivial Library MS. we find nothing which this Battery Park
+might have inspired. And yet, we can not believe that Khalid here was
+only attracted by that vague something which, in his spiritual
+enceinteship, he seemed to relish. Nothing? Not even the does and
+kangaroos that adorn the Park distracted or detained him? We doubt it;
+and Khalid's lute sustains us in our doubt. Ay, and so does our
+Scribe; for in his _Histoire Intime_ we read the following, which we
+faithfully transcribe.
+
+"Of the many attractions of Battery Park, the girls and the sea were
+my favourite. For the girls in a crowd have for me a fascination which
+only the girls at the bath can surpass. I love to lose myself in a
+crowd, to buffet, so to speak, its waves, to nestle under their
+feathery crests. For the rolling waves of life, the tumbling waves of
+the sea, and the fiery waves of Al-Mutanabbi's poetry have always been
+my delight. In Battery Park I took especial pleasure in reading aloud
+my verses to Khalid, or in fact to the sea, for Khalid never would
+listen.
+
+"Once I composed a few stanzas to the Milkmaid who stood in her wagon
+near the lawn, rattling out milk-punches to the boys. A winsome lass
+she was, fresh in her sororiation, with fair blue eyes, a celestial
+flow of auburn hair, and cheeks that suggested the milk and cherry in
+the glass she rattled out to me. I was reading aloud the stanzas which
+she inspired, when Khalid, who was not listening, pointed out to me a
+woman whose figure and the curves thereof were remarkable. 'Is it not
+strange,' said he, 'how the women here indraw their stomachs and
+outdraw their hips? And is not this the opposite of the shape which
+our women cultivate?'
+
+"Yes, with the Lebanon women, the convex curve beneath the waist is
+frontward, not hindward. But that is a matter of taste, I thought, and
+man is partly responsible for either convexity. I have often wondered,
+however, why the women of my country cultivate that shape. And why do
+they in America cultivate the reverse of it? Needless to say that both
+are pruriently titillating,--both distentions are damnably suggestive,
+quite killing. The American woman, from a fine sense of modesty, I am
+told, never or seldom ventures abroad, when big with child. But in the
+kangaroo figure, the burden is slightly shifted and naught is amiss.
+Ah, such haunches as are here exhibited suggest the _aliats_ of our
+Asiatic sheep."
+
+And what he says about the pruriently titillating convexities, whether
+frontward or hindward, suggests a little prudery. For in his rhymes he
+betrays both his comrade and himself. Battery Park and the attractions
+thereof prove fatal. Elsewhere, therefore, they must go, and begin to
+draw on their bank accounts. Which does not mean, however, that they
+are far from the snare. No; for when a young man begins to suffer from
+what the doctors call hebephrenia, the farther he draws away from such
+snares the nearer he gets to them. And these lusty Syrians could not
+repel the magnetic attraction of the polypiosis of what Shakib likens
+to the _aliat_ (fattail) of our Asiatic sheep. Surely, there be more
+devils under such an _aliat_ than under the hat of a Jesuit. And
+Khalid is the first to discover this. Both have been ensnared,
+however, and both, when in the snare, have been infernally inspired.
+What Khalid wrote, when he was under the influence of feminine curves,
+was preserved by Shakib, who remarks that one evening, after returning
+from the Park, Khalid said to him, 'I am going to write a poem.' A
+fortnight later, he hands him the following, which he jealously kept
+among his papers.
+
+    I dreamt I was a donkey-boy again.
+    Out on the sun-swept roads of Baalbek, I tramp behind my
+        burro, trolling my _mulayiah_.
+    At noon, I pass by a garden redolent of mystic scents and
+        tarry awhile.
+    Under an orange tree, on the soft green grass, I stretch my
+        limbs.
+    The daisies, the anemones, and the cyclamens are round me
+        pressing:
+    The anemone buds hold out to me their precious rubies; the
+        daisies kiss me in the eyes and lips; and the cyclamens
+        shake their powder in my hair.
+    On the wall, the roses are nodding, smiling; above me the
+        orange blossoms surrender themselves to the wooing
+        breeze; and on yonder rock the salamander sits, complacent
+        and serene.
+    I take a daisy, and, boy as boys go, question its
+        petals:
+    Married man or monk, I ask, plucking them off one by one,
+    And the last petal says, Monk.
+    I perfume my fingers with crumpled cyclamens, cover my
+        face with the dark-eyed anemones, and fall asleep.
+    And my burro sleeps beneath the wall, in the shadow of
+        nodding roses.
+    And the black-birds too are dozing, and the bulbuls flitting
+        by whisper with their wings, 'salaam.'
+    Peace and salaam!
+    The bulbul, the black-bird, the salamander, the burro, and
+        the burro-boy, are to each other shades of noon-day sun:
+    Happy, loving, generous, and free;--
+    As happy as each other, and as free.
+    We do what we please in Nature's realm, go where we
+        please;
+    No one's offended, no one ever wronged.
+    No sentinels hath Nature, no police.
+    But lo, a goblin as I sleep comes forth;--
+    A goblin taller than the tallest poplar, who carries me upon
+        his neck to the Park in far New York.
+    Here women, light-heeled, heavy-haunched, pace up and
+        down the flags in graceful gait.
+    My roses these, I cry, and my orange blossoms.
+    But the goblin placed his hand upon my mouth, and I was
+        dumb.
+    The cyclamens, the anemones, the daisies, I saw them, but I
+        could not speak to them.
+    The goblin placed his hand upon my mouth, and I was
+        dumb.
+    O take me back to my own groves, I cried, or let me speak.
+    But he threw me off his shoulders in a huff, among the daisies
+        and the cyclamens.
+    Alone among them, but I could not speak.
+    He had tied my tongue, the goblin, and left me there alone.
+    And in front of me, and towards me, and beside me,
+    Walked Allah's fairest cyclamens and anemones.
+    I smell them, and the tears flow down my cheeks;
+    I can not even like the noon-day bulbul
+    Whisper with my wings, salaam!
+    I sit me on a bench and weep.
+    And in my heart I sing
+    O, let me be a burro-boy again;
+    O, let me sleep among the cyclamens
+    Of my own land.
+
+Shades of Whitman! But Whitman, thou Donkey, never weeps. Whitman, if
+that goblin tried to silence him, would have wrung his neck, after he
+had ridden upon it. The above, nevertheless, deserves the space we
+give it here, as it shadows forth one of the essential elements of
+Khalid's spiritual make-up. But this slight symptom of that disease we
+named, this morbidness incident to adolescence, is eventually overcome
+by a dictionary and a grammar. Ay, Khalid henceforth shall cease to
+scour the horizon for that vague something of his dreams; he has
+become far-sighted enough by the process to see the necessity of
+pursuing in America something more spiritual than peddling crosses and
+scapulars. Especially in this America, where the alphabet is spread
+broadcast, and free of charge. And so, he sets himself to the task of
+self-education. He feels the embryo stir within him, and in the
+squeamishness of enceinteship, he asks but for a few of the fruits of
+knowledge. Ah, but he becomes voracious of a sudden, and the little
+pocket dictionary is devoured entirely in three sittings. Hence his
+folly of treating his thoughts and fancies, as he was treated by the
+goblin. For do not words often rob a fancy of its tongue, or a thought
+of its soul? Many of the pieces Khalid wrote when he was devouring
+dictionaries were finally disposed of in a most picturesque manner, as
+we shall relate. And a few were given to Shakib, of which that Dream
+of Cyclamens was preserved.
+
+And Khalid's motto was, "One book at a time." He would not encumber
+himself with books any more than he would with shoes. But that the
+mind might not go barefoot, he always bought a new book before
+destroying the one in hand. Destroying? Yes; for after reading or
+studying a book, he warms his hands upon its flames, this Khalid, or
+makes it serve to cook a pot of _mojadderah_. In this extraordinary
+and outrageous manner, barbarously capricious, he would baptise the
+ideal in the fire of the real. And thus, glowing with health and
+confidence and conceit, he enters another Park from which he escapes
+in the end, sad and wan and bankrupt. Of a truth, many attractions and
+distractions are here; else he could not forget the peddling-box and
+the light-heeled, heavy-haunched women of Battery Park. Here are
+swings for the mind; toboggan-chutes for the soul; merry-go-rounds for
+the fancy; and many devious and alluring paths where one can lose
+himself for years. A sanitarium this for the hebephreniac. And like
+all sanitariums, you go into it with one disease and come out of it
+with ten. Had Shakib been forewarned of Khalid's mind, had he even
+seen him at the gate before he entered, he would have given him a few
+hints about the cross-signs and barbed-cordons therein. But should he
+not have divined that Khalid soon or late was coming? Did _he_ not
+call enough to him, and aloud? "Get thee behind me on this dromedary,"
+our Scribe, reading his Al-Mutanabbi, would often say to his comrade,
+"and come from this desert of barren gold, if but for a day,--come out
+with me to the oasis of poesy."
+
+But Khalid would only ride alone. And so, he begins his course of
+self-education. But how he shall manage it, in this cart-before-the-horse
+fashion, the reader shall know. Words before rules, ideas before
+systems, epigrams before texts,--that is Khalid's fancy. And that
+seems feasible, though not logical; it will prove effectual, too, if one
+finally brushed the text and glanced at the rules. For an epigram,
+when it takes possession of one, goes farther in influencing his
+thoughts and actions than whole tomes of ethical culture science. You
+know perhaps how the Arabs conquered the best half of the world with an
+epigram, a word. And Khalid loves a fine-sounding, easy-flowing word; a
+word of supple joints, so to speak; a word that you can twist and roll
+out, flexible as a bamboo switch, resilient as a fine steel rapier.
+But once Shakib, after reading one of Khalid's first attempts, gets up in
+the night when his friend is asleep, takes from the bottom drawer of the
+peddling-box the evil-working dictionary, and places therein a grammar.
+This touch of delicacy, this fine piece of criticism, brief and neat,
+without words withal, Khalid this time is not slow to grasp and
+appreciate. He plunges, therefore, headlong into the grammar, turns a
+few somersaults in the mazes of Sibawai and Naftawai, and coming out
+with a broken noddle, writes on the door the following: "What do I care
+about your theories of nouns and verbs? Whether the one be derived from
+the other, concerns not me. But this I know, after stumbling once or
+twice in your labyrinths, one comes out parsing the verb, to run.
+Indeed, verbs are more essential than nouns and adjectives. A noun can
+be represented pictorially; but how, pictorially, can you represent a noun
+in motion,--Khalid, for instance, running out of your labyrinths? Even
+an abstract state can be represented in a picture, but a transitive state
+never. The richest language, therefore, is not the one which can boast of
+a thousand names for the lion or two thousand for the camel, but the
+one whose verbs have a complete and perfect gamut of moods and tenses."
+
+That is why, although writing in Arabic, Khalid prefers English. For
+the Arabic verb is confined to three tenses, the primary ones only;
+and to break through any of these in any degree, requires such
+crowbars as only auxiliaries and other verbs can furnish. For this and
+many other reasons Khalid stops short in the mazes of Sibawai, runs
+out of them exasperated, depressed, and never for a long time after
+looks in that direction. He is now curious to know if the English
+language have its Sibawais and Naftawais. And so, he buys him a
+grammar, and there finds the way somewhat devious, too, but not enough
+to constitute a maze. The men who wrote these grammars must have had
+plenty of time to do a little useful work. They do not seem to have
+walked leisurely in flowing robes disserting a life-long dissertation
+on the origin and descent of a preposition. One day Shakib is amazed
+by finding the grammars page by page tacked on the walls of the cellar
+and Khalid pacing around leisurely lingering a moment before each
+page, as if he were in an art gallery. That is how he tackled his
+subject. And that is why he and Shakib begin to quarrel. The idea!
+That a fledgling should presume to pick flaws. To Shakib, who is
+textual to a hair, this is intolerable. And that state of oneness
+between them shall be subject hereafter to "the corrosive action of
+various unfriendly agents." For Khalid, who has never yet been
+snaffled, turns restively from the bit which his friend, for his own
+sake, would put in his mouth. The rupture follows. The two for a while
+wend their way in opposite directions. Shakib still cherishing and
+cultivating his bank account, shoulders his peddling-box and jogs
+along with his inspiring demon, under whose auspices, he tells us, he
+continues to write verse and gull with his brummagems the pious dames
+of the suburbs. And Khalid sits on his peddling-box for hours
+pondering on the necessity of disposing of it somehow. For now he
+scarcely makes more than a few peddling-trips each month, and when he
+returns, he does not go to the bank to add to his balance, but to draw
+from it. That is why the accounts of the two Syrians do not fare
+alike; Shakib's is gaining in weight, Khalid's is wasting away.
+
+Yes, the strenuous spirit is a long time dead in Khalid. He is
+gradually reverting to the Oriental instinct. And when he is not
+loafing in Battery Park, carving his name on the bench, he is
+burrowing in the shelves of some second-hand book-shop or dreaming in
+the dome of some Broadway skyscraper. Does not this seem inevitable,
+however, considering the palingenetic burden within him? And is not
+loafing a necessary prelude to the travail? Khalid, of course, felt
+the necessity of this, not knowing the why and wherefor. And from the
+vast world of paper-bound souls, for he relished but pamphlets at the
+start--they do not make much smoke in the fire, he would say--from
+that vast world he could command the greatest of the great to help him
+support the loafing while. And as by a miracle, he came out of that
+chaos of contending spirits without a scratch. He enjoyed the
+belligerency of pamphleteers as an American would enjoy a prize
+fight. But he sided with no one; he took from every one his best and
+consigned him to Im-Hanna's kitchen. Torquemada could not have done
+better; but Khalid, it is hoped, will yet atone for his crimes.
+
+Monsieur Pascal, with whom he quarrels before he burns, had a
+particular influence upon him. He could not rest after reading his
+"Thoughts" until he read the Bible. And of the Prophets of the Old
+Testament he had an especial liking for Jeremiah and Isaiah. And once
+he bought a cheap print of Jeremiah which he tacked on the wall of his
+cellar. From the Khedivial Library MS. we give two excerpts relating
+to Pascal and this Prophet.
+
+  "O Monsieur Pascal,
+
+  "I tried hard to hate and detest myself, as you advise, and I
+  found that I could not by so doing love God. 'Tis in loving the
+  divine in Man, in me, in you, that we rise to the love of our
+  Maker. And in giving your proofs of the true religion, you speak
+  of the surprising measures of the Christian Faith, enjoining man
+  to acknowledge himself vile, base, abominable, and obliging him
+  at the same time to aspire towards a resemblance of his Maker.
+  Now, I see in this a foreshadowing of the theory of evolution,
+  nay a divine warrant for it. Nor is it the Christian religion
+  alone which unfolds to man the twofold mystery of his nature;
+  others are as dark and as bright on either side of the pole. And
+  Philosophy conspiring with Biology will not consent to the
+  apotheosis of Man, unless he wear on his breast a symbol of his
+  tail.... _Au-revoir_, Monsieur Pascal, Remember me to St.
+  Augustine."
+
+  "O Jeremiah,
+
+  "Thy picture, sitting among the ruins of the City of Zion,
+  appeals to my soul. Why, I know not. It may be because I myself
+  once sat in that posture among the ruins of my native City of
+  Baal. But the ruins did not grieve me as did the uncle who
+  slammed the door in my face that night. True, I wept in the
+  ruins, but not over them. Something else had punctured the
+  bladderets of my tears. And who knows who punctured thine, O
+  Jeremiah? Perhaps a daughter of Tamar had stuck a bodkin in
+  thine eye, and in lamenting thine own fate--Pardon me, O
+  Jeremiah. Melikes not all these tears of thine. Nor did Zion and
+  her children in Juhannam, I am sure.... Instead of a scroll in
+  thy hand, I would have thee hold a harp. Since King David, Allah
+  has not thought of endowing his prophets with musical talent.
+  Why, think what an honest prophet could accomplish if his
+  message were put into music. And withal, if he himself could
+  sing it. Yes, our modern Jeremiahs should all take music
+  lessons; for no matter how deep and poignant our sorrows, we can
+  always rise from them, harp in hand, to an ecstasy, joyous and
+  divine."
+
+Now, connect with this the following from the _Histoire Intime_, and
+you have the complete history of this Prophet in Khalid's cellar. For
+Khalid himself never gives us the facts in the case. Our Scribe,
+however, comes not short in this.
+
+"The picture of the Prophet Jeremiah," writes he, "Khalid hung on the
+wall, above his bed. And every night he would look up to it
+invokingly, muttering I know not what. One evening, while in this
+posture, he took up his lute and trolled a favourite ditty. For three
+days and three nights that picture hung on the wall. And on the
+morning of the fourth day--it was a cold December morning, I
+remember--he took it down and lighted the fire with it. The Pamphlet
+he had read a few days since, he also threw into the fire, and
+thereupon called to me saying, 'Come, Shakib, and warm yourself.'"
+
+And the Pamphlet, we learn, which was thus baptised in the same fire
+with the Prophet's picture, was Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SUMMER AFTERNOON OF A SHAM
+
+
+For two years and more Khalid's young mind went leaping from one swing
+to another, from one carousel or toboggan-chute to the next, without
+having any special object in view, without knowing why and wherefor.
+He even entered such mazes of philosophy, such labyrinths of mysticism
+as put those of the Arabian grammaticasters in the shade. To him,
+education was a sport, pursued in a free spirit after his own fancy,
+without method or discipline. For two years and more he did little but
+ramble thus, drawing meanwhile on his account in the bank, and burning
+pamphlets.
+
+One day he passes by a second-hand book-shop, which is in the
+financial hive of the city, hard by a church and within a stone's
+throw from the Stock Exchange. The owner, a shabby venerable,
+standing there, pipe in mouth, between piles of pamphlets and
+little pyramids of books, attracts Khalid. He too occupies a
+cellar. And withal he resembles the Prophet in the picture which was
+burned with Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_. Nothing in the face at
+least is amiss. A flowing, serrated, milky beard, with a touch of
+gold around the mouth; an aquiline nose; deep set blue eyes canopied
+with shaggy brows; a forehead broad and high; a dome a little frowsy
+but not guilty of a hair--the Prophet Jeremiah! Only one thing, a clay
+pipe which he seldom took out of his mouth except to empty and
+refill, seemed to take from the prophetic solemnity of the face.
+Otherwise, he is as grim and sullen as the Prophet. In his voice,
+however, there is a supple sweetness which the hard lines in his face
+do not express. Khalid nicknames him second-hand Jerry, makes to him
+professions of friendship, and for many months comes every day to
+see him. He comes with his bucket, as he would say, to Jerry's well.
+For the two, the young man and the old man of the cellar, the
+neophite and the master, would chat about literature and the makers
+of it for hours. And what a sea of information is therein under that
+frowsy dome. Withal, second-hand Jerry is a man of ideals and
+abstractions, exhibiting now and then an heretical twist which is
+as agreeable as the vermiculations in a mahogany. "We moderns," said
+he once to Khalid, "are absolutely one-sided. Here, for instance, is
+my book-shop, there is the Church, and yonder is the Stock Exchange.
+Now, the men who frequent them, and though their elbows touch, are
+as foreign to each other as is a jerboa to a polar bear. Those who
+go to Church do not go to the Stock Exchange; those who spend their
+days on the Stock Exchange seldom go to Church; and those who
+frequent my cellar go neither to the one nor the other. That is why
+our civilisation produces so many bigots, so many philistines, so
+many pedants and prigs. The Stock Exchange is as necessary to
+Society as the Church, and the Church is as vital, as essential
+to its spiritual well-being as my book-shop. And not until man
+develops his mental, spiritual and physical faculties to what
+Matthew Arnold calls 'a harmonious perfection,' will he be able to
+reach the heights from which Idealism is waving to him."
+
+Thus would the master discourse, and the neophite, sitting on the
+steps of the cellar, smoking his cigarette, listens, admiring,
+pondering. And every time he comes with his bucket, Jerry would be
+standing there, between his little pyramids of books, pipe in mouth,
+hands in pockets, ready for the discourse. He would also conduct
+through his underworld any one who had the leisure and inclination.
+But fortunately for Khalid, the people of this district are either too
+rich to buy second-hand books, or too snobbish to stop before this
+curiosity shop of literature. Hence the master is never too busy; he
+is always ready to deliver the discourse.
+
+One day Khalid is conducted into the labyrinthine gloom and mould of
+the cellar. Through the narrow isles, under a low ceiling, papered, as
+it were, with pamphlets, between ramparts and mounds of books, old
+Jerry, his head bowed, his lighted taper in hand, proceeds. And Khalid
+follows directly behind, listening to his guide who points out the
+objects and places of interest. And thus, through the alleys and
+by-ways, through the nooks and labyrinths of these underground
+temple-ruins, we get to the rear, where the ramparts and mounds
+crumble to a mighty heap, rising pell-mell to the ceiling. Here, one
+is likely to get a glimpse into such enchanted worlds as the name of
+a Dickens or a Balzac might suggest. Here, too, is Shakespeare in
+lamentable state; there is Carlyle in rags, still crying, as it were,
+against the filth and beastliness of this underworld. And look at my
+lord Tennyson shivering in his nakedness and doomed to keep company
+with the meanest of poetasters. Observe how Emerson is wriggled and
+ruffled in this crushing crowd. Does he not seem to be still sighing
+for a little solitude? But here, too, are spots of the rarest literary
+interest. Close to the vilest of dime novels is an autograph copy of a
+book which you might not find at Brentano's. Indeed, the rarities here
+stand side by side with the superfluities--the abominations with the
+blessings of literature--cluttered together, reduced to a common
+level. And all in a condition which bespeaks the time when they were
+held in the affection of some one. Now, they lie a-mouldering in these
+mounds, and on these shelves, awaiting a curious eye, a kindly hand.
+
+  "To me," writes Khalid in the K. L. MS., "there is always
+  something pathetic in a second-hand book offered again for sale.
+  Why did its first owner part with it? Was it out of disgust or
+  surfeit or penury? Did he throw it away, or give it away, or
+  sell it? Alas, and is this how to treat a friend? Were it not
+  better burned, than sold or thrown away? After coming out of the
+  press, how many have handled this tattered volume? How many has
+  it entertained, enlightened, or perverted? Look at its pages,
+  which evidence the hardship of the journey it has made. Here
+  still is a pressed flower, more convincing in its shrouded
+  eloquence than the philosophy of the pages in which it lies
+  buried. On the fly-leaf are the names of three successive
+  owners, and on the margin are lead pencil notes in which the
+  reader criticises the author. Their spirits are now shrouded
+  together and entombed in this pile, where the mould never fails
+  and the moths never die. They too are fallen a prey to the worms
+  of the earth. A second-hand book-shop always reminds me of a
+  Necropolis. It is a kind of Serapeum where lies buried the kings
+  and princes with the helots and underlings of literature. Ay,
+  every book is a mortuary chamber containing the remains of some
+  poor literary wretch, or some mighty genius.... A book is a
+  friend, my brothers, and when it ceases to entertain or instruct
+  or inspire, it is dead. And would you sell a dead friend, would
+  you throw him away? If you can not keep him embalmed on your
+  shelf, is it not the wiser part, and the kinder, to cremate
+  him?"
+
+And Khalid tells old Jerry, that if every one buying and reading
+books, disposed of them in the end as he himself does, second-hand
+book-shops would no longer exist. But old Jerry never despairs of
+business. And the idea of turning his Serapeum into a kiln does not
+appeal to him. Howbeit, Khalid has other ideas which the old man
+admires, and which he would carry out if the police would not
+interfere. "If I were the owner of this shop," thus the neophite to
+the master, "I would advertise it with a bonfire of pamphlets. I would
+take a few hundreds from that mound there and give them the match
+right in front of that Church, or better still before the Stock
+Exchange. And I would have two sandwich-men stand about the bonfire,
+as high priests of the Temple, and chant the praises of second-hand
+Jerry and his second-hand book-shop. This will be the sacrifice which
+you will have offered to the god of Trade right in front of his
+sanctuary that he might soften the induration in the breasts of these
+worthy citizens, your rich neighbours. And if he does not, why, shut
+up shop or burn it up, and let us go out peddling together."
+
+We do not know, however, whether old Jerry ever adopted Khalid's idea.
+He himself is an Oriental in this sense; and the business is good
+enough to keep up, so long as Khalid comes. He is supremely content.
+Indeed, Shakib asseverates in round Arabic, that the old man of the
+cellar got a good portion of Khalid's balance, while balancing
+Khalid's mind. Nay, firing it with free-thought literature. Are we
+then to consider this cellar as Khalid's source of spiritual
+illumination? And is this genial old heretic an American avatar of the
+monk Bohaira? For Khalid is gradually becoming a man of ideas and
+crotchets. He is beginning to see a purpose in all his literary and
+spiritual rambles. His mental nebulosity is resolving itself into
+something concrete, which shall weigh upon him for a while and propel
+him in the direction of Atheism and Demagogy. For old Jerry once
+visits Khalid in his cellar, and after partaking of a dish of
+_mojadderah_, takes him to a political meeting to hear the popular
+orators of the day.
+
+And in this is ineffable joy for Khalid. Like every young mind he is
+spellbound by one of those masters of spread-eagle oratory, and for
+some time he does not miss a single political meeting in his district.
+We even see him among the crowd before the corner groggery, cheering
+one of the political spouters of the day.
+
+And once he accompanies Jerry to the Temple of Atheism to behold its
+high Priest and hear him chant halleluiah to the Nebular Hypothesis.
+This is wonderful. How easy it is to dereligionise the human race and
+banish God from the Universe! But after the High Priest had done this,
+after he had proven to the satisfaction of every atheist that God is a
+myth, old Jerry turns around and gives Khalid this warning: "Don't
+believe all he says, for I know that atheist well. He is as eloquent
+as he is insincere."
+
+And so are all atheists. For at bottom, atheism is either a fad or a
+trade or a fatuity. And whether the one or the other, it is a sham
+more pernicious than the worst. To the young mind, it is a shibboleth
+of cheap culture; to the shrewd and calculating mind, to such orators
+as Khalid heard, it is a trade most remunerative; and to the
+scientists, or rather monists, it is the aliment with which they
+nourish the perversity of their preconceptions. Second-hand Jerry did
+not say these things to our young philosopher; for had he done so,
+Khalid, now become edacious, would not have experienced those
+dyspeptic pangs which almost crushed the soul-fetus in him. For we are
+told that he is as sedulous in attending these atheistic lectures as
+he is in flocking with his fellow citizens to hear and cheer the idols
+of the stump. Once he took Shakib to the Temple of Atheism, but the
+Poet seems to prefer his _Al-Mutanabby_. In relating of Khalid's
+waywardness he says:
+
+"Ever since we quarrelled about Sibawai, Khalid and I have seldom been
+together. And he had become so opinionated that I was glad it was so.
+Even on Sunday I would leave him alone with Im-Hanna, and returning
+in the evening, I would find him either reading or burning a pamphlet.
+Once I consented to accompany him to one of the lectures he was so
+fond of attending. And I was really surprised that one had to pay
+money for such masquerades of eloquence as were exhibited that night
+on the platform. Yes, it occurred to me that if one had not a dollar
+one could not become an atheist. Billah! I was scandalized. For no
+matter how irreverent one likes to pose, one ought to reverence at
+least his Maker. I am a Christian by the grace of Allah, and my
+ancestors are counted among the martyrs of the Church. And thanks to
+my parents, I have been duly baptized and confirmed. For which I
+respect them the more, and love them. Now, is it not absurd that I
+should come here and pay a hard dollar to hear this heretical
+speechifier insult my parents and my God? Better the ring of
+Al-Mutanabbi's scimitars and spears than the clatter of these
+atheistical bones!"
+
+From which we infer that Shakib was not open to reason on the subject.
+He would draw his friend away from the verge of the abyss at any cost.
+"And this," continues he, "did not require much effort. For Khalid
+like myself is constitutionally incapable of denying God. We are from
+the land in which God has always spoken to our ancestors."
+
+And the argument between the shrewd verse-maker and the foolish
+philosopher finally hinges on this: namely, that these atheists are
+not honest investigators, that in their sweeping generalisations, as
+in their speciosity and hypocrisy, they are commercially perverse.
+And Khalid is not long in deciding about the matter. He meets with an
+accident--and accidents have always been his touchstones of
+success--which saves his soul and seals the fate of atheism.
+
+One evening, returning from a ramble in the Park, he passes by the
+Hall where his favourite Mountebank was to lecture on the Gospel of
+Soap. But not having the price of admittance that evening, and being
+anxious to hear the orator whom he had idolised, Khalid bravely
+appeals to his generosity in this quaint and touching note: "My
+pocket," he wrote, "is empty and my mind is hungry. Might I come to
+your Table to-night as a beggar?" And the man at the stage door, who
+carries the note to the orator, returns in a trice, and tells Khalid
+to lift himself off. Khalid hesitates, misunderstands; and a heavy
+hand is of a sudden upon him, to say nothing of the heavy boot.
+
+Ay, and that boot decided him. Atheism, bald, bold, niggardly, brutal,
+pretending withal, Khalid turns from its door never to look again in
+that direction, Shakib is right. "These people," he growled, "are not
+free thinkers, but free stinkards. They do need soap to wash their
+hearts and souls."
+
+An idea did not come to Khalid, as it were, by instalments. In his
+puerperal pains of mind he was subject to such crises, shaken by such
+downrushes of light, as only the few among mortals experience. (We are
+quoting our Scribe, remember.) And in certain moments he had more
+faith in his instincts than in his reason. "Our instincts," says he,
+"never lie. They are honest, and though they be sometimes blind." And
+here, he seems to have struck the truth. He can be practical too.
+Honesty in thought, in word, in deed--this he would have as the
+cornerstone of his truth. Moral rectitude he places above all the
+cardinal virtues, natural and theological. "Better keep away from the
+truth, O Khalid," he writes, "better remain a stranger to it all thy
+life, if thou must sully it with the slimy fingers of a mercenary
+juggler." Now, these brave words, we can not in conscience criticise.
+But we venture to observe that Khalid must have had in mind that
+Gospel of Soap and the incident at the stage door.
+
+And in this, we, too, rejoice. We, too, forgetting the dignity of our
+position, participate of the revelry in the cellar on this occasion.
+For our editorialship, dear Reader, is neither American nor English.
+We are not bound, therefore, to maintain in any degree the algidity
+and indifference of our confreres' sublime attitude. We rejoice in the
+spiritual safety of Khalid. We rejoice that he and Shakib are now
+reconciled. For the reclaimed runagate is now even permitted to draw
+on the poet's balance at the banker. Ay, even Khalid can dissimulate
+when he needs the cash. For with the assistance of second-hand Jerry
+and the box-office of the atheistical jugglers, he had exhausted his
+little saving. He would not even go out peddling any more. And when
+Shakib asks him one morning to shoulder the box and come out, he
+replies: "I have a little business with it here." For after having
+impeached the High Priests of Atheism he seems to have turned upon
+himself. We translate from the K. L. MS.
+
+"When I was disenchanted with atheism, when I saw somewhat of the
+meanness and selfishness of its protagonists, I began to doubt in
+the honesty of men. If these, our supposed teachers, are so vile,
+so mercenary, so false,--why, welcome Juhannam! But the more I
+doubted in the honesty of men, the more did I believe that honesty
+should be the cardinal virtue of the soul. I go so far in this, that
+an honest thief in my eyes is more worthy of esteem than a canting
+materialist or a hypocritical free thinker. Still, the voice within
+me asked if Shakib were honest in his dealings, if I were honest in
+my peddling? Have I not misrepresented my gewgaws as the atheist
+misrepresents the truth? 'This is made in the Holy Land,'--'This is
+from the Holy Sepulchre'--these lies, O Khalid, are upon you. And
+what is the difference between the jewellery you passed off for gold
+and the arguments of the atheist-preacher? Are they not both
+instruments of deception, both designed to catch the dollar? Yes, you
+have been, O Khalid, as mean, as mercenary, as dishonest as those
+canting infidels.
+
+"And what are you going to do about it? Will you continue, while in
+the quagmires yourself, to point contemptuously at those standing in
+the gutter? Will you, in your dishonesty, dare impeach the honesty of
+men? Are you not going to make a resolution now, either to keep silent
+or to go out of the quagmires and rise to the mountain-heights? Be
+pure yourself first, O Khalid; then try to spread this purity around
+you at any cost.
+
+"Yes; that is why, when Shakib asked me to go out peddling one day, I
+hesitated and finally refused. For atheism, in whose false dry light I
+walked a parasang or two, did not only betray itself to me as a sham,
+but also turned my mind and soul to the sham I had shouldered for
+years. From the peddling-box, therefore, I turned even as I did from
+atheism. Praised be Allah, who, in his providential care, seemed to
+kick me away from the door of its temple. The sham, although effulgent
+and alluring, was as brief as a summer afternoon."
+
+As for the peddling-box, our Scribe will tell of its fate in the
+following Chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN THE TWILIGHT OF AN IDEA
+
+
+It is Voltaire, we believe, who says something to the effect that
+one's mind should be in accordance with one's years. That is why an
+academic education nowadays often fails of its purpose. For whether
+one's mind runs ahead of one's years, or one's years ahead of one's
+mind, the result is much the same; it always goes ill with the mind.
+True, knowledge is power; but in order to feel at home with it, we
+must be constitutionally qualified. And if we are not, it is likely to
+give the soul such a wrenching as to deform it forever. Indeed, how
+many of us go through life with a fatal spiritual or intellectual
+twist which could have been avoided in our youth, were we a little
+less wise. The young _philosophes_, the products of the University
+Machine of to-day, who go about with a nosegay of -isms, as it were,
+in their lapels, and perfume their speech with the bottled logic of
+the College Professor,--are not most of them incapable of honestly and
+bravely grappling with the real problems of life? And does not a
+systematic education mean this, that a young man must go through life
+dragging behind him his heavy chains of set ideas and stock systems,
+political, social, or religious? (Remember, we are translating from
+the Khedivial Library MS.) The author continues:
+
+  "Whether one devour the knowledge of the world in four years
+  or four nights, the process of assimilation is equally
+  hindered, if the mind is sealed at the start with the seal of
+  authority. Ay, we can not be too careful of dogmatic science in
+  our youth; for dogmas often dam certain channels of the soul
+  through which we might have reached greater treasures and
+  ascended to purer heights. A young man, therefore, ought to be
+  let alone. There is an infinite possibility of soul-power in
+  every one of us, if it can be developed freely, spontaneously,
+  without discipline or restraint. There is, too, an infinite
+  possibility of beauty in every soul, if it can be evoked at an
+  auspicious moment by the proper word, the proper voice, the
+  proper touch. That is why I say, Go thy way, O my Brother. Be
+  simple, natural, spontaneous, courageous, free. Neither
+  anticipate your years, nor lag child-like behind them. For
+  verily, it is as ridiculous to dye the hair white as to dye it
+  black. Ah, be foolish while thou art young; it is never too late
+  to be wise. Indulge thy fancy, follow the bent of thy mind;
+  for in so doing thou canst not possibly do thyself more harm
+  than the disciplinarians can do thee. Live thine own life;
+  think thine own thoughts; keep developing and changing until
+  thou arrive at the truth thyself. An ounce of it found by thee
+  were better than a ton given to thee _gratis_ by one who
+  would enslave thee. Go thy way, O my Brother. And if my words
+  lead thee to Juhannam, why, there will be a great surprise for
+  thee. There thou wilt behold our Maker sitting on a flaming
+  glacier waiting for the like of thee. And he will take thee
+  into his arms and poke thee in the ribs, and together you will
+  laugh and laugh, until that glacier become a garden and thou
+  a flower therein. Go thy way, therefore; be not afraid. And no
+  matter how many tears thou sheddest on this side, thou wilt
+  surely be poked in the ribs on the other. Go--thy--but--let
+  Nature be thy guide; acquaint thyself with one or two of her
+  laws ere thou runnest wild."
+
+And to what extent did this fantastic mystic son of a Phoenician
+acquaint himself with Nature's laws, we do not know. But truly, he was
+already running wild in the great cosmopolis of New York. From his
+stivy cellar he issues forth into the plashing, plangent currents of
+city life. Before he does this, however, he rids himself of all the
+encumbrances of peddlery which hitherto have been his sole means of
+support. His little stock of crosses, rosaries, scapulars, false
+jewellery, mother-of-pearl gewgaws, and such like, which he has on the
+little shelf in the cellar, he takes down one morning--but we will let
+our Scribe tell the story.
+
+"My love for Khalid," he writes, "has been severely tried. We could no
+longer agree about anything. He had become such a dissenter that often
+would he take the wrong side of a question if only for the sake of
+bucking. True, he ceased to frequent the cellar of second-hand Jerry,
+and the lectures of the infidels he no longer attended. We were in
+accord about atheism, therefore, but in riotous discord about many
+other things, chief among which was the propriety, the necessity, of
+doing something to replenish his balance at the banker. For he was now
+impecunious, and withal importunate. Of a truth, what I had I was
+always ready to share with him; but for his own good I advised him to
+take up the peddling-box again. I reminded him of his saying once,
+'Peddling is a healthy and profitable business.' 'Come out,' I
+insisted, 'and though it be for the exercise. Walking is the whetstone
+of thought.'
+
+"One evening we quarrelled about this, and Im-Hanna sided with me. She
+rated Khalid, saying, 'You're a good-for-nothing loafer; you don't
+deserve the _mojadderah_ you eat.' And I remember how she took me
+aside that evening and whispered something about books, and Khalid's
+head, and Mar-Kizhayiah.[1] Indeed, Im-Hanna seriously believed that
+Khalid should be taken to Mar-Kizhayiah. She did not know that New
+York was full of such institutions.[2] Her scolding, however, seemed
+to have more effect on Khalid than my reasoning. And consenting to go
+out with me, he got up the following morning, took down his stock from
+the shelf, every little article of it--he left nothing there--and
+packed all into his peddling-box. He then squeezed into the bottom
+drawer, which he had filled with scapulars, the bottle with a little
+of the Stuff in it. For we were in accord about this, that in New York
+whiskey is better than arak. And we both took a nip now and then. So I
+thought the bottle was in order. But why he placed his bank book,
+which was no longer worth a straw, into that bottom drawer, I could
+not guess. With these preparations, however, we shouldered our boxes,
+and in an hour we were in the suburbs. We foot it along then, until we
+reach a row of cottages not far from the railway station. 'Will you
+knock at one of these doors,' I asked. And he, 'I do not feel like
+chaffering and bargaining this morning.' 'Why then did you come out,'
+I urged. And he, in an air of nonchalance, 'Only for the walk.' And
+so, we pursued our way in the Bronx, until we reached one of our
+favourite spots, where a sycamore tree seemed to invite us to its
+ample shade.
+
+"Here, Khalid, absent-minded, laid down his box and sat upon it, and I
+stretched my limbs on the grass. But of a sudden, he jumped up, opened
+the bottom drawer of his case, and drew from it the bottle. It is
+quite in order now, I mused; but ere I had enjoyed the thought, Khalid
+had placed his box at a little distance, and, standing there beside
+it, bottle in hand, delivered himself in a semi-solemn, semi-mocking
+manner of the following: 'This is the oil,' I remember him saying,
+'with which I anoint thee--the extreme unction I apply to thy soul.'
+And he poured the contents of the bottle into the bottom drawer and
+over the box, and applied to it a match. The bottle was filled with
+kerosene, and in a jiffy the box was covered with the flame. Yes; and
+so quickly, so neatly it was done, that I could not do aught to
+prevent it. The match was applied to what I thought at first was
+whiskey, and I was left in speechless amazement. He would not even
+help me to save a few things from the fire. I conjured him in the name
+of Allah, but in vain. I clamoured and remonstrated, but to no
+purpose. And when I asked him why he had done this, he asked me in
+reply, 'And why have you not done the same? Now, methinks I deserve my
+_mojadderah_. And not until you do likewise, will you deserve yours, O
+Shakib. Here are the lies, now turned to ashes, which brought me my
+bread and are still bringing you yours. Here are our instruments of
+deception, our poisoned sources of lucre. I am most happy now, O
+Shakib. And I shall endeavour to keep my blood in circulation by
+better, purer means.' And he took me thereupon by the shoulders,
+looked into my face, then pushed me away, laughing the laugh of the
+hasheesh-smokers.
+
+"Indeed, Im-Hanna was right. Khalid had become too odd, too queer to
+be sane. Needless to say, I was not prone to follow his example at
+that time. Nor am I now. _Mashallah!_ Lacking the power and madness to
+set fire to the whole world, it were folly, indeed, to begin with
+one's self. I believe I had as much right to exaggerate in peddling as
+I had in writing verse. My license to heighten the facts holds good in
+either case. And to some extent, every one, a poet be he or a cobbler,
+enjoys such a license. I told Khalid that the logical and most
+effective course to pursue, in view of his rigorous morality, would be
+to pour a gallon of kerosene over his own head and fire himself out of
+existence. For the instruments of deception and debasement are not in
+the peddling-box, but rather in his heart. No; I did not think
+peddling was as bad as other trades. Here at least, the means of
+deception were reduced to a minimum. And of a truth, if everybody were
+to judge themselves as strictly as Khalid, who would escape burning?
+So I turned from him that day fully convinced that my little stock of
+holy goods was innocent, and my balance at the banker's was as pure as
+my rich neighbour's. And he turned from me fully convinced, I believe,
+that I was an unregenerate rogue. Ay, and when I was knocking at the
+door of one of my customers, he was walking away briskly, his hands
+clasped behind his back, and his eyes, as usual, scouring the
+horizon."
+
+And on that horizon are the gilded domes and smoking chimneys of the
+seething city. Leaving his last friend and his last burden behind, he
+will give civilised life another trial. Loafer and tramp that he is!
+For even the comforts of the grand cable-railway he spurns, and foots
+it from the Bronx down to his cellar near Battery Park, thus cutting
+the city in half and giving one portion to Izraeil and the other to
+Iblis. But not being quite ready himself for either of these winged
+Furies, he keeps to his cellar. He would tarry here a while, if but to
+carry out a resolution he has made. True, Khalid very seldom resolves
+upon anything; but when he does make a resolution, he is even willing
+to be carried off by the effort to carry it out. And now, he would
+solve this problem of earning a living in the great city by honest
+means. For in the city, at least, success well deserves the
+compliments which those who fail bestow upon it. What Montaigne said
+of greatness, therefore, Khalid must have said of success. If we can
+not attain it, let us denounce it. And in what terms does he this, O
+merciful Allah! We translate a portion of the apostrophe in the K. L.
+MS., and not the bitterest, by any means.
+
+"O Success," the infuriated failure exclaims, "how like the Gorgon of
+the Arabian Nights thou art! For does not every one whom thou favorest
+undergo a pitiful transformation even from the first bedding with
+thee? Does not everything suffer from thy look, thy touch, thy breath?
+The rose loses its perfume, the grape-vine its clusters, the bulbul
+its wings, the dawn its light and glamour. O Success, our lords of
+power to-day are thy slaves, thy helots, our kings of wealth. Every
+one grinds for thee, every one for thee lives and dies.... Thy palaces
+of silver and gold are reared on the souls of men. Thy throne is
+mortised with their bones, cemented with their blood. Thou ravenous
+Gorgon, on what bankruptcies thou art fed, on what failures, on what
+sorrows! The railroads sweeping across the continents and the steamers
+ploughing through the seas, are laden with sacrifices to thee. Ay, and
+millions of innocent children are torn from their homes and from their
+schools to be offered to thee at the sacrificial-stone of the
+Factories and Mills. The cultured, too, and the wise, are counted
+among thy slaves. Even the righteous surrender themselves to thee and
+are willing to undergo that hideous transformation. O Success, what an
+infernal litany thy votaries and high-priests are chanting to thee....
+Thou ruthless Gorgon, what crimes thou art committing, and what crimes
+are being committed in thy name!"
+
+From which it is evident that Khalid does not wish for success. Khalid
+is satisfied if he can maintain his hold on the few spare feet he has
+in the cellar, and continue to replenish his little store of lentils
+and olive oil. For he would as lief be a victim of success, he assures
+us, as to forego his _mojadderah_. And still having this, which he
+considers a luxury, he is willing to turn his hand at anything, if he
+can but preserve inviolate the integrity of his soul and the freedom
+of his mind. These are a few of the pet terms of Khalid. And in as
+much as he can continue to repeat them to himself, he is supremely
+content. He can be a menial, if while cringing before his superiors,
+he were permitted to chew on his pet illusions. A few days before he
+burned his peddling-box, he had read Epictetus. And the thought that
+such a great soul maintained its purity, its integrity, even in bonds,
+encouraged and consoled him. "How can they hurt me," he asks, "if
+spiritually I am far from them, far above them? They can do no more
+than place gilt buttons on my coat and give me a cap to replace this
+slouch. Therefore, I will serve. I will be a slave, even like
+Epictetus."
+
+And here we must interpose a little of our skepticism, if but to
+gratify an habitual craving in us. We do not doubt that Khalid's
+self-sufficiency is remarkable; that his courage--on paper--is quite
+above the common; that the grit and stay he shows are wonderful; that
+his lofty aspirations, so indomitable in their onwardness, are great:
+but we only ask, having thus fortified his soul, how is he to fortify
+his stomach? He is going to work, to be a menial, to earn a living by
+honest means? Ah, Khalid, Khalid! Did you not often bestow a furtive
+glance on some one else's checkbook? Did you not even exercise therein
+your skill in calculation? If the bank, where Shakib deposits his
+little saving, failed, would you be so indomitable, so dogged in your
+resolution? Would you not soften a trifle, loosen a whit, if only for
+the sake of your blood-circulation?
+
+Indeed, Shakib has become a patron to Khalid. Shakib the poet, who
+himself should have a patron, is always ready to share his last dollar
+with his loving, though cantankerous friend. And this, in spite of all
+the disagreeable features of a friendship which in the Syrian Colony
+was become proverbial. But Khalid now takes up the newspapers and
+scans the Want Columns for hours. The result being a clerkship in a
+lawyer's office. Nay, an apprenticeship; for the legal profession, it
+seems, had for a while engaged his serious thoughts.
+
+And this of all the professions is the one on which he would graft his
+scion of lofty morality? Surely, there be plenty of fuel for a
+conflagration in a lawyer's office. Such rows of half-calf tomes, such
+piles of legal documents, all designed to combat dishonesty and fraud,
+"and all immersed in them, and nourished and maintained by them." In
+what a sorry condition will your Morality issue out of these bogs! A
+lawyer's clerk, we are informed, can not maintain his hold on his
+clerkship, if he does not learn to blink. That is why Khalid is not
+long in serving papers, copying summonses, and searching title-deeds.
+In this lawyer's office he develops traits altogether foreign to his
+nature. He even becomes a quidnunc, prying now and then into the
+personal affairs of his superiors. Ay, and he dares once to suggest to
+his employer a new method of dealing with the criminals among his
+clients. Withal, Khalid is slow, slower than the law itself. If he
+goes out to serve a summons he does not return for a day. If he is
+sent to search title-deeds, he does not show up in the office for a
+week. And often he would lose himself in the Park surrounding the
+Register's Office, pondering on his theory of immanent morality. He
+would sit down on one of those benches, which are the anchors of
+loafers of another type, his batch of papers beside him, and watch the
+mad crowds coming and going, running, as it were, between two fires.
+These puckered people are the living, moving chambers of sleeping
+souls.
+
+Khalid was always glad to come to this Register's Office. For though
+the searching of title-deeds be a mortal process, the loafing margin
+of the working hour could be extended imperceptibly, and without
+hazarding his or his employer's interest. The following piece of
+speculative fantasy and insight must have been thought out when he
+should have been searching title-deeds.
+
+"This Register's Office," it is written in the K. L. MS., "is the very
+bulwark of Society. It is the foundation on which the Trust Companies,
+the Courts, and the Prisons are reared. Your codes are blind without
+the miraculous torches which this Office can light. Your judges can
+not propound the 'laur'--I beg your pardon, the law--without the aid
+of these musty, smelling, dilapidated tomes. Ay, these are the very
+constables of the realm, and without them there can be no realm, no
+legislators, and no judges. Strong, club-bearing constables, these
+Liebers, standing on the boundary lines, keeping peace between
+brothers and neighbours.
+
+"Here, in these Liebers is an authority which never fails, never
+dies--an authority which willy-nilly we obey and in which we place
+unbounded trust. In any one of these Registers is a potentiality which
+can always worst the quibbles and quiddities of lawyers and ward off
+the miserable technicalities of the law. Any of them, when called
+upon, can go into court and dictate to the litigants and the
+attorneys, the jury and the judge. They are the deceased witnesses
+come to life. And without them, the judges are helpless, the marshals
+and sheriffs too. Ay, and what without them would be the state of our
+real-estate interests? Abolish your constabulary force, and your
+police force, and with these muniments of power, these dumb but
+far-seeing agents of authority and intelligence, you could still
+maintain peace and order. But burn you this Register's Office, and
+before the last Lieber turn to ashes, ere the last flame of the
+conflagration die out, you will have to call forth, not only your fire
+squads, but your police force and even your soldiery, to extinguish
+other fires different in nature, but more devouring--and as many of
+them as there are boundary lines in the land."
+
+And we now come to the gist of the matter.
+
+  "What wealth of moral truth," he continues, "do we find in these
+  greasy, musty pages. When one deeds a piece of property, he
+  deeds with it something more valuable, more enduring. He deeds
+  with it an undying human intelligence which goes down to
+  posterity, saying, Respect my will; believe in me; and convey
+  this respect and this belief to your offspring. Ay, the immortal
+  soul breathes in a deed as in a great book. And the implicit
+  trust we place in a musty parchment, is the mystic outcome of
+  the blind faith, or rather the far-seeing faith which our
+  ancestors had in the morality and intelligence of coming
+  generations. For what avails their deeds if they are not
+  respected?... We are indebted to our forbears, therefore, not
+  for the miserable piece of property they bequeath us, but for
+  the confidence and trust, the faith and hope they had in our
+  innate or immanent morality and intelligence. The will of the
+  dead is law for the living."
+
+Are we then to look upon Khalid as having come out of that Office with
+soiled fingers only? Or has the young philosopher abated in his
+clerkship the intensity of his moral views? Has he not assisted his
+employer in the legal game of quieting titles? Has he not acquired a
+little of the delusive plausibilities of lawyers? Shakib throws no
+light on these questions. We only know that the clerkship or rather
+apprenticeship was only held for a season. Indeed, Khalid must have
+recoiled from the practice. Or in his recklessness, not to say
+obtrusion, he must have been outrageous enough to express in the
+office of the honourable attorney, or in the neighbourhood thereof,
+his views about pettifogging and such like, that the said honourable
+attorney was under the painful necessity of asking him to stay home.
+Nay, the young Syrian was discharged. Or to put it in a term adequate
+to the manner in which this was done, he was "fired." Now, Khalid
+betakes him back to his cellar, and thrumming his lute-strings, lights
+up the oppressive gloom with Arabic song and music.
+
+-----
+
+ [1] A monastery in Mt. Lebanon, a sort of Bedlam, where the
+     exorcising monks beat the devil out of one's head with clouted
+     shoes.--EDITOR.
+
+ [2] And the doctors here practise in the name of science what
+     the exorcising monks practise in the name of religion. The poor
+     devil, or patient, in either case is done to death.--EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WITH THE HURIS
+
+
+From the house of law the dervish Khalid wends his way to that of
+science, and from the house of science he passes on to that of
+metaphysics. His staff in hand, his wallet hung on his shoulder, his
+silver cigarette case in his pocket, patient, confident, content, he
+makes his way from one place to another. Unlike his brother dervishes,
+he is clean and proud of it, too. He knocks at this or that door,
+makes his wish known to the servant or the mistress, takes the crumbs
+given him, and not infrequently gives his prod to the dogs. In the
+vestibule of one of the houses of spiritism, he tarries a spell and
+parleys with the servant. The Mistress, a fair-looking, fair-spoken
+dame of seven lustrums or more, issues suddenly from her studio, in a
+curiously designed black velvet dressing-gown; she is drawn to the
+door by the accent of the foreigner's speech and the peculiar cadence
+of his voice. They meet: and magnetic currents from his dark eyes and
+her eyes of blue, flow and fuse. They speak: and the lady asks the
+stranger if he would not serve instead of begging. And he protests, "I
+am a Dervish at the door of Allah." "And I am a Spirit in Allah's
+house," she rejoins. They enter: and the parley in the vestibule is
+followed by a tete-a-tete in the parlour and another in the
+dining-room. They agree: and the stranger is made a member of the
+Spiritual Household, which now consists of her and him, the Medium and
+the Dervish.
+
+Now, this fair-spoken dame, who dotes on the occult and exotic,
+delights in the aroma of Khalid's cigarettes and Khalid's fancy. And
+that he might feel at ease, she begins by assuring him that they have
+met and communed many times ere now, that they have been friends under
+a preceding and long vanished embodiment. Which vagary Khalid seems to
+countenance by referring to the infinite power of Allah, in the
+compass of which nothing is impossible. And with these mystical
+circumlocutions of ceremony, they plunge into an intimacy which is
+bordered by the metaphysical on one side, and the physical on the
+other. For though the Medium is at the threshold of her climacteric,
+Khalid afterwards tells Shakib that there be something in her eyes and
+limbs which always seem to be waxing young. And of a truth, the
+American woman, of all others, knows best how to preserve her beauty
+from the ravages of sorrow and the years. That is why, we presume, in
+calling him, "child," she does not permit him to call her, "mother."
+Indeed, the Medium and the Dervish often jest, and somewhiles mix the
+frivolous with the mysterious.
+
+We would still follow our Scribe here, were it not that his pruriency
+often reaches the edge. He speaks of "the _liaison_" with all the rude
+simplicity and frankness of the Arabian Nights. And though, as the
+Mohammedans say, "To the pure everything is pure," and again, "Who
+quotes a heresy is not guilty of it"; nevertheless, we do not feel
+warranted in rending the veil of the reader's prudery, no matter how
+transparent it might be. We believe, however, that the pruriency of
+Orientals, like the prudery of Occidentals, is in fact only an
+appearance. On both sides there is a display of what might be called
+verbal virtue and verbal vice. And on both sides, the exaggerations
+are configured in a harmless pose. Be this as it may, we at least,
+shall withhold from Shakib's lasciviousness the English dress it seeks
+at our hand.
+
+We note, however, that Khalid now visits him in the cellar only when
+he craves a dish of _mojadderah_; that he and the Medium are absorbed
+in the contemplation of the Unseen, though not, perhaps, of the
+Impalpable; that they gallivant in the Parks, attend Bohemian dinners,
+and frequent the Don't Worry Circles of Metaphysical Societies; that
+they make long expeditions together to the Platonic North-pole and
+back to the torrid regions of Swinburne; and that together they
+perform their _zikr_ and drink at the same fountain of ecstasy and
+devotion. Withal, the Dervish, who now wears his hair long and grows
+his finger nails like a Brahmin, is beginning to have some manners.
+
+The Medium, nevertheless, withholds from him the secret of her art. If
+he desires, he can attend the seances like every other stranger. Once
+Khalid, who would not leave anything unprobed, insisted, importuned;
+he could not see any reason for her conduct. Why should they not work
+together in Tiptology, as in Physiology and Metaphysics? And one
+morning, dervish-like, he wraps himself in his _aba_, and, calling
+upon Allah to witness, takes a rose from the vase on the table,
+angrily plucks its petals, and strews them on the carpet. Which
+portentous sign the Medium understands and hastens to minister her
+palliatives.
+
+"No, Child, you shall not go," she begs and supplicates; "listen to
+me, are we not together all the time? Why not leave me alone then with
+the spirits? One day you shall know all, believe me. Come, sit here,"
+stroking her palm on her lap, "and listen. I shall give up this
+tiptology business very soon; you and I shall overturn the table. Yes,
+Child, I am on the point of succumbing under an awful something. So,
+don't ask me about the spooks any more. Promise not to torment me thus
+any more. And one day we shall travel together in the Orient; we shall
+visit the ruins of vanished kingdoms and creeds. Ah, to be in Palmyra
+with you! Do you know, Child, I am destined to be a Beduin queen. The
+throne of Zenobia is mine, and yours too, if you will be good. We
+shall resuscitate the glory of the kingdom of the desert."
+
+To all of which Khalid acquiesces by referring as is his wont to the
+infinite wisdom of Allah, in whose all-seeing eye nothing is
+impossible.
+
+And thus, apparently satisfied, he takes the cigarette which she had
+lighted for him, and lights for her another from his own. But the
+smoke of two cigarettes dispels not the threatening cloud; it only
+conceals it from view. For they dine together at a Bohemian Club that
+evening, where Khalid meets a woman of rare charms. And she invites
+him to her studio. The Medium, who is at first indifferent, finally
+warns her callow child. "That woman is a writer," she explains, "and
+writers are always in search of what they call 'copy.' She in
+particular is a huntress of male curiosities, _originales_, whom she
+takes into her favour and ultimately surrenders them to the reading
+public. So be careful." But Khalid hearkens not. For the writer, whom
+he afterwards calls a flighter, since she, too, "like the van of the
+brewer only skims the surface of things," is, in fact, younger than
+the Medium. Ay, this woman is even beautiful--to behold, at least. So
+the Dervish, a captive of her charms, knocks at the door of her studio
+one evening and enters. Ah, this then is a studio! "I am destined to
+know everything, and to see everything," he says to himself, smiling
+in his heart.
+
+The charming hostess, in a Japanese kimono receives him somewhat
+orientally, offering him the divan, which he occupies alone for a
+spell. He is then laden with a huge scrap-book containing press
+notices and reviews of her many novels. These, he is asked to go
+through while she prepares the tea. Which is a mortal task for the
+Dervish in the presence of the Enchantress. Alas, the tea is long in
+the making, and when the scrap-book is laid aside, she reinforces him
+with a lot of magazines adorned with stories of the short and long and
+middling size, from her fertile pen. "These are beautiful," says he,
+in glancing over a few pages, "but no matter how you try, you can not
+with your pen surpass your own beauty. The charm of your literary
+style can not hold a candle to the charm of your--permit me to read
+your hand." And laying down the magazine, he takes up her hand and
+presses it to his lips. In like manner, he tries to read somewhat in
+the face, but the Enchantress protests and smiles. In which case the
+smile renders the protest null and void.
+
+Henceforth, the situation shall be trying even to the Dervish who can
+eat live coals. He oscillates for some while between the Medium and
+the Enchantress, but finds the effort rather straining. The first
+climax, however, is reached, and our Scribe thinks it too sad for
+words. He himself sheds a few rheums with the fair-looking,
+fair-spoken Dame, and dedicates to her a few rhymes. Her magnanimity,
+he tells us, is unexampled, and her fatalism pathetic. For when Khalid
+severs himself from the Spiritual Household, she kisses him thrice,
+saying, "Go, Child; Allah brought you to me, and Allah will bring you
+again." Khalid refers, as usual, to the infinite wisdom of the
+Almighty, and, taking his handkerchief from his pocket, wipes the
+tears that fell--from her eyes over his. He passes out of the
+vestibule, silent and sad, musing on the time he first stood there as
+a beggar.
+
+Now, the horizon of the Enchantress is unobstructed. Khalid is there
+alone; and her free love can freely pass on from him to another. And
+such messages they exchange! Such evaporations of the insipidities of
+free love! Khalid again takes up with Shakib, from whom he does not
+conceal anything. The epistles are read by both, and sometimes replied
+to by both! And she, in an effort to seem Oriental, calls the
+Dervish, "My Syrian Rose," "My Desert Flower," "My Beduin Boy," et
+cetera, always closing her message with either a strip of Syrian sky
+or a camel load of the narcissus. Ah, but not thus will the play
+close. True, Khalid alone adorns her studio for a time, or rather
+adores in it; he alone accompanies her to Bohemia. But the Dervish,
+who was always going wrong in Bohemia,--always at the door of the
+Devil,--ventures one night to escort another woman to her studio. Ah,
+those studios! The Enchantress on hearing of the crime lights the fire
+under her cauldron. "Double, double, toil and trouble!" She then goes
+to the telephone--g-r-r-r-r you swine--you Phoenician murex--she hangs
+up the receiver, and stirs the cauldron. "Double, double, toil and
+trouble!" But the Dervish writes her an extraordinary letter, in which
+we suspect the pen of our Scribe, and from which we can but transcribe
+the following:
+
+  "You found in me a vacant heart," he pleads, "and you occupied
+  it. The divan therein is yours, yours alone. Nor shall I ever
+  permit a chance caller, an intruder, to exasperate you.... My
+  breast is a stronghold in which you are well fortified. How then
+  can any one disturb you?... How can I turn from myself against
+  myself? Somewhat of you, the best of you, circulates with my
+  blood; you are my breath of life. How can I then overcome you?
+  How can I turn to another for the sustenance which you alone can
+  give?... If I be thirst personified, you are the living, flowing
+  brook, the everlasting fountain. O for a drink--"
+
+And here follows a hectic uprush about pearly breasts, and
+honey-sources, and musk-scented arbours, closing with "Your Beduin Boy
+shall come to-night."
+
+Notwithstanding which, the Enchantress abandons the Syrian Dwelling:
+she no longer fancies the vacant Divan of which Khalid speaks.
+Fortress or no fortress, she gives up occupation and withdraws from
+the foreigner her favour. Not only that; but the fire is crackling
+under the cauldron, and the typewriter begins to click. Ay, these
+modern witches can make even a typewriter dance around the fire and
+join in the chorus. "Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and
+cauldron bubble!" and the performance was transformed from the studio
+to the magazine supplement of one of the Sunday newspapers. There, the
+Dervish is thrown into the cauldron along with the magic herbs.
+Bubble--bubble. The fire-eating Dervish, how can he now swallow this
+double-tongued flame of hate and love? The Enchantress had wrought her
+spell, had ministered her poison. Now, where can he find an antidote,
+who can teach him a healing formula? Bruno D'Ast was once bewitched by
+a sorceress, and by causing her to be burned he was immediately cured.
+Ah, that Khalid could do this! Like an ordinary pamphlet he would
+consign the Enchantress to the flames, and her scrap-books and novels
+to boot. He does well, however, to return to his benevolent friend,
+the Medium. The spell can be counteracted by another, though less
+potent. Ay, even witchcraft has its homeopathic remedies.
+
+And the Medium, Shakib tells us, is delighted to welcome back her
+prodigal child. She opens to him her arms, and her heart; she slays
+the fatted calf. "I knew that Allah will bring you back to me," she
+ejaculates; "my prevision is seldom wrong." And kissing her hand,
+Khalid falters, "Forgiveness is for the sinner, and the good are for
+forgiveness." Whereupon, they plunge again into the Unseen, and thence
+to Bohemia. The aftermath, however, does not come up to the
+expectations of the good Medium. For the rigmarole of the Enchantress
+about the Dervish in New York had already done its evil work.
+And--double--double--wherever the Dervish goes. Especially in Bohemia,
+where many of its daughters set their caps for him.
+
+And here, he is neither shy nor slow nor visionary. Nor shall his
+theory of immanent morality trouble him for the while. Reality is met
+with reality on solid, though sometimes slippery, ground. His
+animalism, long leashed and starved, is eager for prey. His Phoenician
+passion is awake. And fortunately, Khalid finds himself in Bohemia
+where the poison and the antidote are frequently offered together.
+Here the spell of one sorceress can straightway be offset by that of
+her sister. And we have our Scribe's word for it, that the Dervish
+went as far and as deep with the huris, as the doctors eventually
+would permit him. That is why, we believe, in commenting upon his
+adventures there, he often quotes the couplet,
+
+    "In my sublunar paradise
+     There's plenty of honey--and plenty of flies."
+
+The flies in his cup, however, can not be detected with the naked
+eye. They are microbes rather--microbes which even the physicians can
+not manage with satisfaction. For it must be acknowledged that
+Khalid's immanent morality and intellectualism suffered an interregnum
+with the huris. Reckless, thoughtless, heartless, he plunges headlong
+again. It is said in Al-Hadith that he who guards himself against the
+three cardinal evils, namely, of the tongue (_laklaka_), of the
+stomach (_kabkaba_), and of the sex (_zabzaba_), will have guarded
+himself against all evil. But Khalid reads not in the Hadith of the
+Prophet. And that he became audacious, edacious, and loquacious, is
+evident from such wit and flippancy as he here likes to display. "Some
+women," says he, "might be likened to whiskey, others to seltzer
+water; and many are those who, like myself, care neither for the soda
+or the whiskey straight. A 'high-ball' I will have."
+
+Nay, he even takes to punch; for in his cup of amour there is a subtle
+and multifarious mixture. With him, he himself avows, one woman
+complemented another. What the svelte brunette, for instance, lacked,
+the steatopygous blonde amply supplied. Delicacy and intensity,
+effervescence and depth, these he would have in a woman, or a hareem,
+as in anything else. But these excellences, though found in a hareem,
+will not fuse, as in a poem or a picture. Even thy bones, thou scented
+high-lacquered Dervish, are likely to melt away before they melt into
+one.
+
+It is written in the K. L. MS. that women either bore, or inspire, or
+excite. "The first and the last are to be met with anywhere; but the
+second? Ah, well you have heard the story of Diogenes. So take up your
+lamp and come along. But remember, when you do meet the woman that
+inspires, you will begin to yearn for the woman that excites."
+
+And here, the hospitality of the Dervish does not belie his Arab
+blood. In Bohemia, the bonfire of his heart was never extinguished,
+and the wayfarers stopping before his tent, be they of those who
+bored, or excited, or inspired, were welcome guests for at least three
+days and nights. And in this he follows the rule of hospitality among
+his people.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SECOND
+
+IN THE TEMPLE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO NATURE
+
+_O Mother eternal, divine, satanic, all encompassing, all-nourishing,
+all-absorbing, O star-diademed, pearl-sandaled Goddess, I am thine
+forever and ever: whether as a child of thy womb, or an embodiment of
+a spirit-wave of thy light, or a dumb blind personification of thy
+smiles and tears, or an ignis-fatuus of the intelligence that is in
+thee or beyond thee, I am thine forever and ever: I come to thee, I
+prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. O
+touch me with thy wand divine again; stir me once more in thy
+mysterious alembics; remake me to suit the majestic silence of thy
+hills, the supernal purity of thy sky, the mystic austerity of thy
+groves, the modesty of thy slow-swelling, soft-rolling streams, the
+imperious pride of thy pines, the wild beauty and constancy of thy
+mountain rivulets. Take me in thine arms, and whisper to me of thy
+secrets; fill my senses with thy breath divine; show me the bottom of
+thy terrible spirit; buffet me in thy storms, infusing in me of thy
+ruggedness and strength, thy power and grandeur; lull me in thine
+autumn sun-downs to teach me in the arts that enrapture, exalt,
+supernaturalise. Sing me a lullaby, O Mother eternal! Give me to drink
+of thy love, divine and diabolic; thy cruelty and thy kindness, I
+accept both, if thou wilt but whisper to me the secret of both. Anoint
+me with the chrism of spontaneity that I may be ever worthy of
+thee.--Withdraw not from me thy hand, lest universal love and sympathy
+die in my breast.--I implore thee, O Mother eternal, O sea-throned,
+heaven-canopied Goddess, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender
+myself wholly to thee. And whether I be to-morrow the censer in the
+hand of thy High Priest, or the incense in the censer,--whether I
+become a star-gem in thy cestus or a sun in thy diadem or even a
+firefly in thy fane, I am content. For I am certain that it shall be
+for the best._--KHALID.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DOWRY OF DEMOCRACY
+
+
+Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq, generally have a broad margin
+wherein a separate work, independent of the text, adds gloom to the
+page. We have before us one of these tomes in which the text treats of
+the ethics of life and religion, and the margins are darkened with
+certain adventures which Shahrazad might have added to her famous
+Nights. The similarity between Khalid's life in its present stage and
+some such book, is evident. Nay, he has been so assiduous in writing
+the marginal Work, that ever since he set fire to his peddling-box, we
+have had little in the Text worth transcribing. Nothing, in fact; for
+many pages back are as blank as the evil genius of Bohemia could wish
+them. And how could one with that mara upon him, write of the ethics
+of life and religion?
+
+Al-Hamazani used to say that in Jorajan the man from Khorasan must
+open thrice his purse: first, to pay for the rent; second, for the
+food; and third, for his coffin. And so, in Khalid's case, at least,
+is Bohemia. For though the purse be not his own, he was paying dear,
+and even in advance, in what is dearer than gold, for his experience.
+"O, that the Devil did not take such interest in the marginal work of
+our life! Why should we write it then, and for whom? And how will it
+fare with us when, chapfallen in the end and mortified, we stand
+before the great Task-Master like delinquent school boys with a blank
+text in our hands?" (Thus Shakib, who has caught the moralising evil
+from his Master.) And that we must stand, and fall, for thus standing,
+he is quite certain. At least, Khalid is. For he would not return to
+the Text to make up for the blank pages therein, if he were not.
+
+"When he returned from his last sojourn in Bohemia," writes our
+Scribe, "Khalid was pitiful to behold. Even Sindbad, had he seen him,
+would have been struck with wonder. The tears rushed to my eyes when
+we embraced; for instead of Khalid I had in my arms a phantom. And I
+could not but repeat the lines of Al-Mutanabbi,
+
+    "So phantom-like I am, and though so near,
+     If I spoke not, thou wouldst not know I'm here."
+
+""No more voyages, I trust, O thou Sindbad." And he replied, "Yes, one
+more; but to our dear native land this time." In fact, I, too, was
+beginning to suffer from nostalgia, and was much desirous of returning
+home." But Shakib is in such a business tangle that he could not
+extricate himself in a day. So, they tarry another year in New York,
+the one meanwhile unravelling his affairs, settling with his creditors
+and collecting what few debts he had, the other brooding over the few
+blank pages in his Text.
+
+One day he receives a letter from a fellow traveller, a distinguished
+citizen of Tammany Land, whom he had met and befriended in Bohemia,
+relating to an enterprise of great pith and moment. It was election
+time, we learn, and the high post of political canvasser of the Syrian
+District was offered to Khalid for a consideration of--but the letter
+which Shakib happily preserved, we give in full.
+
+  "Dear Khalid:
+
+  "I have succeeded in getting Mr. O'Donohue to appoint you a
+  canvasser of the Syrian District. You must stir yourself,
+  therefore, and try to do some good work, among the Syrian
+  voters, for Democracy's Candidate this campaign. Here is a
+  chance which, with a little hustling on your part, will
+  materialise. And I see no reason why you should not try to cash
+  your influence among your people. This is no mean position, mind
+  you. And if you will come up to the Wigwam to-morrow, I'll give
+  you a few suggestions on the business of manipulating votes.
+
+                                 "Yours truly,
+                                     "PATRICK HOOLIHAN."
+
+And the said Mr. Hoolihan, the letter shows, is Secretary to
+Mr. O'Donohue, who is first henchman to the Boss. Such a letter,
+if luckily misunderstood, will fire for a while the youthful
+imagination. No; not his Shamrag Majesty's Tammany Agent to
+Syria, this Canvassership, you poor phantom-like zany! A high
+post, indeed, you fond and pitiful dreamer, on which you must
+hang the higher aspirations of your soul, together with your
+theory of immanent morality. You would not know this at first. You
+would still kiss the official notification of Mr. Hoolihan, and
+hug it fondly to your breast. Very well. At last--and the gods
+will not damn thee for musing--you will stand in the band-wagon
+before the corner groggery and be the object of the admiration of
+your fellow citizens--perhaps of missiles, too. Very well, Khalid;
+but you must shear that noddle of thine, and straightway, for the
+poets are potted in Tammany Land. We say this for your sake.
+
+The orator-dream of youth, ye gods, shall it be realised in this
+heaven of a dray-cart with its kerosene torch and its drum, smelling
+and sounding rather of Juhannam? Surely, from the Table of Bohemia to
+the Stump in Tammany Land, is a far cry. But believe us, O Khalid, you
+will wish you were again in the gardens of Proserpine, when the
+silence and darkness extinguish the torch and the drum and the echoes
+of the shouting crowds. The headaches are certain to follow this
+inebriation. You did not believe Shakib; you would not be admonished;
+you would go to the Wigwam for your portfolio. "_High post_,"
+"_political canvasser_," "_manipulation of votes_," you will know the
+exact meaning of these esoteric terms, when, alas, you meet Mr.
+Hoolihan. For you must know that not every one you meet in Bohemia is
+not a Philistine. Indeed, many helots are there, who come from
+Philistia to spy out the Land.
+
+We read in the _Histoire Intime_ of Shakib that Khalid did become a
+Tammany citizen, that is to say, a Tammany dray-horse; that he was
+much esteemed by the Honourable Henchmen, and once in the Wigwam he
+was particularly noticed by his Shamrag Majesty Boss O'Graft; that he
+was Tammany's Agent to the Editors of the Syrian newspapers of New
+York, whom he enrolled in the service of the Noble Cause for a
+consideration which no eloquence or shrewdness could reduce to a
+minimum; that he also took to the stump and dispensed to his fellow
+citizens, with rhetorical gestures at least, of the cut-and-dried
+logic which the Committee of Buncombe on such occasions furnishes its
+squad of talented spouters; and that--the most important this--he was
+subject in the end to the ignominy of waiting in the lobby with
+tuft-hunters and political stock-jobbers, until it pleased the
+Committee of Buncombe and the Honourable Treasurer thereof to give
+him--a card of dismissal!
+
+But what virtue is there in waiting, our cynical friend would ask. Why
+not go home and sleep? Because, O cynical friend, the Wigwam now is
+Khalid's home. For was he not, in creaking boots and a slouch hat,
+ceremoniously married to Democracy? Ay, and after spending their
+honeymoon on the Stump and living another month or two with his troll
+among her People, he returns to his cellar to brood, not over the
+blank pages in his Text, nor over the disastrous results of the
+Campaign, but on the weightier matter of divorce. For although
+Politics and Romance, in the History of Human Intrigue, have often
+known and enjoyed the same yoke, with Khalid they refused to pull at
+the plough. They were not sensible even to the goad. Either the yoke
+in his case was too loose, or the new yoke-fellow too thick-skinned
+and stubborn.
+
+Moreover, the promise of a handsome dowry, made by the Shamrag
+Father-in-Law or his Brokers materialised only in the rotten eggs and
+tomatoes with which the Orator was cordially received on his honeymoon
+trip. Such a marriage, O Mohammad, and such a honeymoon, and such a
+dowry!--is not this enough to shake the very sides of the Kaaba with
+laughter? And yet, in the Wigwam this not uncommon affair was
+indifferently considered; for the good and honourable Tammanyites
+marry off their Daughters every day to foreigners and natives alike,
+and with like extraordinary picturesque results.
+
+Were it not wiser, therefore, O Khalid, had you consulted your
+friend the Dictionary before you saw exact meaning of canvass and
+manipulation, before you put on your squeaking boots and slouch
+hat and gave your hand and heart to Tammany's Daughter and her
+Father-in-Law O'Graft? But the Dictionary, too, often falls short
+of human experience; and even Mr. O'Donohue could at best but hint at
+the meaning of the esoteric terms of Tammany's political creed. These
+you must define for yourself as you go along; and change and revise
+your definitions as you rise or descend in the Sacred Order. For
+canvass here might mean eloquence; there it might mean shrewdness;
+lower down, intimidation and coercion; and further depthward, human
+sloth and misery. It is but a common deal in horses. Ay, in Tammany
+Land it is essentially a trade honestly conducted on the known
+principle of supply and demand. These truths you had to discover for
+yourself, you say; for neither the Dictionary, nor your friend and
+fellow traveller in Bohemia, Mr. Hoolihan, could stretch their
+knowledge or their conscience to such a compass. And you are not
+sorry to have made such a discovery? Can you think of the Dowry and
+say that? We are, indeed, sorry for you. And we would fain insert
+in letter D of the Dictionary a new definition: namely, Dowry, n.
+(Tammany Land Slang). The odoriferous missiles, such as eggs and
+tomatoes, which are showered on an Orator-Groom by the people.
+
+But see what big profits Khalid draws from these small shares in the
+Reality Stock Company. You remember, good Reader, how he was kicked
+away from the door of the Temple of Atheism. The stogies of that
+inspired Doorkeeper were divine, according to his way of viewing
+things, for they were at that particular moment God's own boots. Ay,
+it was God, he often repeats, who kicked him away from the Temple of
+his enemies. And now, he finds the Dowry of Democracy, with all its
+wonderful revelations, as profitable in its results, as divine in its
+purpose. And in proof of this, we give here a copy of his letter to
+Boss O'Graft, written in that downright manner of his contemporaries,
+the English original of which we find in the _Histoire Intime_.
+
+                   "From Khalid to Boss O'Graft.
+
+  "Right _Dis_honourable Boss:
+
+  "I have just received a check from your Treasurer, which by no
+  right whatever is due me, having been paid for my services by
+  Him who knows better than you and your Treasurer what I deserve.
+  The voice of the people, and their eggs and tomatoes, too, are,
+  indeed, God's. And you should know this, you who dare to
+  remunerate me in what is not half as clean as those missiles. I
+  return not your insult of a check, however; but I have tried to
+  do your state some service in purchasing the few boxes of soap
+  which I am now dispatching to the Wigwam. You need more, I know,
+  you and your Honourable Henchmen or Hashmen. And instead of
+  canvassing and orating for Democracy's illustrious Candidate and
+  the Noble Cause, _mashallah!_ one ought to do a little
+  canvassing for Honesty and Truth among Democracy's leaders,
+  tuft-hunters, political stock-jobbers, and such like. O, for a
+  higher stump, my Boss, to preach to those who are supporting and
+  degrading the stumps and the stump-orators of the Republic!"
+
+And is it come to this, you poor phantom-like dreamer? Think you a
+Tammany Boss is like your atheists and attorneys and women of the
+studio, at whom you could vent your ire without let or hindrance?
+These harmless humans have no constables at their command. But his
+Shamrag Majesty--O wretched Khalid, must we bring one of his myrmidons
+to your cellar to prove to you that, even in this Tammany Land, you
+can not with immunity give free and honest expression to your
+thoughts? Now, were you not summoned to the Shamrag's presence to
+answer for the crime of _lese-majeste_? And were you not, for your
+audacity, left to brood ten days and nights in gaol? And what tedium
+we have in Shakib's History about the charge on which he was arrested.
+It is unconscionable that Khalid should misappropriate Party funds.
+Indeed, he never even touched or saw any of it, excepting, of course,
+that check which he returned. But the Boss was still in power. And
+what could Shakib do to exonerate his friend? He did much, and he
+tells as much about it. With check-boot in his pocket, he makes his
+way through aldermen, placemen, henchmen, and other questionable
+political species of humanity, up to the Seat of Justice--but such
+detail, though of the veracity of the writer nothing doubting, we
+gladly set aside, since we believe with Khalid that his ten days in
+gaol were akin to the Boots and the Dowry in their motive and effect.
+
+But our Scribe, though never remiss when Khalid is in a pickle, finds
+much amiss in Khalid's thoughts and sentiments. And as a further
+illustration of the limpid shallows of the one and the often opaque
+depths of the other, we give space to the following:
+
+"When Khalid was ordered to appear before the Boss," writes Shakib,
+"such curiosity and anxiety as I felt at that time made me accompany
+him. For I was anxious about Khalid, and curious to see this great
+Leader of men. We set out, therefore, together, I musing on an
+incident in Baalbek when we went out to meet the Pasha of the Lebanons
+and a droll old peasant, having seen him for the first time, cried
+out, 'I thought the Pasha to be a Pasha, but he's but a man.' And I am
+sorry, after having seen the Boss, I can not say as much for him."
+
+Here follows a little philosophising, unbecoming of our Scribe, on men
+and names and how they act and react upon each other. Also, a page
+about his misgivings and the effort he made to persuade Khalid not to
+appear before the Boss. But skipping over these, "we reach the Tammany
+Wigwam and are conducted by a thick-set, heavy-jowled, heavy-booted
+citizen through the long corridor into a little square room occupied
+by a little square-faced clerk. Here we wait a half hour and more,
+during which the young gentleman, with his bell before him and his
+orders to minor clerks who come and go, poses as somebody of some
+importance. We are then asked to follow him from one room into
+another, until we reach the one adjoining the private office of the
+Boss. A knock or two are executed on the door of Greatness with a
+nauseous sense of awe, and 'Come in,' Greatness within huskily
+replies. The square-faced clerk enters, shuts the door after him,
+returns in a trice, and conducts us into the awful Presence. Ye gods
+of Baalbek, the like of this I never saw before. Here is a room
+sumptuously furnished with sofas and fauteuils, and rugs from Ispahan.
+On the walls are pictures of Washington, Jefferson, and the great Boss
+Tweed; and right under the last named, behind that preciously carved
+mahogany desk, in that soft rolling mahogany chair, is the squat
+figure of the big Boss. On the desk before him, besides a plethora of
+documents, lay many things pell-mell, among which I noticed a box of
+cigars, the Criminal Code, and, most prominent of all, the Boss' feet,
+raised there either to bid us welcome, or to remind us of his power.
+And the rich Ispahan rug, the cuspidor being small and overfull,
+receives the richly coloured matter which he spurts forth every time
+he takes the cigar out of his mouth. O, the vulgarity, the bestiality
+of it! Think of those poor patient Persian weavers who weave the
+tissues of their hearts into such beautiful work, and of this proud
+and paltry Boss, whose office should have been furnished with straw.
+Yes, with straw; and the souls of those poor artist-weavers will sleep
+in peace. O, the ignominy of having such precious pieces of
+workmanship under the feet and spittle of such vulgar specimens of
+humanity. But if the Boss had purchased these rugs himself, with money
+earned by his own brow-sweat, I am sure he would appreciate them
+better. He would then know, if not their intrinsic worth, at least
+their market value. Yes, and they were presented to him by some one
+_needing, I suppose, police connivance and protection_. The first half
+of this statement I had from the Boss himself; the second, I base on
+Khalid's knowingness and suspicion. Be this, however, as it may.
+
+"When we entered this sumptuously furnished office, the squat figure
+in the chair under the picture of Boss Tweed, remained as immobile as
+a fixture and did not as much as reply to our _salaam_. But he pointed
+disdainfully to seats in the corner of the room, saying, 'Sit down
+there,' in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the
+desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could
+never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish
+officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting
+manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit
+there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did so, billah! For he
+was thinking all the while, as he told me when we came out, not of
+such matters as grate on the susceptibilities of a poet, but on the
+one sole idea of how such a bad titman could lead by the nose so many
+good people."
+
+Shakib then proceeds to give us a verbatim report of the interview. It
+begins with the Boss' question, "What do you mean by writing such a
+letter?" and ends with this other, "What do you mean by immanent
+morality?" The reader, given the head and tail of the matter, can
+supply the missing parts. Or, given its two bases, he can construct
+this triangle of Politics, Ethics, and the Constable, with Khalid's
+letter, offended Majesty, and a prison cell, as its three turning
+points. We extract from the report, however, the concluding advice of
+the Boss. For when he asked Khalid again what he meant by immanent
+morality, he continued in a crescendo of indignation: "You mean the
+morality of hayseeds, and priests, and philosophical fools? That sort
+of morality will not as much as secure a vote during the campaign, nor
+even help to keep the lowest clerk in office. That sort of morality is
+good for your mountain peasants or other barbarous tribes. But the
+free and progressive people of the United States must have something
+better, nobler, more practical. You'd do well, therefore, to get you a
+pair of rings, hang them in your ears, and go preach, your immanent
+morality to the South African Pappoos. But before you go, you shall
+taste of the rigour of our law, you insolent, brazen-faced, unmannerly
+scoundrel!"
+
+And we are assured that the Boss did not remain immobile as be spurted
+forth this mixture of wrath and wisdom, nor did the stogies; for
+moved by his own words, he rose promptly to his feet. "And what
+of it," exclaims our Scribe. "Surely, I had rather see those boots
+perform any office, high or low, as to behold their soles raised like
+mirrors to my face." But how high an office they performed when the
+Boss came forward, we are not told. All that our Scribe gives out
+about the matter amounts to this: namely, that he walked out of the
+room, and as he looked back to see if Khalid was following, he saw him
+brushing with his hands--his hips! And on that very day Khalid was
+summoned to appear before the Court and give answer to the charge of
+misappropriation of public funds. The orator-dream of youth--what a
+realisation! He comes to Court, and after the legal formalities are
+performed, he is delivered unto an officer who escorts him across
+the Bridge of Sighs to gaol. There, for ten days and nights,--and it
+might have been ten months were it not for his devoted and steadfast
+friend,--we leave Khalid to brood on Democracy and the Dowry of
+Democracy. A few extracts from the Chapter in the K. L. MS.
+entitled "In Prison," are, therefore, appropriate.
+
+  "So long as one has faith," he writes, "in the general moral
+  summation of the experience of mankind, as the philosophy of
+  reason assures us, one should not despair. But the material fact
+  of the Present, the dark moment of no-morality, consider that,
+  my suffering Brothers. And reflect further that in this great
+  City of New York the majority of citizens consider it a blessing
+  to have a _rojail_ (titman) for their boss and leader.... How
+  often have I mused that if Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of
+  Youth in the New World, I, Khalid, sought the Fountain of Truth,
+  and both of us have been equally successful!
+
+  "But the Americans are neither Pagans--which is consoling--nor
+  fetish-worshipping heathens: they are all true and honest
+  votaries of Mammon, their great God, their one and only God. And
+  is it not natural that the Demiurgic Dollar should be the
+  national Deity of America? Have not deities been always
+  conceived after man's needs and aspirations? Thus in Egypt, in a
+  locality where the manufacture of pottery was the chief
+  industry, God was represented as a potter; in agricultural
+  districts, as a god of harvest; among warring tribes as an
+  avenger, a Jehovah. And the more needs, the more deities; the
+  higher the aspirations, the better the gods. Hence the ugly
+  fetish of a savage tribe, and the beautiful mythology of a Greek
+  Civilisation. Change the needs and aspirations of the Americans,
+  therefore, and you will have changed their worship, their
+  national Deity, and even their Government. And believe me, this
+  change is coming; people get tired of their gods as of
+  everything else. Ay, the time will come, when man in this
+  America shall not suffer for not being a seeker and lover and
+  defender of the Dollar....
+
+  "Obedience, like faith, is a divine gift; but only when it comes
+  from the heart: only when prompted by love and sincerity is it
+  divine. If you can not, however, reverence what you obey, then,
+  I say, withhold your obedience. And if you prefer to barter your
+  identity or ego for a counterfeit coin of ideology, that right
+  is yours. For under a liberal Constitution and in a free
+  Government, you are also at liberty to sell your soul, to open a
+  bank account for your conscience. But don't blame God, or
+  Destiny, or Society, when you find yourself, after doing this, a
+  brother to the ox. Herein, we Orientals differ from Europeans
+  and Americans; we are never bribed into obedience. We obey
+  either from reverence and love, or from fear. We are either
+  power-worshippers or cowards but never, never traders. It might
+  be said that the masses in the East are blind slaves, while in
+  Europe and America they are become blind rebels. And which is
+  the better part of valour, when one is blind--submission or
+  revolt?...
+
+  "No; popular suffrage helps not the suffering individual; nor
+  does it conduce to a better and higher morality. Why, my
+  Masters, it can not as much as purge its own channels. For what
+  is the ballot box, I ask again, but a modern vehicle of
+  corruption and debasement? The ballot box, believe me, can not
+  add a cubit to your frame, nor can it shed a modicum of light on
+  the deeper problems of life. Of course, it is the exponent of
+  the will of the majority, that is to say, the will of the Party
+  that has more money at its disposal. The majority, and Iblis,
+  and Juhannam--ah, come out with me to the new gods!..."
+
+But we must make allowance for these girds and gibes at Democracy, of
+which we have given a specimen. Khalid's irony bites so deep at times
+as to get at the very bone of truth. And here is the marrow of it. We
+translate the following prophecy with which he closes his Chapter "In
+Prison," and with it, too, we close ours.
+
+  "But my faith in man," he swears, "is as strong as my faith in
+  God. And as strong, too, perhaps, is my faith in the future
+  world-ruling destiny of America. To these United States shall
+  the Nations of the World turn one day for the best model of good
+  Government; in these United States the well-springs of the
+  higher aspirations of the soul shall quench the thirst of every
+  race-traveller on the highway of emancipation; and from these
+  United States the sun and moon of a great Faith and a great Art
+  shall rise upon mankind. I believe this, billah! and I am
+  willing to go on the witness stand to swear to it. Ay, in this
+  New World, the higher Superman shall rise. And he shall not be
+  of the tribe of Overmen of the present age, of the beautiful
+  blond beast of Zarathustra, who would riddle mankind as they
+  would riddle wheat or flour; nor of those political moralists
+  who would reform the world as they would a parish.
+
+  "From his transcendental height, the Superman of America shall
+  ray forth in every direction the divine light, which shall
+  mellow and purify the spirit of Nations and strengthen and
+  sweeten the spirit of men, in this New World, I tell you, he
+  shall be born, but he shall not be an American in the Democratic
+  sense. He shall be nor of the Old World nor of the New; he shall
+  be, my Brothers, of both. In him shall be reincarnated the
+  Asiatic spirit of origination, of Poesy and Prophecy, and the
+  European spirit of Art, and the American spirit of Invention.
+  Ay, the Nation that leads the world to-day in material progress
+  shall lead it, too, in the future, in the higher things of the
+  mind and soul. And when you reach that height, O beloved
+  America, you will be far from the majority-rule, and Iblis, and
+  Juhannam. And you will then conquer those 'enormous mud
+  Megatheriums' of which Carlyle makes loud mention."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SUBTRANSCENDENTAL
+
+
+Deficiencies in individuals, as in States, have their value and
+import. Indeed, that sublime impulse of perfectibility, always
+vivacious, always working under various forms and with one underlying
+purpose, would be futile without them, and fatuous. And what were life
+without this incessant striving of the spirit? What were life without
+its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its apices of triumph and
+power? A banality this, you will say. But need we not be reminded of
+these wholesome truths, when the striving after originality nowadays
+is productive of so much quackery? The impulse of perfectibility, we
+repeat, whether at work in a Studio, or in a Factory, or in a Prison
+Cell, is the most noble of all human impulses, the most divine.
+
+Of that Chapter, In Prison, we have given what might be called the
+exogenous bark of the Soul, or that which environment creates. And now
+we shall endeavour to show the reader somewhat of the ludigenous
+process, by which the Soul, thrumming its own strings or eating its
+own guts, develops and increases its numbers. For Khalid in these
+gaol-days is much like Hamlet's player, or even like Hamlet
+himself--always soliloquising, tearing a passion to rags. And what
+mean these outbursts and objurgations of his, you will ask; these
+suggestions, fugitive, rhapsodical, mystical; this furibund allegro
+about Money, Mediums, and Bohemia; these sobs and tears and
+asseverations, in which our Lady of the Studio and Shakib are both
+expunged with great billahs;--the force and significance of these
+subliminal uprushes, dear Reader, we confess we are, like yourself,
+unable to understand, without the aid of our Interpreter. We shall,
+therefore, let him speak.
+
+"When in prison," writes Shakib, "Khalid was subject to spasms and
+strange hallucinations. One day, when I was sweating in the effort to
+get him out of gaol, he sends me word to come and see him. I go; and
+after waiting a while at the Iron gate, I behold Khalid rushing down
+the isle like an angry lion. 'What do you want,' he growled, 'why are
+you here?' And I, amazed, 'Did you not send for me?' And he snapped
+up, 'I did; but you should not have come. You should withhold from me
+your favours.' Life of Allah, I was stunned. I feared lest his mind,
+too, had gone in the direction of his health, which was already
+sorrily undermined. I looked at him with dim, tearful eyes, and
+assured him that soon he shall be free. 'And what is the use of
+freedom,' he exclaimed, 'when it drags us to lower and darker depths?
+Don't think I am miserable in prison. No; I am not--I am happy. I have
+had strange visions, marvellous. O my Brother, if you could behold the
+sloughs, deeper and darker than any prison-cell, into which _you_ have
+thrown me. Yes, _you_--and another. O, I hate you both. I hate my
+best lovers. I hate You--no--no, no, no.' And he falls on me, embraces
+me, and bathes my cheeks with his tears. After which he falters out
+beseechingly, 'Promise, promise that you will not give me any more
+money, and though starving and in rags you find me crouching at your
+door, promise.' And of a truth, I acquiesced in all he said, seeing
+how shaken in body and mind he was. But not until I had made a promise
+under oath would he be tranquillised. And so, after our farewell
+embrace, he asked me to come again the following day and bring him
+some books to read. This I did, fetching with me Rousseau's _Emile_
+and Carlyle's _Hero-Worship_, the only two books he had in the cellar.
+And when he saw them, he exclaimed with joy, 'The very books I want! I
+read them twice already, and I shall read them again. O, let me kiss
+you for the thought.' And in an ecstasy he overwhelms me again with
+suffusing sobs and embraces.
+
+"What a difference, I thought, between Khalid of yesterday and Khalid
+of to-day. What a transformation! Even I who know the turn and temper
+of his nature had much this time to fear. Surely, an alienist would
+have made a case of him. But I began to get an inkling into his cue of
+passion, when he told me that he was going to start a little business
+again, if I lend him the necessary capital. But I reminded him that we
+shall soon be returning home. 'No, not I,' he swore; 'not until I can
+pay my own passage, at least. I told you yesterday I'll accept no more
+money from you, except, of course, the sum I need to start the little
+business I am contemplating.' 'And suppose you lose this money,' I
+asked.--'Why, then _you_ lose _me_. But no, you shall not. For I know,
+I believe, I am sure, I swear that my scheme this time will not be a
+failure in any sense of the word. I have heavenly testimony on
+that.'--'And what was the matter with you yesterday? Why were you so
+queer?' 'O, I had nightmares and visions the night before, and you
+came too early in the morning. See this.' And he holds down his head
+to show me the back of his neck. 'Is there no swelling here? I feel
+it. Oh, it pains me yet. But I shall tell you about it and about the
+vision when I am out.'--And at this, the gaoler comes to inform us
+that Khalid's minutes are spent and he must return to his cell."
+
+All of which from our Interpreter is as clear as God Save the King.
+And from which we hope our Reader will infer that those outbursts and
+tears and rhapsodies of Khalid did mean somewhat. They did mean, even
+when we first approached his cell, that something was going on in
+him--a revolution, a _coup d'etat_, so to speak, of the spirit. For a
+Prince in Rags, but not in Debts and Dishonour, will throttle the
+Harpy which has hitherto ruled and degraded his soul.
+
+But the dwelling, too, of that soul is sorely undermined. And so, his
+leal and loving friend Shakib takes him later to the best physician in
+the City, who after the tapping and auscultation, shakes his head,
+writes his prescriptions, and advises Khalid to keep in the open air
+as much as possible, or better still, to return to his native
+country. The last portion of the advice, however, Khalid can not
+follow at present. For he will either return home on his own account
+or die in New York. "If I can not in time save enough money for the
+Steamship Company," he said to Shakib, "I can at least leave enough to
+settle the undertaker's bill. And in either case, I shall have paid my
+own passage out of this New World. And I shall stand before my Maker
+in a shroud, at least, which I can call my own."
+
+To which Shakib replies by going to the druggist with the prescriptions.
+And when he returns to the cellar with a package of four or five
+medicine bottles for rubbing and smelling and drinking, he finds Khalid
+sitting near the stove--we are now in the last month of Winter--warming
+his hands on the flames of the two last books he read. _Emile_ and
+_Hero-Worship_ go the way of all the rest. And there he sits, meditating
+over Carlyle's crepitating fire and Rousseau's writhing, sibilating
+flame. And it may be he thought of neither. Perhaps he was brooding
+over the resolution he had made, and the ominous shaking of the doctor's
+head. Ah, but his tutelar deities are better physicians, he thought.
+And having made his choice, he will pitch the medicine bottles into the
+street, and only follow the doctor's advice by keeping in the open air.
+
+Behold him, therefore, with a note in hand, applying to Shakib, in a
+formal and business-like manner, for a loan; and see that noble
+benefactor and friend, after gladly giving the money, throw the note
+into the fire. And now, Khalid is neither dervish nor philosopher,
+but a man of business with a capital of twenty-five dollars in his
+pocket. And with one-fifth of this capital he buys a second-hand
+push-cart from his Greek neighbour, wends his way with it to the
+market-place, makes a purchase there of a few boxes of oranges, sorts
+them in his cart into three classes,--"there is no equality in
+nature," he says, while doing this,--sticks a price card at the head
+of each class, and starts, in the name of Allah, his business. That is
+how he will keep in the open air twelve hours a day.
+
+But in the district where he is known he does not long remain. The
+sympathy of his compatriots is to him worse than the doctor's
+medicines, and those who had often heard him speechifying exchanged
+significant looks when he passed. Moreover, the police would not let
+him set up his stand anywhere. "There comes the push-cart orator,"
+they would say to each other; and before our poor Syrian stops to
+breathe, one of them grumpishly cries out, "Move on there! Move on!"
+Once Khalid ventures to ask, "But why are others allowed to set up
+their stands here?" And the "copper" (we beg the Critic's pardon
+again) coming forward twirling his club, lays his hand on Khalid's
+shoulder and calmly this: "Don't you think I know you? Move on, I
+say." O Khalid, have you forgotten that these "coppers" are the
+minions of Tammany? Why tarry, therefore, and ask questions? Yes, make
+a big move at once--out of the district entirely.
+
+Now, to the East Side, into the Jewish Quarter, Khalid directs his
+cart. And there, he falls in with Jewish fellow push-cart peddlers
+and puts up with them in a cellar similar to his in the Syrian
+Quarter. But only for a month could he suffer what the Jew has
+suffered for centuries. Why? There is this difference between the
+cellar of the Semite Syrian and that of the Semite Jew: in the first
+we eat _mojadderah_, in the second, _kosher_ but stinking flesh; in
+the first we read poetry and play the lute, in the second we fight
+about the rent and the division of the profits of the day; in the
+first we sleep in linen "as white as the wings of the dove," in the
+second on pieces of smelly blankets; the first is redolent of ottar of
+roses, Shakib's favourite perfume, the second is especially made
+insufferable by that stench which is peculiar to every Hebrew hive.
+For these and other reasons, Khalid separates himself from his Semite
+fellow peddlers, and makes this time a bigger move than the first.
+
+Ay, even to the Bronx, where often in former days, shouldering the
+peddling-box, he tramped, will he now push his orange-cart and his
+hopes. There, between City and Country, nearer to Nature, and not far
+from the traffic of life, he fares better both in health and purse. It
+is much to his liking, this upper end of the City. Here the atmosphere
+is more peaceful and soothing, and the police are more agreeable. No,
+they do not nickname and bully him in the Bronx. And never was he
+ordered to move on, even though he set up his stand for months at the
+same corner. "Ah, how much kinder and more humane people become," he
+says, "even when they are not altogether out of the City, but only on
+the outskirts of the country expanse."
+
+Khalid passes the Spring and Summer in the Bronx and keeps in the open
+air, not only in the day, but also in the night. How he does this, is
+told in a letter which he writes to Shakib. But does he sleep at all,
+you ask, and how, and where? Reader, we thank you for your anxiety
+about Khalid's health. And we would fain show you the Magic Carpet
+which he carries in the lock-box of his push-cart. But see for
+yourself, here be neither Magic Carpet, nor Magic Ring. Only his
+papers, a few towels, a blanket, some underwear, and his coffee
+utensils, are here. For Khalid could forego his _mojadderah_, but
+never his coffee, the Arab that he is. But an Arab on the wayfare, if
+he finds himself at night far from the camp, will dig him a ditch in
+the sands and lie there to sleep under the living stars. Khalid could
+not do thus, neither in the City nor out of it. And yet, he did not
+lodge within doors. He hired a place only for his push-cart; and this,
+a small padlock-booth where he deposits his stock in trade. But how he
+lived in the Bronx is described in the following letter:
+
+  "My loving Brother Shakib,
+
+  "I have been two months here, in a neighbourhood familiar to
+  you. Not far from the place where I sleep is the sycamore tree
+  under which I burned my peddling-box. And perhaps I shall yet
+  burn there my push-cart too. But for the present, all's well. My
+  business is good and my health is improving. The money-order I
+  am enclosing with this, will cancel the note, but not the many
+  debts, I owe you. And I hope to be able to join you again soon,
+  to make the voyage to our native land together. Meanwhile I am
+  working, and laying up a little something. I make from two to
+  three dollars a day, of which I never spend more than one. And
+  this on one meal only; for my lodging and my lunch and breakfast
+  cost next to nothing. Yes, I can be a push-cart peddler in the
+  day; I can sleep out of doors at night; I can do with coffee and
+  oranges for lunch and breakfast; but in the evening I will
+  assert my dignity and do justice to my taste: I will dine at the
+  Hermitage and permit you to call me a fool. And why not, since
+  my purse, like my stomach, is now my own? Why not go to the
+  Hermitage since my push-cart income permits of it? But the first
+  night I went there my shabbiness attracted the discomforting
+  attention of the fashionable diners, and made even the waiters
+  offensive. Indeed, one of them came to ask if I were looking for
+  somebody. 'No,' I replied with suppressed indignation; 'I'm
+  looking for a place where I can sit down and eat, without being
+  eaten by the eyes of the vulgar curious.' And I pass into an
+  arbor, which from that night becomes virtually my own, followed
+  by a waiter who from that night, too, became my friend. For
+  every evening I go there, I find my table unoccupied and my
+  waiter ready to receive and serve me. But don't think he does
+  this for the sake of my black eyes or my philosophy. That
+  disdainful glance of his on the first evening I could never
+  forget, billah. And I found that it could be baited and mellowed
+  only by a liberal tip. And this I make in advance every week for
+  both my comfort and his. Yes, I am a fool, I grant you, but I'm
+  not out of my element there.
+
+  "After dinner I take a stroll in the Flower Gardens, and
+  crossing the rickety wooden bridge over the river, I enter the
+  hemlock grove. Here, in a sequestered spot near the river bank,
+  I lay me on the grass and sleep for the night. I always bring my
+  towels with me; for in the morning I take a dip, and at night I
+  use them for a pillow. When the weather requires it, I bring my
+  blankets too. And hanging one of them over me, tied to the trees
+  by the cords sown to its corners, I wrap myself in the other,
+  and praise Allah.
+
+  "These and the towels, after taking my bath, I leave at the
+  Hermitage; my waiter minds them for me. And so, I suspect I am
+  happy--if, curse it! I could but breathe better. O, come up to
+  see me. I'll give you a royal dinner at the Hermitage, and a
+  royal bed in the hemlock grove on the river-bank. Do come up,
+  the peace of Allah upon thee. Read my salaam to Im-Hanna."
+
+And during his five months in the Bronx he did not sleep five nights
+within doors, we are told, nor did he once dine out of the Hermitage.
+Even his hair, a fantastic fatuity behind a push-cart, he did not take
+the trouble to cut or trim. It must have helped his business. But this
+constancy, never before sustained to such a degree, must soon cease,
+having laid up, thanks to his push-cart and the people of the Bronx,
+enough to carry him, not only to Baalbek, but to _Aymakanenkan_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FALSE DAWN
+
+
+What the Arabs always said of Andalusia, Khalid and Shakib said
+once of America: a most beautiful country with one single vice--it
+makes foreigners forget their native land. But now they are both
+suffering from nostalgia, and America, therefore, is without a
+single vice. It is perfect, heavenly, ideal. In it one sees only the
+vices of other races, and the ugliness of other nations. America
+herself is as lovely as a dimpled babe, and as innocent. A dimpled
+babe she. But wait until she grows, and she will have more than one
+vice to demand forgetfulness.
+
+Shakib, however, is not going to wait. He begins to hear the call of
+his own country, now that his bank account is big enough to procure
+for him the Pashalic of Syria. And Khalid, though his push-cart had
+developed to a stationary fruit stand,--and perhaps for this very
+reason,--is now desirous of leaving America anon. He is afraid of
+success overtaking him. Moreover, the Bronx Park has awakened in him
+his long dormant love of Nature. For while warming himself on the
+flames of knowledge in the cellar, or rioting with the Bassarides of
+Bohemia, or canvassing and speechifying for Tammany, he little thought
+of what he had deserted in his native country. The ancient historical
+rivers flowing through a land made sacred by the divine madness of the
+human spirit; the snow-capped mountains at the feet of which the lily
+and the oleander bloom; the pine forests diffusing their fragrance
+even among the downy clouds; the peaceful, sun-swept multi-coloured
+meadows; the trellised vines, the fig groves, the quince orchards, the
+orangeries: the absence of these did not disturb his serenity in the
+cellar, his voluptuousness in Bohemia, his enthusiasm in Tammany
+Land.
+
+And we must not forget to mention that, besides the divine voice of
+Nature and native soil, he long since has heard and still hears the
+still sweet voice of one who might be dearer to him than all. For
+Khalid, after his return from Bohemia, continued to curse the huris in
+his dreams. And he little did taste of the blessings of "sore labour's
+bath, balm of hurt minds." Ay, when he was not racked and harrowed by
+nightmares, he was either disturbed by the angels of his visions or
+the succubi of his dreams. And so, he determines to go to Syria for a
+night's sleep, at least, of the innocent and just. His cousin Najma is
+there, and that is enough. Once he sees her, the huris are no more.
+
+Now Shakib, who is more faithful in his narration than we first
+thought--who speaks of Khalid as he is, extenuating nothing--gives us
+access to a letter which he received from the Bronx a month before
+their departure from New York. In these Letters of Khalid, which our
+Scribe happily preserved, we feel somewhat relieved of the dogmatism,
+fantastic, mystical, severe, which we often meet with in the K. L.
+MS. In his Letters, our Syrian peddler and seer is a plain blunt man
+unbosoming himself to his friend. Read this, for instance.
+
+  "My loving Brother:
+
+  "It is raining so hard to-night that I must sleep, or in fact
+  keep, within doors. Would you believe it, I am no more
+  accustomed to the luxuries of a soft spring-bed, and I can not
+  even sleep on the floor, where I have moved my mattress. I am
+  sore, broken in mind and spirit. Even the hemlock grove and the
+  melancholy stillness of the river, are beginning to annoy me.
+  Oh, I am tired of everything here, tired even of the cocktails,
+  tired of the push-cart, tired of earning as much as five dollars
+  a day. Next Sunday is inauguration day for my stationary fruit
+  stand; but I don't think it's going to stand there long enough
+  to deserve to be baptized with champagne. If you come up,
+  therefore, we'll have a couple of steins at the Hermitage and
+  call it square.--O, I would square myself with the doctors by
+  thrusting a poker down my windpipe: I might be able to breathe
+  better then. I pause to curse my fate.--Curse it, Juhannam-born,
+  curse it!--
+
+  "I can not sleep, nor on the spring-bed, nor on the floor. It is
+  two hours past midnight now, and I shall try to while away the
+  time by scrawling this to you. My brother, I can not long
+  support this sort of life, being no more fit for rough,
+  ignominious labor. 'But why,' you will ask, 'did you undertake
+  it?' Yes, why? Strictly speaking, I made a mistake. But it's a
+  noble mistake, believe me--a mistake which everybody in my
+  condition ought to make, if but once in their life-time. Is it
+  not something to be able to make an honest resolution and carry
+  it out? I have heard strange voices in prison; I have hearkened
+  to them; but I find that one must have sound lungs, at least, to
+  be able to do the will of the immortal gods. And even if he had,
+  I doubt if he could do much to suit them in America. O, my
+  greatest enemy and benefactor in the whole world is this
+  dumb-hearted mother, this America, in whose iron loins I have
+  been spiritually conceived. Paradoxical, this? But is it not
+  true? Was not the Khalid, now writing to you, born in the
+  cellar? Down there, in the very loins of New York? But alas,
+  our spiritual Mother devours, like a cat, her own children. How
+  then can we live with her in the same house?
+
+  "I need not tell you now that the ignominious task I set my
+  hands to, was never to my liking. But the ox under the yoke is
+  not asked whether he likes it or not. I have been yoked to my
+  push-cart by the immortal gods; and soon my turn and trial will
+  end. It must end. For our country is just beginning to speak,
+  and I am her chosen voice. I feel that if I do not respond, if I
+  do not come to her, she will be dumb forever. No; I can not
+  remain here any more. For I can not be strenuous enough to be
+  miserably happy; nor stupid enough to be contentedly miserable.
+  I confess I have been spoiled by those who call themselves
+  spiritual sisters of mine. The huris be dam'd. And if I don't
+  leave this country soon, I'll find myself sharing the damnation
+  again--in Bohemia.--
+
+  "The power of the soul is doubled by the object of its love,
+  or by such labor of love as it undertakes. But, here I am,
+  with no work and nobody I can love; nay, chained to a task
+  which I now abominate. If a labor of love doubles the power of
+  the soul, a labor of hate, to use an antonym term, warps it,
+  poisons it, destroys it. Is it not a shame that in this great
+  Country,--this Circe with her golden horns of plenty,--one can
+  not as much as keep his blood in circulation without damning
+  the currents of one's soul? O America, equally hated and
+  beloved of Khalid, O Mother of prosperity and spiritual
+  misery, the time will come when you shall see that your gold
+  is but pinchbeck, your gilt-edge bonds but death decrees, and
+  your god of wealth a carcase enthroned upon a dung-hill. But
+  you can not see this now; for you are yet in the false dawn,
+  floundering tumultuously, worshipping your mammoth carcase on
+  a dung-hill--and devouring your spiritual children. Yes,
+  America is now in the false dawn, and as sure as America
+  lives, the true dawn must follow.
+
+  "Pardon, Shakib. I did not mean to end my letter in a rhapsody.
+  But I am so wrought, so broken in body, so inflamed in spirit. I
+  hope to see you soon. No, I hope to see myself with you on board
+  of a Transatlantic steamer."
+
+And is not Khalid, like his spiritual Mother, floundering, too, in the
+false dawn of life? His love of Nature, which was spontaneous and
+free, is it not likely to become formal and scientific? His love of
+Country, which begins tremulously, fervently in the woods and streams,
+is it not likely to end in Nephelococcygia? His determination to work,
+which was rudely shaken at a push-cart, is it not become again a
+determination to loaf? And now, that he has a little money laid up,
+has he not the right to seek in this world the cheapest and most
+suitable place for loafing? And where, if not in the Lebanon hills,
+"in which it seemed always afternoon," can he rejoin the Lotus-Eaters
+of the East? This man of visions, this fantastic, rhapsodical--but we
+must not be hard upon him. Remember, good Reader, the poker which he
+would thrust down his windpipe to broaden it a little. With asthmatic
+fits and tuberous infiltrations, one is permitted to commune with any
+of Allah's ministers of grace or spirits of Juhannam. And that divine
+spark of primal, paradisical love, which is rapidly devouring all
+others--let us not forget that. Ay, we mean his cousin Najma. Of
+course, he speaks, too, of his nation, his people, awaking, lisping,
+beginning to speak, waiting for him, the chosen Voice! Which reminds
+us of how he was described to us by the hasheesh-smokers of Cairo.
+
+In any event, the Reader will rejoice with us, we hope, that Khalid
+will not turn again toward Bohemia. He will agree with us that,
+whether on account of his health, or his love, or his mission, it is
+well, in his present fare of mind and body, that he is returning to
+the land "in which it seemed always afternoon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST STAR
+
+
+Is it not an ethnic phenomenon that a descendant of the ancient
+Phoenicians can not understand the meaning and purport of the Cash
+Register in America? Is it not strange that this son of Superstition
+and Trade can not find solace in the fact that in this Pix of Business
+is the Host of the Demiurgic Dollar? Indeed, the omnipresence and
+omnipotence of it are not without divine significance. For can you not
+see that this Cash Register, this Pix of Trade, is prominently set up
+on the altar of every institution, political, moral, social, and
+religious? Do you not meet with it everywhere, and foremost in the
+sanctuaries of the mind and the soul? In the Societies for the
+Diffusion of Knowledge; in the Social Reform Propagandas; in the Don't
+Worry Circles of Metaphysical Gymnasiums; in Alliances, Philanthropic,
+Educational; in the Board of Foreign Missions; in the Sacrarium of
+Vaticinatress Eddy; in the Church of God itself;--is not the Cash
+Register a divine symbol of the _credo_, the faith, or the idea?
+
+"To trade, or not to trade," Hamlet-Khalid exclaims, "that is the
+question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, etc., or to take
+arms against the Cash Registers of America, and by opposing end--"
+What? Sacrilegious wretch, would you set your face against the
+divinity in the Holy Pix of Trade? And what will you end, and how will
+You end by it? An eternal problem, this, of opposing and ending. But
+before you set your face in earnest, we would ask you to consider if
+the vacancy or chaos which is sure to follow, be not more pernicious
+than what you would end. If you are sure it is not, go ahead, and we
+give you Godspeed. If you have the least doubt about it--but Khalid is
+incapable now of doubting anything. And whether he opposes his theory
+of immanent morality to the Cash Register, or to Democracy, or to the
+ruling powers of Flunkeydom, we hope He will end well. Such is the
+penalty of revolt against the dominating spirit of one's people and
+ancestors, that only once in a generation is it attempted, and
+scarcely with much success. In fact, the first who revolts must
+perish, the second, too, and the third, and the fourth, until, in the
+course of time and by dint of repetition and resistance, the new
+species of the race can overcome the forces of environment and the
+crushing influence of conformity. This, we know, is the biological
+law, and Khalid must suffer under it. For, as far as our knowledge
+extends, he is the first Syrian, the ancient Lebanon monks excepted,
+who revolted against the ruling spirit of his people and the dominant
+tendencies of the times, both in his native and his adopted
+Countries.
+
+Yes, the _ethos_ of the Syrians (for once we use Khalid's philosophic
+term), like that of the Americans, is essentially money-seeking. And
+whether in Beirut or in New York, even the moralists and reformers,
+like the hammals and grocers, will ask themselves, before they
+undertake to do anything for you or for their country, "What will this
+profit us? How much will it bring us?" And that is what Khalid once
+thought to oppose and end. Alas, oppose he might--and End He Must. How
+can an individual, without the aid of Time and the Unseen Powers, hope
+to oppose and end, or even change, this monstrous mass of things? Yet
+we must not fail to observe that when we revolt against a tendency
+inimical to our law of being, it is for our own sake, and not the
+race's, that we do so. And we are glad we are able to infer, if not
+from the K. L, MS., at least from his Letters, that Khalid is
+beginning to realise this truth. Let us not, therefore, expatiate
+further upon it.
+
+If the reader will accompany us now to the cellar to bid our Syrian
+friends farewell, we promise a few things of interest. When we first
+came here some few years ago in Winter, or to another such underground
+dwelling, the water rose ankle-deep over the floor, and the mould and
+stench were enough to knock an ox dead. Now, a scent of ottar of roses
+welcomes us at the door and leads us to a platform in the centre,
+furnished with a Turkish rug, which Shakib will present to the
+landlord as a farewell memento.
+
+And here are our three Syrians making ready for the voyage. Shakib
+is intoning some verses of his while packing; Im-Hanna is cooking
+the last dish of _mojadderah_; and Khalid, with some vague dream
+in his eyes, and a vaguer, far-looming hope in his heart, is
+sitting on his trunk wondering at the variety of things Shakib is
+cramming into his. For our Scribe, we must not fail to remind the
+Reader, is contemplating great things of State, is nourishing a great
+political ambition. He will, therefore, bethink him of those in
+power at home. Hence these costly presents. Ay, besides the plated
+jewellery--the rings, bracelets, brooches, necklaces, ear-rings,
+watches, and chains--of which he is bringing enough to supply the
+peasants of three villages, see that beautiful gold-knobbed ebony
+stick, which he will present to the vali, and this precious gold cross
+with a ruby at the heart for the Patriarch, and these gold fountain
+pens for his literary friends, and that fine Winchester rifle for the
+chief of the tribe Anezah. These he packs in the bottom of his
+trunk, and with them his precious dilapidated copy of Al-Mutanabbi,
+and--what MS. be this? What, a Book of Verse spawned in the
+cellar? Indeed, the very embryo of that printed copy we read in
+Cairo, and which Shakib and his friends would have us translate
+for the benefit of the English reading public.
+
+For our Scribe is the choragus of the Modern School of Arabic poetry.
+And this particular Diwan of his is a sort of rhymed inventory of all
+the inventions and discoveries of modern Science and all the wonders
+of America. He has published other Diwans, in which French morbidity
+is crowned with laurels from the Arabian Nights. For this Modern
+School has two opposing wings, moved by two opposing forces, Science
+being the motive power of the one, and Byron and De Musset the
+inspiring geniuses of the other. We would not be faithful to our
+Editorial task and to our Friend, if we did not give here a few
+luminant examples of the Diwan in question. We are, indeed, very
+sorry, for the sake of our readers, that space will not allow us to
+give them a few whole qasidahs from it. To those who are so fortunate
+as to be able to read and understand the Original, we point out the
+Ode to the Phonograph, beginning thus:
+
+    "O Phonograph, thou wonder of our time,
+     Thy tongue of wax can sing like me in rhyme."
+
+And another to the Brooklyn Bridge, of which these are the opening
+lines:
+
+    "O Brooklyn Bridge, how oft upon thy back
+     I tramped, and once I crossed thee in a hack."
+
+And finally, the great Poem entitled, On the Virtue and Benefit of
+Modern Science, of which we remember these couplets:
+
+    "Balloons and airships, falling from the skies,
+     Will be as plenty yet as summer flies.
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    "Electricity and Steam and Compressed Air
+     Will carry us to heaven yet, I swear."
+
+Here be rhymed truth, at least, which can boast of not being poetry.
+Ay, in this MS. which Shakib is packing along with Al-Mutanabbi in the
+bottom of his trunk to evade the Basilisk touch of the Port officials
+of Beirut, is packed all the hopes of the Modern School. Pack on,
+Shakib; for whether at the Mena House, or in the hasheesh-dens of
+Cairo, the Future is drinking to thee, and dreaming of thee and thy
+School its opium dreams. And Khalid, the while, sits impassive on his
+trunk, and Im-Hanna is cooking the last dinner of _mojadderah_.
+
+Emigration has introduced into Syria somewhat of the three prominent
+features of Civilisation: namely, a little wealth, a few modern ideas,
+and many strange diseases. And of these three blessings our two
+Syrians together are plentifully endowed. For Shakib is a type of the
+emigrant, who returns home prosperous in every sense of the word. A
+Book of Verse to lure Fame, a Letter of Credit to bribe her if
+necessary, and a double chin to praise the gods. This is a complete
+set of the prosperity, which Khalid knows not. But he has in his lungs
+what Shakib the poet can not boast of; while in his trunk he carries
+but a little wearing apparel, his papers, and his blankets. And in his
+pocket, he has his ribbed silver cigarette case--the only object he
+can not part with--a heart-shaped locket with a little diamond star on
+its face--the only present he is bringing with him home,--and a
+third-class passage across the Atlantic. For Khalid will not sleep in
+a bunk, even though it be furnished with eiderdown cushions and tiger
+skins.
+
+And since he is determined to pass his nights on deck, it matters
+little whether he travels first class, or second or tenth. Shakib, do
+what he may, cannot prevail upon him to accept the first-class passage
+he had bought in his name. "Let us not quarrel about this," says he;
+"we shall be together on board the same ship, and that settles the
+question. Indeed, the worse way returning home must be ultimately the
+best. No, Shakib, it matters not how I travel, if I but get away
+quickly from this pandemonium of Civilisation. Even now, as I sit on
+this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of
+the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the
+tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children,
+the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars,
+the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating,
+smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A
+musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, this
+jumble of sounds. But I--extract me quickly from them!"
+
+Ay, quickly please, especially for our sake and the Reader's. Now, the
+dinner is finished, the rug is folded and presented to our landlord
+with our salaams, the trunks are locked and roped, and our Arabs will
+silently steal away. And peacefully, too, were it not that an hour
+before sailing a capped messenger is come to deliver a message to
+Shakib. There is a pleasant dilative sensation in receiving a message
+on board a steamer, especially when the messenger has to seek you
+among the Salon passengers. Now, Shakib dilates with pride as he takes
+the envelope in his hand; but when he opens it, and reads on the
+enclosed card, "Mr. Isaac Goldheimer wishes you a _bon voyage_," he
+turns quickly on his heels and goes on deck to walk his wrath away.
+For this Mr. Goldheimer is the very landlord who received the Turkish
+rug. Reflect on this, Reader. Father Abraham would have walked with us
+to the frontier to betoken his thanks and gratitude. "But this modern
+Jew and his miserable card," exclaims Shakib in his teeth, as he tears
+and throws it in the water,--"who asked him to send it, and who would
+have sued him if he didn't?"
+
+But Shakib, who has lived so long in America and traded with its
+people, is yet ignorant of some of the fine forms and conventions of
+Civilisation. He does not know that fashionable folk, or those aping
+the dear fashionable folk, have a right to assert their superiority at
+his expense.--I do not care to see you, but I will send a messenger
+and card to do so for me. You are not my equal, and I will let you
+know this, even at the hour of your departure, and though I have to
+hire a messenger to do so.--Is there no taste, no feeling, no
+gratitude in this? Don't you wish, O Shakib,--but compose yourself.
+And think not so ill of your Jewish landlord, whom you wish you could
+wrap in that rug and throw overboard. He certainly meant well. That
+formula of card and messenger is so convenient and so cheap. Withal,
+is he not too busy, think you, to come up to the dock for the puerile,
+prosaic purpose of shaking hands and saying ta-ta? If you can not
+consider the matter in this light, try to forget it. One must not be
+too visceral at the hour of departure. Behold, your skyscrapers and
+your Statue of Liberty are now receding from view; and your landlord
+and his card and messenger will be further from us every while we
+think of them, until, thanks to Time and Space and Steam! they will
+be too far away to be remembered.
+
+Here, then, with our young Seer and our Scribe, we bid New York
+farewell, and earnestly hope that we do not have to return to it
+again, or permit any of them to do so. In fact, we shall not hereafter
+consider, with any ulterior material or spiritual motive, any more of
+such disparaging, denigrating matter, in the two MSS. before us, as
+has to pass through our reluctant hands "touchin' on and appertainin'
+to" the great City of Manhattan and its distinguished denizens. For
+our part, we have had enough of this painful task. And truly, we have
+never before undergone such trials in sailing between--but that
+Charybdis and Scylla allusion has been done to death. Indeed, we love
+America, and in the course of our present task, which we also love, we
+had to suffer Khalid's shafts to pass through our ken and sometimes
+really through our heart. But no more of this. Ay, we would fain set
+aside our pen from sheer weariness of spirit and bid the Reader, too,
+farewell. Truly, we would end here this Book of Khalid were it not
+that the greater part of the most important material in the K. L. MS.
+is yet intact, and the more interesting portion of Shakib's History is
+yet to come. Our readers, though we do not think they are sorry for
+having come out with us so far, are at liberty either to continue with
+us, or say good-bye. But for the Editor there is no choice. What we
+have begun we must end, unmindful of the influence, good or ill, of
+the Zodiacal Signs under which we work.
+
+"Our Phoenician ancestors," says Khalid, "never left anything they
+undertook unfinished. Consider what they accomplished in their days,
+and the degree of culture they attained. The most beautiful
+fabrications in metals and precious stones were prepared in Syria.
+Here, too, the most important discoveries were made: namely, those of
+glass and purple. As for me, I can not understand what the Murex
+trunculus is; and I am not certain if scholars and archaeologists, or
+even mariners and fishermen, will ever find a fossil of that
+particular species. But murex or no murex, Purple was discovered by my
+ancestors. Hence the purple passion, that is to say the energy and
+intensity which coloured everything they did, everything they felt and
+believed. For whether in bemoaning Tammuz, or in making tear-bottles,
+or in trading with the Gauls and Britons, the Phoenicians were the
+same superstitious, honest, passionate, energetic people. And do not
+forget, you who are now enjoying the privilege of setting down your
+thoughts in words, that on these shores of Syria written language
+received its first development.
+
+"It is also said that they discovered and first navigated the Atlantic
+Ocean, my Phoenicians; that they worked gold mines in the distant isle
+of Thasos and opened silver mines in the South and Southwest of Spain.
+In Africa, we know, they founded the colonies of Utica and Carthage.
+But we are told they went farther than this. And according to some
+historians, they rounded the Cape, they circumnavigated Africa. And
+according to recent discoveries made by an American archaeologist,
+they must have discovered America too! For in the ruins of the Aztecs
+of Mexico there are traces of a Phoenician language and religion.
+This, about the discovery of America, however, I can not verify with
+anything from Sanchuniathon. But might they not have made this
+discovery after the said Sanchuniathon had given up the ghost? And if
+they did, what can We, their worthless descendants do for them now?
+Ah, if we but knew the name of their Columbus! No, it is not practical
+to build a monument to a whole race of people. And yet, they deserve
+more than this from us, their descendants.
+
+"These dealers in tin and amber, these manufacturers of glass and
+purple, these developers of a written language, first gave the impetus
+to man's activity and courage and intelligence. And this activity of
+the industry and will is not dead in man. It may be dead in us
+Syrians, but not in the Americans. In their strenuous spirit it rises
+uppermost. After all, I must love the Americans, for they are my
+Phoenician ancestors incarnate. Ay, there is in the nature of things a
+mysterious recurrence which makes for a continuous, everlasting
+modernity. And I believe that the spirit which moved those brave
+sea-daring navigators of yore, is still working lustily, bravely, but
+alas, not joyously--bitterly, rather, selfishly, greedily--behind the
+steam engine, the electric motor, the plough, and in the clinic and
+the studio as in the Stock Exchange. That spirit in its real essence,
+however, is as young, as puissant to-day as it was when the native of
+Byblus first struck out to explore the seas, to circumnavigate
+Africa, to discover even America!"
+
+And what in the end might Khalid discover for us or for himself, at
+least, in his explorations of the Spirit-World? What Colony of the
+chosen sons of the young and puissant Spirit, on some distant isle
+beyond the seven seas, might he found? To what far, silent, undulating
+shore, where "a written language is the instrument only of the lofty
+expressions and aspirations of the soul" might he not bring us? What
+Cape of Truth in the great Sea of Mystery might we not be able to
+circumnavigate, if only this were possible of the language of man?
+
+"Not with glass," he exclaims, "not with tear-bottles, not with
+purple, not with a written language, am I now concerned, but rather
+with what those in Purple and those who make this written language
+their capital, can bring within our reach of the treasures of the
+good, the true, and the beautiful. I would fain find a land where the
+soul of man, and the heart of man, and the mind of man, are as the
+glass of my ancestors' tear-bottles in their enduring quality and
+beauty. My ancestors' tear-bottles, and though buried in the earth ten
+thousand years, lose not a grain of their original purity and
+transparency, of their soft and iridescent colouring. But where is the
+natural colour and beauty of these human souls, buried in bunks under
+hatches? Or of those moving in high-lacquered salons above?...
+
+"O my Brothers of the clean and unclean species, of the scented and
+smelling kind, of the have and have-not classes, there is but one
+star in this vague dusky sky above us, for you as for myself. And that
+star is either the last in the eternal darkness, or the first in the
+rising dawn. It is either the first or the last star of night. And who
+shall say which it is? Not the Church, surely, nor the State; not
+Science, nor Sociology, nor Philosophy, nor Religion. But the human
+will shall influence that star and make it yield its secret and its
+fire. Each of you, O my Brothers, can make it light his own hut, warm
+his own heart, guide his own soul. Never before in the history of man
+did it seem as necessary as it does now that each individual should
+think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the
+realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible
+and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one
+star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger
+of Jannat or Juhannam."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PRIESTO-PARENTAL
+
+
+If we remember that the name of Khalid's cousin is Najma (Star), the
+significance to himself of the sign spoken of in the last Chapter, is
+quite evident. But what it means to others remains to be seen. His one
+star, however, judging from his month's experience in Baalbek, is not
+promising of Jannat. For many things, including parental tyranny and
+priestcraft and Jesuitism, will here conspire against the single
+blessedness of him, which is now seeking to double itself.
+
+"Where one has so many Fathers," he writes, "and all are pretending to
+be the guardians of his spiritual and material well-being, one ought
+to renounce them all at once. It was not with a purpose to rejoin my
+folk that I first determined to return to my native country. For,
+while I believe in the Family, I hate Familism, which is the curse of
+the human race. And I hate this spiritual Fatherhood when it puts on
+the garb of a priest, the three-cornered hat of a Jesuit, the hood of
+a monk, the gaberdine of a rabbi, or the jubbah of a sheikh. The
+sacredness of the Individual, not of the Family or the Church, do I
+proclaim. For Familism, or the propensity to keep under the same roof,
+as a social principle, out of fear, ignorance, cowardice, or
+dependence, is, I repeat, the curse of the world. Your father is he
+who is friendly and reverential to the higher being in you; your
+brothers are those who can appreciate the height and depth of your
+spirit, who hearken to you, and believe in you, if you have any truth
+to announce to them. Surely, one's value is not in his skin that you
+should touch him. Are there any two individuals more closely related
+than mother and son? And yet, when I Khalid embrace my mother,
+mingling my tears with hers, I feel that my soul is as distant from
+her own as is Baalbek from the Dog-star. And so I say, this attempt to
+bind together under the principle of Familism conflicting spirits, and
+be it in the name of love or religion or anything else more or less
+sacred, is in itself a very curse, and should straightway end. It will
+end, as far as I am concerned. And thou my Brother, whether thou be a
+son of the Morning or of the Noontide or of the Dusk,--whether thou be
+a Japanese or a Syrian or a British man--if thou art likewise
+circumstanced, thou shouldst do the same, not only for thine own sake,
+but for the sake of thy family as well."
+
+No; Khalid did not find that wholesome plant of domestic peace in his
+mother's Nursery. He found noxious weeds, rather, and brambles galore.
+And they were planted there, not by his father or mother, but by those
+who have a lien upon the souls of these poor people. For the priest
+here is no peeled, polished affair, but shaggy, scrubby, terrible,
+forbidding. And with a word he can open yet, for such as Khalid's
+folk, the gate which Peter keeps or the other on the opposite side of
+the Universe. Khalid must beware, therefore, how he conducts himself
+at home and abroad, and how, in his native town, he delivers his mind
+on sacred things, and profane. In New York, for instance, or in Turabu
+for that matter, he could say in plain forthright speech what he
+thought of Family, Church or State, and no one would mind him. But
+where these Institutions are the rottenest existing he will be minded
+too well, and reminded, too, of the fate of those who preceded him.
+
+The case of Habib Ish-Shidiak at Kannubin is not yet forgotten. And
+Habib, be it known, was only a poor Protestant neophite who took
+pleasure in carrying a small copy of the Bible in his hip pocket, and
+was just learning to roll his eyes in the pulpit and invoke the
+"laud." But Khalid, everybody out-protesting, is such an intractable
+pro_test_ant, with, neither Bible in his pocket nor pulpit at his
+service. And yet, with a flint on his tongue and a spark in his eyes,
+he will make the neophite Habib smile beside him. For the priesthood
+in Syria is not, as we have said, a peeled, polished, pulpy affair.
+And Khalid's father has been long enough in their employ to learn
+somewhat of their methods. Bigotry, cruelty, and tyranny at home,
+priestcraft and Jesuitism abroad,--these, O Khalid, you will know
+better by force of contact before you end. And you will begin to pine
+again for your iron-loined spiritual Mother. Ay, and the scelerate
+Jesuit will even make capital of your mass of flowing hair. For in
+this country, only the native priests are privileged to be shaggy and
+scrubby and still be without suspicion. But we will let Shakib give us
+a few not uninteresting details of the matter.
+
+"Not long after we had rejoined our people," he writes, "Khalid comes
+to me with a sorry tale. In truth, a fortnight after our arrival in
+Baalbek--our civility towards new comers seldom enjoys a longer
+lease--the town was alive with rumours and whim-whams about my friend.
+And whereso I went, I was not a little annoyed with the tehees and
+grunts which his name seemed to invoke. The women often came to his
+mother to inquire in particular why he grows his hair and shaves his
+mustaches; the men would speak to his father about the change in his
+accent and manners; the children teheed and tittered whenever he
+passed through the town-square; and all were of one mind that Khalid
+was a worthless fellow, who had brought nothing with him from the
+Paradise of the New World but his cough and his fleece. Such tattle
+and curiosity, however, no matter what degree of savage vulgarity they
+reach, are quite harmless. But I felt somewhat uneasy about him, when
+I heard the people asking each other, "Why does he not come to Church
+like honest folks?" And soon I discovered that my apprehensions were
+well grounded; for the questioning was noised at Khalid's door, and
+the fire crackled under the roof within. The father commands; the
+mother begs; the father objurgates, threatens, curses his son's faith;
+and the mother, prostrating herself before the Virgin, weeps, and
+prays, and beats her breast. Alas, and my Khalid? he goes out on the
+terrace to search in the Nursery for his favourite Plant. No, he does
+not find it; brambles are there and noxious weeds galore. The thorny,
+bitter reality he must now face, and, by reason of his lack of
+savoir-faire, be ultimately out-faced by it. For the upshot of the
+many quarrels he had with his father, the prayers and tears of the
+mother not availing, was nothing more or less than banishment. You
+will either go to Church like myself, or get out of this house: this
+the ultimatum of Abu-Khalid. And needless to say which alternative the
+son chose.
+
+"I still remember how agitated he was when he came to tell me of the
+fatal breach. His words, which drew tears from my eyes, I remember
+too. 'Homeless I am again,' said he, 'but not friendless. For besides
+Allah, I have you.--Oh, this straitness of the chest is going to kill
+me. I feel that my windpipe is getting narrower every day. At least,
+my father is doing his mighty best to make things so hard and
+strait.--Yes, I would have come now to bid you farewell, were it not
+that I still have in this town some important business. In the which I
+ask your help. You know what it is. I have often spoken to you about
+my cousin Najma, the one star in my sky. And now, I would know what is
+its significance to me. No, I can not leave Baalbek, I can not do
+anything, until that star unfolds the night or the dawn of my destiny.
+And you Shakib--'
+
+"Of course, I promised to do what I could for him. I offered him such
+cheer and comfort as my home could boast of, which he would not
+accept. He would have only my terrace roof on which to build a booth
+of pine boughs, and spread in it a few straw mats and cushions. But I
+was disappointed in my calculations; for in having him thus near me
+again, I had hoped to prevail upon him for his own good to temper his
+behaviour, to conform a little, to concede somewhat, while he is among
+his people. But virtually he did not put up with me. He ate outside;
+he spent his days I know not where; and when he did come to his booth,
+it was late in the night. I was informed later that one of the
+goatherds saw him sleeping in the ruined Temple near Ras'ul-Ain. And
+the muazzen who sleeps in the Mosque adjacent to the Temple of Venus
+gave out that one night he saw him with a woman in that very place."
+
+A woman with Khalid, and in the Temple of Venus at night? Be not too
+quick, O Reader, to suspect and contemn; for the Venus-worship is not
+reinstated in Baalbek. No tryst this, believe us, but a scene
+pathetic, more sacred. Not Najma this questionable companion, but one
+as dear to Khalid. Ay, it is his mother come to seek him here. And she
+begs him, in the name of the Virgin, to return home, and try to do the
+will of his father. She beats her breast, weeps, prostrates herself
+before him, beseeches, implores, cries out, 'dakhilak (I am at your
+mercy), come home with me.' And Khalid, taking her up by the arm,
+embraces her and weeps, but says not a word. As two statues in the
+Temple, silent as an autumn midnight, they remain thus locked in each
+other's arms, sobbing, mingling their sighs and tears. The mother
+then, 'Come, come home with me, O my child.' And Khalid, sitting on
+one of the steps of the Temple, replies, 'Let him move out of the
+house, and I will come. I will live with you, if he will keep at the
+Jesuits.'
+
+For Khalid begins to suspect that the Jesuits are the cause of his
+banishment from home, that his father's religious ferocity is fuelled
+and fanned by these good people. One day, before Khalid was banished,
+Shakib tells us, one of them, Father Farouche by name, comes to pay a
+visit of courtesy, and finds Khalid sitting cross-legged on a mat
+writing a letter.
+
+The Padre is received by Khalid's mother who takes his hand, kisses
+it, and offers him the seat of honour on the divan. Khalid continues
+writing. And after he had finished, he turns round in his cross-legged
+posture and greets his visitor. Which greeting is surely to be
+followed by a conversation of the sword-and-shield kind.
+
+"How is your health?" this from Father Farouche in miserable Arabic.
+
+"As you see: I breathe with an effort, and can hardly speak."
+
+"But the health of the body is nothing compared with the health of the
+soul."
+
+"I know that too well, O Reverend" (Ya Muhtaram).
+
+"And one must have recourse to the physician in both instances."
+
+"I do not believe in physicians, O Reverend."
+
+"Not even the physician of the soul?"
+
+"You said it, O Reverend."
+
+The mother of Khalid serves the coffee, and whispers to her son a
+word. Whereupon Khalid rises and sits on the divan near the Padre.
+
+"But one must follow the religion of one's father," the Jesuit
+resumes.
+
+"When one's father has a religion, yes; but when he curses the
+religion of his son for not being ferociously religious like
+himself--"
+
+"But a father must counsel and guide his children."
+
+"Let the mother do that. Hers is the purest and most disinterested
+spirit of the two."
+
+"Then, why not obey your mother, and--"
+
+Khalid suppresses his anger.
+
+"My mother and I can get along without the interference of our
+neighbours."
+
+"Yes, truly. But you will find great solace in going to Church and
+ceasing your doubts."
+
+Khalid rises indignant.
+
+"I only doubt the Pharisees, O Reverend, and their Church I would
+destroy to-day if I could."
+
+"My child--"
+
+"Here is your hat, O Reverend, and pardon me--you see, I can hardly
+speak, I can hardly breathe. Good day."
+
+And he walks out of the house, leaving Father Farouche to digest his
+ire at his ease, and to wonder, with his three-cornered hat in hand,
+at the savage demeanour of the son of their pious porter. "Your son,"
+addressing the mother as he stands under the door-lintel, "is not only
+an infidel, but he is also crazy. And for such wretches there is an
+asylum here and a Juhannam hereafter."
+
+And the poor mother, her face suffused with tears, prostrates herself
+before the Virgin, praying, beating her breast, invoking with her
+tongue and hand and heart; while Farouche returns to his coop to hatch
+under his three-cornered hat, the famous Jesuit-egg of intrigue. That
+hat, which can outwit the monk's hood and the hundred fabled devils
+under it, that hat, with its many gargoyles, a visible symbol of the
+leaky conscience of the Jesuit, that hat, O Khalid, which you would
+have kicked out of your house, has eventually succeeded in ousting
+YOU, and will do its mighty best yet to send you to the Bosphorus.
+Indeed, to serve their purpose, these honest servitors of Jesus will
+even act as spies to the criminal Government of Abd'ul-Hamid. Read
+Shakib's account.
+
+"About a fortnight after Khalid's banishment from home," he writes, "a
+booklet was published in Beirut, setting forth the history of Ignatius
+Loyola and the purports and intents of Jesuitism. On the cover it was
+expressly declared that the booklet is translated from the English,
+and the Jesuits, who are noted for their scholarly attainments, could
+have discovered this for themselves without the explicit declaration.
+But they did not deem it necessary to make such a discovery then. It
+seemed rather imperative to maintain the contrary and try to prove
+it. Now, Khalid having received a copy of this booklet from a friend
+in Beirut, reads it and writes back, saying that it is not a
+translation but a mutilation, rather, of one of Thomas Carlyle's
+Latter-Day Pamphlets entitled _Jesuitism_. This letter must have
+reached them together with Father Farouche's report on Khalid's
+infidelity, just about the time the booklet was circulating in
+Baalbek. For in the following Number of their _Weekly Journal_ an
+article, stuffed and padded with execrations and anathema, is
+published against the book and its anonymous author. From this I quote
+the following, which is by no means the most erring and most poisonous
+of their shafts.
+
+"'Such a Pamphlet,' exclaims the scholarly Jesuit Editor, 'was never
+written by Thomas Carlyle, as some here, from ignorance or malice,
+assert. For that philosopher, of all the thinkers of his day, believed
+in God and in the divinity of Jesus His Son, and could never descend
+to these foul and filthy depths. He never soiled his pen in the
+putrescence of falsehood and incendiarism. The author of this
+blasphemous and pernicious Pamphlet, therefore, in trying to father
+his infidelity, his sedition, and his lies, on Carlyle, is doubly
+guilty of a most heinous crime. And we suspect, we know, and for the
+welfare of the community we hope to be able soon to point out openly,
+who and where this vile one is. Yes, only an atheist and anarchist is
+capable of such villainous mendacity, such unutterable wickedness and
+treachery. Now, we would especially call upon our readers in Baalbek
+to be watchful and vigilant, for among them is one, recently come back
+from America, who harbours under his bushy hair the atheism and
+anarchy of decadent Europe, etc, etc.'
+
+"And this is followed by secret orders from their Head Office to the
+Superior of their Branch in Zahleh, to go on with the work hinted in
+the article aforesaid. Let it not be supposed that I make this
+statement in jaundice or malice. For the man who was instigated to do
+this foul work subsequently sold the secret. And the Kaimkam, my
+friend, when speaking to me of the matter, referred to the article in
+question, and told me that Khalid was denounced to the Government by
+the Jesuits as an anarchist. 'And lest I be compelled,' he continued,
+'to execute such orders in his case as I might receive any day, I
+advise you to spirit him away at once.'"
+
+But though the Jesuits have succeeded in kicking Khalid out of his
+home, they did not succeed, thanks to Shakib, in sending him to the
+Bosphorus. Meanwhile, they sit quiet, hatching another egg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FLOUNCES AND RUFFLES
+
+
+Now, that there is a lull in the machinations of Jesuitry, we shall
+turn a page or two in Shakib's account of the courting of Khalid. And
+apparently everything is propitious. The fates, at least, in the
+beginning, are not unkind. For the feud between Khalid's father and
+uncle shall now help to forward Khalid's love-affair. Indeed, the
+father of Najma, to spite his brother, opens to the banished nephew
+his door and blinks at the spooning which follows. And such an
+interminable yarn our Scribe spins out about it, that Khalid and Najma
+do seem the silliest lackadaisical spoonies under the sun. But what we
+have evolved from the narration might have for our readers some
+curious alien phase of interest.
+
+Here then are a few beads from Shakib's romantic string. When Najma
+cooks _mojadderah_ for her father, he tells us, she never fails to
+come to the booth of pine boughs with a platter of it. And this to
+Khalid was very manna. For never, while supping on this single dish,
+would he dream of the mensal and kitchen luxuries of the Hermitage in
+Bronx Park. In fact, he never envied the pork-eating Americans, the
+beef-eating English, or the polyphagic French. "Here is a dish of
+lentils fit for the gods," he would say....
+
+When Najma goes to the spring for water, Khalid chancing to meet her,
+takes the jar from her shoulder, saying, "Return thou home; I will
+bring thee water." And straightway to the spring hies he, where the
+women there gathered fill his ears with tittering, questioning tattle
+as he is filling his jar. "I wish I were Najma," says one, as he
+passes by, the jar of water on his shoulder. "Would you cement his
+brain, if you were?" puts in another. And thus would they gibe and
+joke every time Khalid came to the spring with Najma's jar....
+
+One day he comes to his uncle's house and finds his betrothed
+ribboning and beading some new lingerie for her rich neighbour's
+daughter. He sits down and helps her in the work, writing meanwhile,
+between the acts, an alphabetic ideology on Art and Life. But as they
+are beading the vests and skirts and other articles of richly laced
+linen underwear, Najma holds up one of these and naively asks, "Am I
+not to have some such, _ya habibi_ (O my Love)?" And Khalid, affecting
+like bucolic innocence, replies, "What do we need them for, my heart?"
+With which counter-question Najma is silenced, convinced.
+
+Finally, to show to what degree of ecstasy they had soared without
+searing their wings or losing a single feather thereof, the following
+deserves mention. In the dusk one day, Khalid visits Najma and finds
+her oiling and lighting the lamp. As she beholds him under the
+door-lintel, the lamp falls from her hands, the kerosene blazes on the
+floor, and the straw mat takes fire. They do not heed this--they do
+not see it--they are on the wings of an ecstatic embrace. And the
+father, chancing to arrive in the nick of time, with a curse and a
+cuff, saves them and his house from the conflagration.
+
+Aside from these curious and not insignificant instances, these
+radiations of a giddy hidden flame of heart-fire, this melting gum of
+spooning on the bark of the tree of love, we turn to a scene in the
+Temple of Venus which unfolds our future plans--our hopes and dreams.
+But we feel that the Reader is beginning to hanker for a few pieces of
+description of Najma's charms. Gentle Reader, this Work is neither a
+Novel, nor a Passport. And we are exceeding sorry we can not tell you
+anything about the colour and size of Najma's eyes; the shape and
+curves of her brows and lips; the tints and shades in her cheeks; and
+the exact length of her figure and hair. Shakib leaves us in the dark
+about these essentials, and we must needs likewise leave you. Our
+Scribe thinks he has said everything when he speaks of her as a huri.
+But this paradisal title among our Arabic writers and verse-makers is
+become worse than the Sultan's Medjidi decorations. It is bestowed
+alike on every drab and trollop as on the very few who really deserve
+it. Let us rank it, therefore, with the Medjidi decorations and pass
+on.
+
+But Khalid, who has seen enough of the fair, would not be attracted to
+Najma, enchanted by her, if she were not endowed with such of the
+celestial treasures as rank above the visible lines of beauty. Our
+Scribe speaks of the "purity and naivete of her soul as purest
+sources of felicity and inspiration." Indeed, if she were not constant
+in love, she would not have spurned the many opportunities in the
+absence of Khalid; and had she not a fine discerning sense of real
+worth, she would not have surrendered herself to her poor ostracised
+cousin; and if she were not intuitively, preternaturally wise, she
+would not marry an enemy of the Jesuits, a bearer withal of
+infiltrated lungs and a shrunken windpipe. "There is a great advantage
+in having a sickly husband," she once said to Shakib, "it lessons a
+woman in the heavenly virtues of our Virgin Mother, in patient
+endurance and pity, in charity, magnanimity, and pure love." What,
+with these sublimities of character, need we know of her visible
+charms, or lack of them? She might deserve the title Shakib bestows
+upon her; she might be a real huri, for all we know? In that event,
+the outward charms correspond, and Khalid is a lucky dog--if some one
+can keep the Jesuits away.
+
+This, then, is our picture of Najma, to whom he is now relating, in
+the Temple of Venus, of the dangers he had passed and the felicities
+of the beduin life he has in view. It is evening. The moon struggles
+through the poplars to light the Temple for them, and the ambrosial
+breeze caresses their cheeks.
+
+"No," says Khalid; "we can not live here, O my Heart, after we are
+formally married. The curse in my breast I must not let you share, and
+only when I am rid of it am I actually your husband. By the life of
+this blessed night, by the light of these stars, I am inalterably
+resolved on this, and I shall abide by my resolution. We must leave
+Baalbek as soon as the religious formalities are done. And I wish your
+father would have them performed under his roof. That is as good as
+going to Church to be the central figures of the mummery of priests.
+But be this as You will. Whether in Church or at home, whether by your
+father or by gibbering Levites the ceremony is performed, we must hie
+us to the desert after it is done. I shall hire the camels and prepare
+the necessary set-out for the wayfare a day or two ahead. No, I must
+not be a burden to you, my Heart. I must be able to work for you as
+for myself. And Allah alone, through the ministration of his great
+Handmaid Nature, can cure me and enable me to share with you the joys
+of life. No, not before I am cured, can I give you my whole self, can
+I call myself your husband. Into the desert, therefore, to some oasis
+in its very heart, we shall ride, and there crouch our camels and
+establish ourselves as husbandmen. I shall even build you a little
+home like your own. And you will be to me an aura of health, which I
+shall breathe with the desert air, and the evening breeze. Yes, our
+love shall dwell in a palace of health, not in a hovel of disease.
+Meanwhile, we shall buy with what money I have a little patch of
+ground which we shall cultivate together. And we shall own cattle and
+drink camel milk. And we shall doze in the afternoon in the cool shade
+of the palms, and in the evening, wrapt in our cloaks, we'll sleep on
+the sands under the living stars. Yes, and Najma shall be the
+harbinger of dawn to Khalid.--Out on that little farm in the oasis of
+our desert, far from the world and the sanctified abominations of the
+world, we shall live near to Allah a life of purest joy, of true
+happiness. We shall never worry about the hopes of to-morrow and the
+gone blessings of yesterday. We shall not, while labouring, dream of
+rest, nor shall we give a thought to our tasks while drinking of the
+cup of repose: each hour shall be to us an epitome of eternity. The
+trials and troubles of each day shall go with the setting sun, never
+to rise with him again. But I am unkind to speak of this. For your
+glances banish care, and we shall ever be together. Ay, my Heart, and
+when I take up the lute in the evening, you'll sing _mulayiah_ to me,
+and the stars above us shall dance, and the desert breeze shall house
+us in its whispers of love...."
+
+And thus interminably, while Najma, understanding little of all this,
+sits beside him on a fallen column in the Temple and punctuates his
+words with assenting exclamations, with long eighs of joy and wonder.
+"But we are not going to live in the desert all the time, are we?" she
+asks.
+
+"No, my Heart. When I am cured of my illness we shall return to
+Baalbek, if you like."
+
+"Eigh, good. Now, I want to say--no. I shame to speak about such
+matters."
+
+"Speak, _ya Gazalty_ (O my Doe or Dawn or both); your words are like
+the scented breeze, like the ethereal moon rays, which enter into this
+Temple without permission. Speak, and light up this ruined Temple of
+thine."
+
+"How sweet are Your words, but really I can not understand them. They
+are like the sweetmeats my father brought with him once from Damascus.
+One eats and exclaims, 'How delicious!' But one never knows how they
+are made, and what they are made of. I wish I could speak like you,
+_ya habibi_. I would not shame to say then what I want."
+
+"Say what you wish. My heart is open, and your words are silvery
+moonbeams."
+
+"Do not blame me then. I am so simple, you know, so foolish. And I
+would like to know if you are going to Church on our wedding day in
+the clothes you have on now."
+
+"Not if you object to them, my Heart."
+
+"Eigh, good! And must I come in my ordinary Sunday dress? It is so
+plain; it has not a single ruffle to it."
+
+"And what are ruffles for?"
+
+"I never saw a bride in a plain gown; they all have ruffles and
+flounces to them. And when I look at your lovely hair--O let people
+say what they like! A gown without ruffles is ugly.--So, you will buy
+me a sky-blue silk dress, _ya habibi_ and a pink one, too, with plenty
+of ruffles on them? Will you not?"
+
+"Yes, my Heart, you shall have what you desire. But in the desert you
+can not wear these dresses. The Arabs will laugh at you. For the women
+there wear only plain muslin dipped in indigo."
+
+"Then, I will have but one dress of sky-blue silk for the wedding."
+
+"Certainly, my Heart. And the ruffles shall be as many and as long as
+you desire them."
+
+And while the many-ruffled sky-blue dress is being made, Khalid,
+inspired by Najma's remarks on his hair, rhapsodises on flounces
+and ruffles. Of this striking piece of fantasy, in which are
+scintillations of the great Truth, we note the following:
+
+"What can you do without your flounces? How can you live without your
+ruffles? Ay, how can you, without them, think, speak, or work? How can
+you eat, drink, walk, sleep, pray, worship, moralise, sentimentalise,
+or love, without them? Are you not ruffled and flounced when you first
+see the light, ruffled and flounced when you last see the darkness?
+The cradle and the tomb, are they not the first and last ruffles of
+Man? And between them what a panoramic display of flounces! What clean
+and attractive visible Edges of unclean invisible common Skirts! Look
+at your huge elaborate monuments, your fancy sepulchers, what are they
+but the ruffles of your triumphs and defeats? The marble flounces,
+these, of your cemeteries, your Pantheons and Westminster Abbeys. And
+what are your belfries and spires and chimes, your altars and
+reredoses and such like, but the sanctified flounces of your churches.
+No, these are not wholly adventitious sanctities; not empty,
+superfluous growths. They are incorporated into Life by Time, and they
+grow in importance as our AEsthetics become more inutile, as our
+Religions begin to exude gum and pitch for commerce, instead of
+bearing fruits of Faith and Love and Magnanimity.
+
+"The first church was the forest; the first dome, the welkin; the
+first altar, the sun. But that was, when man went forth in native
+buff, brother to the lion, not the ox, without ruffles and without
+faith. His spirit, in the course of time, was born; it grew and
+developed zenithward and nadirward, as the cycles rolled on. And in
+spiritual pride, and pride of power and wealth as well, it took to
+ruffling and flouncing to such an extent that at certain epochs it
+disappeared, dwindled into nothingness, and only the appendages
+remained. These were significant appendages, to be sure; not
+altogether adscititious. Ruffles these, indeed, endowed, as it were,
+with life, and growing on the dead Spirit, as the grass on the grave.
+
+"And is it not noteworthy that our life terrene at certain epochs
+seems to be made up wholly of these? That as the great Pine falls, the
+noxious weeds, the brambles and thorny bushes around it, grow quicker,
+lustier, luxuriating on the vital stores in the earth that were its
+own--is not this striking and perplexing, my rational friends? Surely,
+Man is neither the featherless biped of the Greek Philosopher, nor the
+tool-using animal of the Sage of Chelsea. For animals, too, have their
+tools, and man, in his visible flounces, has feathers enough to make
+even a peacock gape. Both my Philosophers have hit wide of the mark
+this time. And Man, to my way of thinking, is a flounce-wearing
+Spirit. Indeed, flounces alone, the invisible ones in particular,
+distinguish us from the beasts. For like ourselves they have their
+fashions in clothes; their peculiar speech; their own hidden means of
+intellection, and, to some extent, of imagination: but flounces they
+have not, they know not. These are luxuries, which Man alone enjoys.
+
+"Ah, Man,--thou son and slave of Allah, according to my Oriental
+Prophets of Heaven; thou exalted, apotheosised ape, according to my
+Occidental Prophets of Science;--how much thou canst suffer, how much
+thou canst endure, under what pressure and in what Juhannam depths
+thou canst live; but thy flounces thou canst not dispense with for a
+day, nor for a single one-twelfth part of a day. Even in thy suffering
+and pain, the agonised spirit is wrapped, bandaged, swathed in
+ruffles. It is assuaged with the flounces of thy lady's caresses, and
+the scalloped intonations of her soft and soothing voice. It is
+humbugged into health by the malodorous flounces of the apothecary and
+the medicinal ruffles of the doctor.
+
+"Ay, we live in a phantasmagoric, cycloramic economy of flounces and
+ruffles. The human Spirit shirks nudity as it shirks pain. Even your
+modern preacher of the Simple Life is at best suggesting the moderate
+use of ruffles.... Indeed, we can suffer anything, everything, but the
+naked and ugly reality. Alas, have I not listened for years to what I
+mistook to be the strong, pure voice of the naked Truth? And have I
+not discovered, to my astonishment, that the supposed scientific
+Nudity is but an indurated thick Crust under which the Lie lies
+hidden. Why strip Man of his fancy appendages, his adventitious
+sanctities, if you are going to give him instead only a few yards of
+shoddy? No, I tell you; this can not be done. Your brambles and thorn
+hedges will continue to grow and luxuriate, will even shut from your
+view the Temple in the Grove, until the great Pine rises again to
+stunt, and ultimately extirpate, them.
+
+"Behold, meanwhile, how the world parades in ruffles before us. What a
+bewildering phantasmagoria this: a very Dress Ball of the human race.
+See them pass: the Pope of Christendom, in his three hats and heavy
+trailing gowns, blessing the air of heaven; the priest, in his alb and
+chasuble, dispensing of the blessings of the Pope; the judge, in his
+wig and bombazine, endeavouring to reconcile divine justice with the
+law's mundane majesty; the college doctor, in cap and gown, anointing
+the young princes of knowledge; the buffoon, in his cap and bells,
+dancing to the god of laughter; mylady of the pink-tea circle, in her
+huffing, puffing gasoline-car, fleeing the monster of ennui; the bride
+and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their
+already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion;
+the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the
+priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the
+soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and
+sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous and multi-colored
+robes; and the Papuan with horns in his nostrils and rings in his
+ears: see them all pass.
+
+"And wilt thou still add to the bewildering variety of the pageant? Or
+wilt have another of the higher things of the mind? Lo, the artist
+this, wearing his ruffles of hair over his shoulders; and here, too,
+is the man of the sombrero and red flannel, which are the latest
+flounces of a certain set of New World poets. Directly behind them is
+Dame Religion with her heavy ruffled robes, her beribboned and belaced
+bodices, her ornaments and sacred gewgaws. And billah, she has
+stuffings and paddings, too. And false teeth and foul breath! Never
+mind. Pass on, and let her pass. But tarry thou a moment here. Behold
+this pyrotechnic display, these buntings and flags; hear thou this
+music and these shouts and cheers; on yonder stump is an orator
+dispensing to his fellow citizens spread-eagle rhetoric as empty as
+yonder drum: these are the elaborate and attractive ruffles of
+politics. And among the crowd are genial and honest citizens who have
+their own way of ruffling your temper with their coarse flounces of
+linsey-woolsey freedom. Wilt thou have more?"
+
+Decidedly not, we reply. For how can we even keep company with Khalid,
+who has become such a maniac on flounces? And was this fantastic,
+phantasmagoric rhapsody all inspired by Najma's simple remark on his
+hair? Fruitful is thy word, O woman!
+
+But being so far away now from the Hermitage in the Bronx, what has
+the "cherry in the cocktail" and "the olive in the oyster patty" to do
+with all this? Howbeit, the following deserves a place as the
+tail-flounce of his Fantasy.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your superman and superwoman," says he, with philosophic calm, "may
+go Adam-and-Eve like if they choose. But can they, even in that chaste
+and splendid nudity, dispense with ruffles and flounces? Pray, tell
+me, did not our first parents spoon and sentimentalise in the
+Paradise, before the Serpent appeared? And would they not often
+whisper unto each other, 'Ah, Adam, ah, Eve!' sighing likewise for
+sweeter things? And what about those fatal Apples, those two sour
+fruits of their Love?--I tell thee every new-born babe is the
+magnificent flesh-flounce of a shivering, trembling, nudity. And I
+Khalid, what am I but the visible ruffle of an invisible skirt?
+Verily, I am; and thou, too, my Brother. Yea, and this aquaterrestrial
+globe and these sidereal heavens are the divine flounces of the
+Vesture of Allah."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOWDAJ OF FALSEHOOD
+
+
+"Humanity is so feeble in mind," says Renan, "that the purest thing
+has need of the co-operation of some impure agent." And this, we
+think, is the gist of Khalid's rhapsody on flounces and ruffles. But
+how is he to reconcile the fact with the truth in his case? For a
+single sanctified ruffle--a line of type in the canon law--is likely
+to upset all his plans. Yes, a priest in alb and chasuble not only can
+dispense with the blessings of his Pope, but--and here is the rub--he
+can also withhold such blessings from Khalid. And now, do what he may,
+say what he might, he must either revise his creed, or behave, at
+least, like a Christian.
+
+Everything is ready, you say? The sky-blue, many-ruffled wedding gown;
+the set-out for the wayfare; the camel and donkeys; the little stock
+of books; the coffee utensils; the lentils and sweet oil;--all ready?
+Very well; but you can not set forth to-morrow, nor three weeks from
+to-morrow. Indeed, before the priest can give you his blessings--and
+what at this juncture can you do without them?--the dispensations of
+the ban must be performed. In other words, your case must now be laid
+before the community. Every Sunday, for three such to come, the
+intended marriage of Khalid to Najma will be published in the Church,
+and whoso hath any objection to make can come forth and make it.
+Moreover, there is that little knot of consanguinity to be considered.
+And your priest is good enough to come and explain this to you.
+Understand him well. "An alm of a few gold pieces," says he, "will
+remove the obstacle; the unlawfulness of your marriage resulting from
+consanguinity will cease on payment of five hundred piasters."
+
+All of which startles Khalid, stupefies him. He had not, heretofore,
+thought of such a matter. Indeed, he was totally ignorant of these
+forms, these prohibitions and exemptions of the Church. And the father
+of Najma, though assenting, remarks nevertheless that the alms
+demanded are much. "Why," exclaims Khalid, "I can build a house for
+five hundred piasters."
+
+The priest sits down cross-legged on the divan, lights the cigarette
+which Najma had offered with the coffee, and tries to explain.
+
+"And where have you this, O Reverend, about consanguinity, prohibition,
+and alms!" Khalid asks.
+
+"Why, my child, in the Canons of our Church, Catholic and Apostolic.
+Every one knows that a marriage between cousins can not be effected,
+without the sanction of the Bishop."
+
+"But can we not obtain this sanction without paying for it?"
+
+"You are not paying for it, my child; you are only contributing some
+alms to the Church."
+
+"You come to us, therefore, as a beggar, not as a spiritual father and
+guide."
+
+"That is not good speaking. You misunderstand my purpose."
+
+"And pray, tell me, what is the purpose of prohibiting a marriage
+between cousins; what chief good is there in such a ban?"
+
+"Much good for the community."
+
+"But I have nothing to do with the community. I'm going to live with
+my wife in the desert."
+
+"The good of your souls is chiefly concerned."
+
+"Ah, the good of our souls!"
+
+"And there are other reasons which can not be freely spoken of here."
+
+"You mean the restriction and prohibition of sexual knowledge between
+relatives. That is very well. But let us return to what concerns us
+properly: the good of my soul, and the spiritual well-being of the
+community,--what becomes of these, when I pay the prescribed alms and
+obtain the sanction of the Bishop?"
+
+"No harm then can come to them--they'll be secure."
+
+"Secure, you say? Are they not hazarded, sold by your Church for five
+hundred piasters? If my marriage to my cousin be wrong, unlawful, your
+Bishop in sanctioning same is guilty of perpetuating this wrong, this
+unlawfulness, is he not?"
+
+"But what the Church binds only the Church can loosen."
+
+"And what is the use of binding, O Reverend Father, when a little
+sum of money can loosen anything you bind? It seems to me that these
+prohibitions of the Church are only made for the purpose of
+collecting alms. In other words, you bind for the sake of loosening,
+when a good bait is on the hook, do you not? Pardon, O my Reverend
+Father, pardon. I can not, to save my soul and yours, reconcile these
+contradictions. For if Mother Church be certain that my marriage to my
+cousin is contrary to the Law of God, is destructive of my spiritual
+well-being, then let her by all means prohibit it. Let her restrain
+me, compel me to obey. Ay, and the police ought to interfere in
+case of disobedience. In her behalf, in my behalf, in the behalf of my
+cousin's soul and mine, the police ought to do the will of God, if
+the Church knows what it is, and is certain and honest about it.
+Compel me to stop, I conjure you, if you know I am going in the way
+of damnation. O my Father, what sort of a mother is she who would sell
+two of her children to the devil for a few hundred piasters? No,
+billah! no. What is unlawful by virtue of the Divine Law the wealth
+of all the Trust-Kings of America can not make lawful. And what is so
+by virtue of your Canon Law concerns not me. You may angle, you and
+your Church, as long as you please in the murky, muddy waters of
+Bind-and-Loosen, I have nothing to do with you."...
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the priests, O Khalid, have yet a little to do with you. Such
+arguments about the Divine Law and the Canon Law, about alms and
+spiritual beggars, might cut the Gordian knot with your uncle,
+but--and whether it be good or bad English, we say it--they cut no ice
+with the Church. Yes, Mother Church, under whose wings you and your
+cousin were born and bred, and under whose wings you and your cousin
+would be married, can not take off for the sweet sake of your black
+eyes the ruffles and flounces of twenty centuries. Think well on it,
+you who have so extravagantly and not unwisely delivered yourself on
+flounces and ruffles. But to think, when in love, were, indeed,
+disastrous. O Love, Love, what Camels of wisdom thou canst force to
+pass through the needle's eye! What miracles divine are thine! Khalid
+himself says that to be truly, deeply, piously in love, one must needs
+hate himself. How true, how inexorably true! For would he be always
+inviting trouble and courting affliction, would he be always bucking
+against the dead wall of a Democracy or a Church, if he did not
+sincerely hate himself--if he were not religiously, fanatically in
+love--in love with Najma, if not with Truth?
+
+Now, on the following Sunday, instead of publishing the intended
+marriage of Khalid and Najma, the parish priest places a ban upon it.
+And in this, ye people of Baalbek, is food enough for tattle, and
+cause enough for persecution. Potent are the ruffles of the Church!
+But why, we can almost hear the anxious Reader asking, if the camels
+are ready, why the deuce don't they get on and get them gone? But did
+we not say once that Khalid is slow, even slower than the law itself?
+Nevertheless, if this were a Novel, an elopement would be in order,
+but we must repeat, it is not. We are faithful transcribers of the
+truth as we find it set down in Shakib's _Histoire Intime_.
+
+True, Khalid did ask Najma to throw with him the handful of dust, to
+steal out of Baalbek and get married on the way, say in Damascus. But
+poor Najma goes over to his mother instead, and mingling their tears
+and prayers, they beseech the Virgin to enlighten the soul and mind of
+Khalid. "Yes, we must be married here, before we go to the desert,"
+says she, "for think, O my mother, how far away we shall be from the
+world and the Church if anything happens to us."
+
+And they would have succeeded, the mother and cousin of Khalid, in
+persuading the parish priest to accept from them the prescribed alms
+and perform the wedding ceremony, had not the Jesuits, in the interest
+of the Faith and the Church, been dogging Khalid still. For if they
+have failed in sending him to the Bosphorus, they will succeed in
+sending him elsewhither. And observe how this is done.
+
+After communicating with the Papal Legate in Mt. Lebanon about that
+fatal Latter Day Pamphlet of Thomas Carlyle, the Adjutant-General, or
+Adjutant-Bird, stalks up there one night in person and lays before the
+Rt. Rev. Mgr. his devil's brief in Khalid's case. It has already been
+explained that this Pamphlet was fathered on Khalid by the Jesuits.
+For if they can not punish the Voice which is still pursuing them--and
+in their heart of hearts they must have recognised its thunder, even
+in a Translation--they will make the man smart for it who first
+mentioned Carlyle in this connection.
+
+"And besides this pernicious booklet," says the Adjutant-Bird, "the
+young man's heretical opinions are notorious. He was banished from
+home on that account. And now, after corrupting and deluding his
+cousin, he is going to marry her despite the ban of the Church.
+Something, Monseigneur, ought to be done, and quickly, to protect the
+community against the poison of this wretch." And Monseigneur, nodding
+his accord, orders his Secretary to write a note to the Patriarch,
+enclosing the aforesaid devil's brief, and showing the propriety, nay,
+the necessity of excommunicating Khalid the Baalbekian. The
+Adjutant-Bird, with the Legate's letter in his pocket, skips over to
+the Patriarch on the other hill-top below, and after a brief
+interview--our dear good Ancient of the Maronites must willy-nilly
+obey Rome--the fate of Khalid the Baalbekian is sealed.
+
+Indeed, the upshot of these Jesuitic machinations is this: on the very
+day when Khalid's mother and cousin are pleading before the parish
+priest for justice, for mercy,--offering the prescribed alms,
+beseeching that the ban be revoked, the marriage solemnised,--a
+messenger from the Bishop of the Diocese enters, kisses his
+Reverence's hand, and delivers an imposing envelope. The priest
+unseals it, unfolds the heavy foolscap sheet therein, reads it with a
+knitting of the brow, a shaking of the beard, and, clapping one hand
+upon the other, tells the poor pleaders to go home.
+
+"It is all finished. There is no more hope for you and your cousin."
+And he shows the Patriarchal Bull, and explains.
+
+Whereupon, Najma and Khalid's mother go out weeping, wailing, beating
+their breasts and cheeks, calling upon Allah to witness their sorrow
+and the outrageous tyranny of the priests.
+
+"What has my son done to be excommunicated? Hear it, ye people, hear
+it. And be just to me and my son. What has he done to deserve the
+anathema of the Church? What has he done?" And thus frantic, mad, she
+runs through the main street of the town, making wild gestures and
+clamours,--publishing, as it were, the Patriarchal Bull, before it was
+read by the priest on the following day, and tacked on the door of the
+Church.
+
+Of this Bull, tricked with the stock phrases of the Church of the
+Middle Ages, such as "anathema be he," or "banned be he," who
+speaks with, deals with, and so forth, we have a copy before us.
+But our readers will not pardon us, we fear, if further space and
+consideration be here given to its contents. Suffice it to say,
+however, that Khalid comes to church on that fatal day, takes the
+foolscap sheet down from the door, and, going with it to the
+town-square, burns it there before the multitudes.
+
+And it came to pass, when the Bull is burned in the town-square of
+Baalbek, in the last year of the reign of Abd'ul-Hamid, some among the
+multitudes shout loud shouts of joy, and some cast stones.
+
+Then, foul, vehement speaking falleth between the friends and the
+enemies of him who wrought evil in the sight of the Lord;
+
+And every one thereupon brandisheth a stick or taketh up a stone and
+the battle ensueth.
+
+Now, the mighty troops of the Sultan of the Ottomans come forth like
+the Yaman wind and stand in the town-square like rocks;
+
+And the battle rageth still, and the troops who are come forth to part
+the fighting multitudes, having gorged themselves at the last meal,
+can not as much as speak their part:
+
+And it came to pass, when the clubs and spades are veiled and the
+battle subsideth of itself, the good people return to their respective
+callings and trades;
+
+But the perverse recalcitrants which remain--and Khalid the Baalbekian
+is among them--are taken by the aforesaid overfed troops to the City
+Hall and thence to the _velayet_ prison in Damascus.
+
+And here endeth our stichometrics of the Battle of the Bull.
+
+Now, Shakib may wear out his shoes this time, his tongue, too, and his
+purse, but to no purpose. Behold, your friend the _kaimkam_ is gloomy
+and impassive as a camel; what can you do? Whisper in his ear? The
+Padres have done that before you. Slip a purse into his pocket? They
+have done that, too, and overdone it long since. Yes, the City Hall of
+every city in the Empire is an epitome of Yildiz Kiosk. And your
+_kaimkams_, and _valis_, and _viziers_, have all been taught in the
+same Text-Book, at the same Political School, and by the same
+Professor. Let Khalid rest, therefore and ponder these matters in
+silence. For in the City Hall and during the month he passes in the
+prison of Damascus, we are told, he does not utter a word. His
+partisans in prison ask to be taught his creed, and among these are
+some Mohammadans: "We'll burn the priests and their church yet and
+follow you. By our Prophet Mohammad we will ..." Khalid makes no
+reply. Even Shakib, when he comes to visit him, finds him dumb as a
+stone, slain by adversity and disease. Nothing can be done now. The
+giant excommunicated, incommunicative soul, struggling in a prison of
+sore flesh, we must leave, alas, with his friends and partisans to
+pass his thirty days and nights in the second prison of stone.
+
+Now, let us return to the Jesuits, who, having worsted Khalid, or the
+Devil in Khalid, as they charitably put it, will also endeavour to do
+somewhat in the interest of his intended bride. For the Padres, in
+addition to their many crafts and trades, are matrimonial brokers of
+honourable repute. And in their meddling and making, their baiting and
+mating, they are as serviceable as the Column Personal of an American
+newspaper. Whoso is matrimonially disposed shall whisper his mind at
+the Confessional or drop his advertisement in the pocket of the
+visiting Columns of their Bride-Dealer, and he shall prosper. She as
+well as he shall prosper.
+
+Now, Father Farouche is commissioned to come all the way from Zahleh
+to visit the brother of Abu-Khalid their porter, and bespeak him in
+the interest of his daughter. All their faculties of persuasion shall
+be exerted in behalf of Najma. She must be saved at any cost. Hence
+they volunteer their services. And while Khalid is lingering in prison
+at Damascus, they avail themselves of the opportunity to further the
+suit of their pickle-herring candidate for Najma's love.
+
+The Reverend Farouche, therefore, holds a secret conference with her
+father.
+
+"No," says he, "God would never have forgiven you for giving your
+daughter to one utterly destitute of morality, religion, money, and
+health. But praise Allah! the Church has come to her rescue. She shall
+be saved, wrested from the hands of Iblis. Yes, Holy Church, through
+us, will guide her to find a god-fearing life-companion; one worthy of
+her charms, her virtues, her fine qualities of heart and mind. The
+young man we recommend is rich, respected in the community; is an
+official of the Government with a third-class Medjidi decoration and
+the title of Bey; and is free from all diseases. Moreover, he is a
+good Catholic. Consider these advantages. A relation this, which no
+father would reject, if he loves his daughter and is solicitous of her
+future well-being. Speak to her, therefore, and let us know soon your
+mind."
+
+And our Scribe, in relating of this, loses his temper.--"An Official
+of the Government, a Bey with a third-class Medjidi decoration
+from the Sultan! As if Officialdom could not boast of a single
+scoundrel--as if any rogue in the Empire, with a few gold coins in his
+purse, were not eligible to the Hamidian decorations! And a
+third-class decoration! Why, I have it on good authority that
+these Medjidi Orders were given to a certain Patriarch in a bushel to
+distribute among his minions...."
+
+But to our subject. Abu-Najma does not look upon it in this light. A
+decorated and titled son-in-law were a great honour devoutly to be
+wished. And some days after the first conference, the Padre Farouche
+comes again, bringing along his Excellency the third-class Medjidi
+Bey; but Najma, as they enter and salaam, goes out on the terrace roof
+to weep. The third time the third-class Medjidi Dodo comes alone. And
+Najma, as soon as she catches a glimpse of him, takes up her earthen
+jar and hies her to the spring.
+
+"O the hinny! I'll rope noose her (hang her) to-night," murmurs the
+father. But here is his Excellency with his Sultan's green button in
+his lapel. Abu-Najma bows low, rubs his hands well, offers a large
+cushion, brings a _masnad_ (leaning pillow), and blubbers out many
+unnecessary apologies.
+
+"This honour is great, your Excellency--overlook our shortcomings--our
+_beit_ (one room house) can not contain our shame--it is not becoming
+your Excellency's high rank--overlook--you have condescended to honour
+us, condescend too to be indulgent.--My daughter? yes, presently. She
+is gone to church, to mass, but she'll return soon."
+
+But Najma is long gone; returns not; and the third-class Dodo
+will call again to-morrow. Now, Abu-Najma brings out his rope,
+soaps it well, nooses and suspends it from the rafter in the
+ceiling. And when his daughter returns from the spring, he takes
+her by the arm, shows her the rope, and tells her laconically
+to choose between his Excellency and this. Poor Najma has not
+the courage to die, and so soon. Her cousin Khalid is in prison,
+is excommunicated--what can she do? Run away? The Church will
+follow her--punish her. There's something satanic in Khalid--the
+Church said so--the Church knows. Najma rolls these things in her
+mind, looks at her father beseechingly. Her father points to the
+noose. Najma falls to weeping. The noose serves well its purpose.
+
+For hereafter, when the Dodo comes decorated, SHE has to offer him the
+cushion, bring him the _masnad_, make for him the coffee. And
+eventually, as the visits accumulate, she goes with him to the
+dress-maker in Beirut. The bridal gown shall be of the conventional
+silk this time; for his Excellency is travelled, and knows and
+reverences the fashion. But why prolong these painful details?
+
+"Allah, in the mysterious working of his Providence," says Shakib,
+"preordained it thus: Khalid, having served his turn in prison, Najma
+begins her own; for a few days after he was set free, she was placed
+in bonds forged for her by the Jesuits. Now, when Khalid returned from
+Damascus, he came straightway to me and asked that we go to see Najma
+and try to prevail upon her, to persuade her to go with him, to run
+away. They would leave on the night-train to Hama this time, and
+thence set forth towards Palmyra. I myself did not know what had
+happened, and so I approved of his plan. But alas! as we were coming
+down the main Street to Najma's house, we heard the sound of tomtoms
+in the distance and the shrill ulluluing of women. We continued apace
+until we reached the by-way through which we had to pass, and lo, we
+find it choked by the _zeffah_ (wedding procession) of none but she
+and the third-class Medjidi...."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we'll no more of this! Too tragic, too much like fiction it
+sounds, that here abruptly we must end this Chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE KAABA OF SOLITUDE
+
+
+Disappointed, distraught, diseased,--worsted by the Jesuits,
+excommunicated, crossed in love,--but with an eternal glint of
+sunshine in his breast to open and light up new paths before him,
+Khalid, after the fatal episode, makes away from Baalbek. He suddenly
+disappears. But where he lays his staff, where he spends his months of
+solitude, neither Shakib nor our old friend the sandomancer can say.
+Somewhither he still is, indeed; for though he fell in a swoon as he
+saw Najma on her caparisoned palfrey and the decorated Excellency
+coming up along side of her, he was revived soon after and persuaded
+to return home. But on the following morning, our Scribe tells us,
+coming up to the booth, he finds neither Khalid there, nor any of his
+few worldly belongings. We, however, have formed a theory of our own,
+based on certain of his writings in the K. L. MS., about his
+mysterious levitation; and we believe he is now somewhither whittling
+arrows for a coming combat. In the Lebanon mountains perhaps. But we
+must not dog him like the Jesuits. Rather let us reverence the privacy
+of man, the sacredness of his religious retreat. For no matter where
+he is in the flesh, we are metaphysically certain of his existence.
+And instead of filling up this Chapter with the bitter bickerings of
+life and the wickedness and machination of those in power, let us
+consecrate it to the divine peace and beauty of Nature. Of a number of
+Chapters in the Book of Khalid on this subject, we choose the one
+entitled, My Native Terraces, or Spring in Syria, symbolising the
+natural succession to Khalid's Winter of destiny. In it are signal
+manifestations of the triumph of the soul over the diseases and
+adversities and sorrows of mortal life. Indeed, here is an example of
+faith and power and love which we reckon sublime.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The inhabitants of my terraces and terrace walls," we translate,
+"dressed in their Sunday best, are in the doorways lounging or peeping
+idly through their windows. And why not? It is Spring, and to these
+delicate, sweet little creatures, Spring is the one Sunday of the
+year. Have they not hugged the damp, dark earth long enough? Hidden
+from the wrath of Winter, have they not squatted patiently round the
+primitive, smokeless fire of the mystic depths? And now, the rain
+having partly extinguished the inner, hidden flame, they come out to
+bask in the sun, and drink deeply of the ambrosial air. They come,
+almost slain with thirst, to the Mother Fountain. They come out to
+worship at the shrine of the sweet-souled, God-absorbed Rabia of
+Attar. In their bright, glowing faces what a delectable message from
+the under world of romance and enchantment! Their lips are red with
+the kisses of love, in whose alembics, intangible, unseen, the dark
+and damp of the earth are translated into warmth and colour and shade.
+Ay, these dear little children, unfolding their soft green scrolls and
+reading aloud such odes on Modesty and Beauty, are as inspiring as the
+star-crowned night. And every chink in my terrace walls seems to
+breathe a message of sweetness and light and love.
+
+"Know you not the anecdote about the enchanting Goddess Rabia, as
+related by Attar in his _Biographies of Sufi Mystics and Saints_? Here
+it is. Rabia was asked if she hated the devil, and she replied, 'No.'
+Asked again why, she said, 'Being absorbed in love, I have no time to
+hate.' Now, all the inhabitants of my terraces and fields seem to echo
+this sublime sentiment of their Goddess. The air and sunshine, nay,
+the very rocks are imbued with it. See, how the fissures in the
+boulders yonder seem to sympathise with the gaps in the terrace walls:
+the cyclamen leaves in the one are salaaming the cyclamen flowers in
+the other. O, these terraces would have delighted the heart of the
+American naturalist Thoreau. He could not have desired stone walls
+with more gaps in them. But mind you, these are not dark, ugly,
+hollow, hopeless chinks. Behind every one of them lurks a mystery. Far
+back in the niches I can see the busts of the poets who wrote the
+poems which these beautiful wild flowers are reading to me. Yes, the
+authors are dead, and what I behold now are the flowers of their
+amours. These are the offspring of their embraces, the crystallised
+dew of their love. Yes, this one single, simple act of love brings
+forth an infinite variety of flowers to celebrate the death of the
+finite outward shape and the eternal essence of life perennial. In
+complete surrender lies the divineness of things eternal. This is the
+key-note of the Oriental mystic poets. And I incline to the belief
+that they of all bards have sung best the song of love. In rambling
+through the fields with these beautiful children of the terraces, I
+know not what draws me to Al-Fared, the one erotic-mystic poet of
+Arabia, whose interminable rhymes have a perennial charm. Perhaps such
+lines as these,--
+
+    'All that is fair is fairer when she rises,
+       All that is sweet is sweeter when she is here;
+     And every form of beauty she surprises
+       With one brief word she whispers in its ear:
+
+    'Thy wondrous charms, O let them not deceive thee;
+       They are but borrowed from her for a while;
+     Thine outward guise and loveliness would grieve thee,
+       If in thine inmost soul she did not smile.
+
+    'All colours, forms, into each other merging,
+       Are woven on her Loom of Unity;
+     For she alone is One in All diverging,
+       And she alone is absolute and free.'
+
+"Now, I will bring you to a scene most curiously suggestive. Behold
+that little knot of daisies pressing around the alone anemone beneath
+the spreading leaves of the colocasia. Here is a rout at the Countess
+Casiacole's, and these are the debutantes crowding around the
+Celebrity of the day. But would they do so if they were sensible of
+their own worth, if they knew that their idol, flaunting the crimson
+crown of popularity, had no more, and perhaps less, of the pure
+essence of life than any of them? But let Celebrity stand there and
+enjoy her hour; to-morrow the Ploughman will come.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The sage, with its spikes of greyish blue flowers, its fibrous,
+velvety leaves, its strong, pungent perfume, which is not squandered
+or repressed, is the stoic of my native terraces. It responds
+generously to the personal touch, and serves the Lebanonese, rich and
+poor alike, with a little luxury. Ay, who of us, wandering on foreign
+strands, does not remember the warm foot-bath, perfumed with sage
+leaves, his mother used to give him before going to bed? Our dear
+mothers!"--And here, Khalid goes in raptures and tears about his sorry
+experience in Baalbek and the anguish and sorrow of his poor mother.
+"But while I stand," he continues, "let me be like the sage, a
+live-oak among shrubs, indifferent as the oak or pine to the winds and
+storms. And as the sun is setting, find you no solace in the thought,
+O Khalid, that some angel herb-gatherer will preserve the perfume in
+your leaves, to refresh therewith in other worlds your dear poor
+mother?
+
+"My native terraces are rich with faith and love, luxuriant with the
+life divine and the wondrous symbols thereof. And the grass here is
+not cut and trimmed as in the artificial gardens and the cold dull
+lawns of city folk, whose love for Nature is either an experiment, a
+sport, a business, or a fad. 'A dilettantism in Nature is barren and
+unworthy,' says Emerson. But of all the lovers of Nature, the children
+are the least dilettanteish. And every day here I see a proof of this.
+Behold them wading to their knees in that lusty grass, hunting the
+classic lotus with which to deck their olive branches for the high
+mass and ceremony of Palm Sunday. But alas, my lusty grass and my
+beautiful wild flowers do not enjoy the morning of Spring. Here, the
+ploughman comes, carrying his long plough and goad on his shoulder,
+and with him his wife lugging the yoke and his boy leading the oxen.
+Alas, the sun shall not set on these bright, glowing, green terraces,
+whose walls are very ramparts of flowers. There, the boy with his
+scythe is paving the way for his father's plough; the grass is mowed
+and given to the oxen as a bribe to do the ugly business. And all for
+the sake of the ugly mulberries, which are cultivated for the ugly
+silk-worms. Come, let us to the heath, where the hiss of the scythe
+and the 'ho-back' and 'oho' of the ploughman are not heard.
+
+"But let us swing from the road. Come, the hedges of Nature are not as
+impassable as the hedges of man. Through these scrub oaks and wild
+pears, between this tangle of thickets, over the clematis and
+blackberry bush,--and here we are under the pines, the lofty and
+majestic pines. How different are these natural hedges, growing in
+wild disorder, from the ugly cactus fences with which my neighbours
+choose to shut in their homes, and even their souls. But my business
+now is not with them. There are my friends the children again
+gathering the pine-needles of last summer for lighting the fire of the
+silk-worm nursery. And down that narrow foot-path, meandering around
+the boulders and disappearing among the thickets, see what big loads
+of brushwood are moving towards us. Beneath them my swarthy and hardy
+peasants are plodding up the hill asweat and athirst. When I first
+descended to the wadi, one such load of brushwood emerging suddenly
+from behind a cliff surprised and frightened me. But soon I was
+reminded of the moving forest in Macbeth. The man bowed beneath the
+load was hidden from view, and the boy directly behind was sweating
+under a load as big as that of his father. '_Awafy!_' (Allah give you
+strength), I said, greeting them. 'And increase of health to you,'
+they replied. I then asked the boy how far down do they have to go for
+their brushwood, and laying down his load on a stone to rest, he
+points below, saying, 'Here, near the river.' But this 'Here, near the
+river' is more than four hours' walk from the village.--Allah preserve
+you in your strength, my Brothers. And they pass along, plodding
+slowly under their overshadowing burdens. A hard-hearted Naturalist,
+who goes so deep into Nature as to be far from the vital core even as
+the dilettante, might not have any sympathy to throw away on such
+occasions. But of what good is the love of Nature that consists only
+in classification and dissection? I carry no note-book with me when I
+go down the wadi or out into the fields. I am content if I bring back
+a few impressions of some reassuring instance of faith, a few
+pictures, and an armful of wild flowers and odoriferous shrubs. Let
+the learned manual maker concern himself with the facts; he is content
+with jotting down in his note-book the names and lineage of every
+insect and every herb.
+
+"But Man? What is he to these scientific Naturalists? If they meet a
+stranger on the road, they pass him by, their eyes intent on the
+breviary of Nature, somewhat after the fashion of my priests, who are
+fond of praying in the open-air at sundown. No, I do not have to prove
+to my Brothers that my love of Nature is but second to my love of
+life. I am interested in my fellow men as in my fellow trees and
+flowers. 'The beauty of Nature,' Emerson again, 'must always seem
+unreal and mocking until the landscape has human figures, that are as
+good as itself.' And 'tis well, if they are but half as good. To me,
+the discovery of a woodman in the wadi were as pleasing as the
+discovery of a woodchuck or a woodswallow or a woodbine. For in the
+soul of the woodman is a song, I muse, as sweet as the rhythmic
+strains of the goldfinch, if it could be evoked. But the soul plodding
+up the hill under its heavy overshadowing burden, what breath has it
+left for song? The man bowed beneath the load, the soul bowed beneath
+the man! Alas, I seem to behold but moving burdens in my country. And
+yet, my swarthy and shrunken, but firm-fibred people plod along,
+content, patient, meek; and when they reach the summit of the hill
+with their crushing burdens, they still have breath enough to troll a
+favourite ditty or serenade the night.
+
+    'I come to thee, O Night,
+       I'm at thy feet;
+     I can not see, O Night,
+       But thy breath is sweet.'
+
+"And so is the breath of the pines. Here, the air is surcharged with
+perfume. In it floats the aromatic soul of many a flower. But the
+perfume-soul of the pines seems to tower over all others, just as its
+material shape lifts its artistic head over the oak, the cercis, and
+the terabinth. And though tall and stately, my native pines are not
+forbidding. They are so pruned that the snags serve as a most
+convenient ladder. Such was my pleasure mounting for the green cones,
+the salted pinons of which are delicious. But I confess they seem to
+stick in the stomach as the pitch of the cones sticks on the hands.
+This, however, though it remains for days, works no evil; but the
+pinons in the stomach, and the stomach on the nerves,--that is a
+different question.
+
+"The only pines I have seen in the United States are those in front of
+Emerson's house in Concord; but compared with my native trees, they
+are scrubby and mean. These pine parasols under which I lay me,
+forgiving and forgetting, are fit for the gods. And although closely
+planted, they grow and flourish without much ado. I have seen spots
+not exceeding a few hundred square feet holding over thirty trees, and
+withal stout and lusty and towering. Indeed, the floor of the Tent
+seems too narrow at times for its crowded guests; but beneath the
+surface there is room for every root, and over it, the sky is broad
+enough for all.
+
+"Ah, the bewildering vistas through the variegated pillars, taking in
+a strip of sea here, a mountain peak there, have an air of enchantment
+from which no human formula can release a pilgrim-soul. They remind
+me--no; they can not remind me of anything more imposing. But when I
+was visiting the great Mosques of Cairo I was reminded of them. Yes,
+the pine forests are the great mosques of Nature. And for art-lovers,
+what perennial beauty of an antique art is here. These majestic
+pillars arched with foliage, propping a light-green ceiling, from
+which cones hang in pairs and in clusters, and through which curiously
+shaped clouds can be seen moving in a cerulean sky; and at night,
+instead of the clouds, the stars--the distant, twinkling, white and
+blue stars--what to these are the decorations in the ancient mosques?
+There, the baroques, the arabesques, the colourings gorgeous, are
+dead, at least inanimate; here, they palpitate with life. The moving,
+swelling, flaming, flowing life is mystically interwoven in the
+evergreen ceiling and the stately colonnades. Ay, even the horizon
+yonder, with its planets and constellations rising and setting ever,
+is a part of the ceiling decoration.
+
+"Here in this grand Mosque of Nature, I read my own Koran. I, Khalid,
+a Beduin in the desert of life, a vagabond on the highway of thought,
+I come to this glorious Mosque, the only place of worship open to me,
+to heal my broken soul in the perfumed atmosphere of its celestial
+vistas. The mihrabs here are not in this direction nor in that. But
+whereso one turns there are niches in which the living spirit of
+Allah is ever present. Here, then, I prostrate me and read a few
+Chapters of MY Holy Book. After which I resign myself to my eternal
+Mother and the soft western breezes lull me asleep. Yea, and even like
+my poor brother Moslem sleeping on his hair-mat in a dark corner of
+his airy Mosque, I dream my dream of contentment and resignation and
+love.
+
+"See the ploughman strutting home, his goad in his hand, his plough on
+his shoulder, as if he had done his duty. Allah be praised, the
+flowers in the terrace-walls are secure. That is why, I believe, my
+American brother Thoreau liked walls with many gaps in them. The sweet
+wild daughters of Spring can live therein their natural life without
+being molested by the scythe or the plough. Allah be praised a hundred
+times and one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SIGNS OF THE HERMIT
+
+
+Although we claim some knowledge of the Lebanon mountains, having
+landed there in our journey earthward, and having since then, our
+limbs waxing firm and strong, made many a journey through them, we
+could not, after developing, through many readings, Khalid's spiritual
+films, identify them with the vicinage which he made his Kaaba. On
+what hill, in what wadi, under what pines did he ruminate and
+extravagate, we could not from these idealised pictures ascertain. For
+a spiritual film is other than a photographic one. A poet's lens is
+endowed with a seeing eye, an insight, and a faculty to choose and
+compose. Hence the difficulty in tracing the footsteps of Fancy--in
+locating its cave, its nest, or its Kaaba. His pine-mosque we could
+find anywhere, at any altitude; his vineyards, too, and his glades;
+for our mountain scenery, its beauty alternating between the placid
+and the rugged--the tame terrace soil and the wild, forbidding
+majesty--is allwhere almost the same. But where in these rocky and
+cavernous recesses of the world can we to-day find the ancient Lebanon
+troglodyte, whom Khalid has seen, and visited in his hut, and even
+talked with? It is this that forces us to seek his diggings, to trace,
+if possible, his footsteps.
+
+In the K. L. MS., as we have once remarked and more than once hinted,
+we find much that is unduly inflated, truly Oriental; much that is
+platitudinous, ludicrous, which we have suppressed. But never could we
+question the Author's veracity and sincerity of purpose. Whether he
+crawled like a zoophyte, soared like an eagle, or fought, like Ali,
+the giants of the lower world, he is genuine, and oft-times amusingly
+truthful. But the many questionable pages on this curious subject of
+the eremite, what are we to do with them? If they are imaginary, there
+is too much in this Book against quackery to daunt us. And yet, if
+Khalid has found the troglodyte, whom we thought to be an extinct
+species, he should have left us a few legends about it.
+
+We have visited the ancient caverns of the Lebanon troglodytes in the
+cliffs overhanging the river of Wadi Kadeesha, and found nothing there
+but blind bats, and mosses, and dreary vacuity. No, not a vestage of
+the fossil is there, not a skull, not a shinbone. We have also
+inquired in the monasteries near the Cedars, and we were frankly told
+that no monk to-day fancies such a life. And if he did, he would not
+give his brother monks the trouble of carrying his daily bread to a
+cave in those forbidden cliffs. And yet, Simeon Stylites, he of the
+Pillar, who remained for thirty years perched on the top of it, was a
+Syrian shepherd. But who of his descendants to-day would as much as
+pass one night on the top of that pillar? Curious eleemosynary phases
+of our monkish system, these modern times reveal.
+
+On our way from a journey to the Cedars, while engaged in the present
+Work, we passed through a pine forest, in which were some tangled
+bushes of the clematis. The muleteer stops near one of these and
+stoops to reach something he had seen therein. No treasure-trove,
+alas, as he supposed; but merely a book for which he lacerated his
+hands and which he cursed and handed to us, saying, "This must be the
+breviary of some monk."
+
+No, it was an English book, and of American origin, and of a kind
+quite rare in America. Indeed, here were a find and surprise as
+agreeable as Khalid's sweetbrier bush. Henry Thoreau's _Week_! What a
+miracle of chance. Whose this mutilated copy of the _Week_, we
+thought? Who in these mountains, having been in America, took more
+interest in the Dreamer of Walden Woods than in peddling and trading?
+We walk our mule, looking about in vague, restless surprise, as if
+seeking in the woods a lost companion, and lo, we reach a monarch pine
+on which is carved the name of--Khalid! This book, then, must be his;
+the name on the pine tree is surely his own; we know his hand as well
+as his turn of mind. But who can say if this be his Kaaba, this his
+pine-mosque? Might he not only have passed through these glades to
+other parts? Signs, indeed, are here of his feet and hands, if not of
+his tent-pegs. And what signifies his stay? No matter how long he
+might have put up here, it is but a passage, deeply considered: like
+Thoreau's passage through Walden woods, like Mohammad's through the
+desert.
+
+This leisure hour is the nipple of the soul. And fortunate they who
+are not artificially suckled, who know this hour no matter how brief,
+who get their nipple at the right time. If they do not, no pabulum
+ever after, will their indurated tissues assimilate. Do you wonder why
+the world is full of crusty souls? and why to them this infant
+hour, this suckling while, is so repugnant? But we must not intrude
+more of such remarks about mankind. Whether rightly suckled or not,
+we manage to live; but whether we do so marmot-like or Maronite-like,
+is not the question here to be considered. To pray for your bread
+or to burrow in the earth for it, is it not the same with most people?
+Given a missionary with a Bible in his hip-pocket or a peasant with
+a load of brushwood on his back and the same gastric coefficient, and
+you will have in either case a resulting expansion for six feet of
+coffin ground and a fraction of Allah's mercy. Our poor missionary,
+is it worth while to cross the seas for this? Marmot-like or
+Maronite-like--but soft you know! Here is our peasant with his
+overshadowing load of brushwood. And there is another, and another.
+They are carrying fuel to the lime-pit ahead of us yonder. What
+brow-sweat, what time, what fire, what suffering and patient toil,
+the lime-washing, or mere liming, of our houses and sepulchres,
+requires. That cone structure there, that artificial volcano, with its
+crackling, flaming bowels and its fuliginous, coruscating crater,
+must our hardy peasants feed continually for twenty days and nights.
+
+But the book and the name on the pine, we would know more of these
+signs, if possible. And so, we visit the labourers of the kiln. They
+are yoedling, the while they work, and jesting and laughing. The
+stokers, with flaming, swollen eyes, their tawny complexion waxing a
+brilliant bronze, their sweat making golden furrows therein, with
+their pikes and pitchforks busy, are terribly magnificent to behold.
+Here be men who would destroy Bastilles for you, if it were nominated
+in the bond. And there is the monk-foreman--the kiln is of the
+monastery's estate--reading his breviary while the lime is in making.
+Indeed, these sodalities of the Lebanons are not what their vows and
+ascetic theologies would make them. No lean-jowled, hungry-looking
+devotees, living in exiguity and droning in exinanition their
+prayers,--not by any means. Their flesh-pots are not a few, and
+their table is a marvel of ascetism! And why not, if their fat
+estates--three-quarter of the lands here is held in mortmain by the
+clergy--can yield anything, from silk cocoons to lime-pits? They
+will clothe you in silk at least; they will lime-wash your homes and
+sepulchres, if they cannot lime-wash anything else. Thanks to them
+so long as they keep some reminiscence of business in their heads
+to keep the Devil out of it.
+
+The monk-foreman is reading with one eye and watching with the other.
+"Work," cries he, "every minute wasted is stolen from the abbey. And
+whoso steals, look in the pit: its fire is nothing compared with
+Juhannam." And the argument serves its purpose. The labourers hurry
+hither and thither, bringing brushwood near; the first stoker pitches
+to the second, the second to the third, and he feeds the flaming,
+smoking, coruscating volcano. "_Yallah!_" (Keep it up) exclaims the
+monk-foreman. "Burn the devil's creed," cries one. "Burn hell," cries
+another. And thus jesting in earnest, mightily working and enduring,
+they burn the mountains into lime, they make the very rocks yield
+somewhat.--Strength and blessings, brothers.
+
+After the usual inquiry of whence and whither, his monkship offers the
+snuff-box. "No? roll you, then, a cigarette," taking out a plush pouch
+containing a mixture of the choicest native roots. These, we were
+told, are grown on the monastery's estate. We speak of the cocoon
+products of the season.
+
+"Beshrew the mulberries!" exclaims the monk. "We are turning all our
+estates into fruit orchards and orangeries. The cultivation of the
+silk-worm is in itself an abomination. And while its income to-day is
+not as much as it was ten years ago, the expenditure has risen
+twofold. America is ruining our agriculture; and soon, I suppose, we
+have to send to China for labourers. Why, those who do not emigrate
+demand twice as much to-day for half the work they used to do five
+years ago; and those who return from America strut about like country
+gentlemen deploring the barrenness of their native soil."
+
+And one subject leading to another, for our monk is a glib talker, we
+come to the cheese-makers, the goatherds. "Even these honest rustics,"
+says he, "are becoming sophisticated (_mafsudin_). Their cheese is no
+longer what it was, nor is their faith. For Civilisation, passing by
+their huts in some shape or other, whispers in their ears something
+about cleverness and adulteration. And mistaking the one for the
+other, they abstract the butter from the milk and leave the verdigris
+in the utensils. This lust of gain is one of the diseases which come
+from Europe and America,--it is a plague which even the goatherd
+cannot escape. Why, do you know, wherever the cheese-monger goes these
+days ptomaine poison is certain to follow."
+
+"And why does not the Government interfere?" we ask.
+
+"Because the Government," replies our monk in a dry, droll air and
+gesture, "does not eat cheese."
+
+And the monks, we learned, do not have to buy it. For this, as well as
+their butter, olive oil, and wine, is made on their own estates, under
+their own supervision.
+
+"Yes," he resumes, placing his breviary in his pocket and taking out
+the snuff-box; "not long ago one who lived in these parts--a young man
+from Baalbek he was, and he had his booth in the pine forest
+yonder--bought some cheese from one of these muleteer cheese-mongers,
+and after he had eaten of it fell sick. It chanced that I was passing
+by on my way to the abbey, when he was groaning and retching beneath
+that pine tree. It was the first time I saw that young man, and were I
+not passing by I know not what would have become of him. I helped him
+to the abbey, where he was ministered to by our physician, and he
+remained with us three days. He ate of our cheese and drank of our
+wine, and seemed to like both very much. And ever since, while he was
+here, he would come to the abbey with a basket or a tray of his own
+make--he occupied himself in making wicker-baskets and trays--and ask
+in exchange some of our cheese and olive oil. He was very intelligent,
+this fellow; his eyes sometimes were like the mouth of this pit, full
+of fire and smoke. But he was queer. The clock in him was not wound
+right--he was always ahead or behind time, always complaining that we
+monks did not reckon time as he did. Nevertheless, I liked him much,
+and often would I bring him some of our cookery. But he never accepted
+anything without giving something in exchange."
+
+Unmistakable signs.
+
+"And his black turban," continues the monk, "over his long flowing
+hair made him look like our hermit." (Strange coincidence!) "On your
+way here have you not stopped to visit the hermit? Not far from the
+abbey, on your right hand coming here, is the Hermitage."
+
+We remember passing a pretty cottage surrounded by a vineyard in that
+rocky wilderness; but who would mistake that for a troglodyte's cave?
+"And this young man from Baalbek," we ask, "how did he live in this
+forest?"
+
+"Yonder," points the monk, "he cleared and cleaned for himself a
+little space which he made his workshop. And up in the pines he
+constructed a platform, which he walled and covered with boughs. And
+when he was not working or walking, he would be there among the
+branches, either singing or asleep. I used to envy him that nest in
+the pines."
+
+"And did he ever go to church?"
+
+"He attended mass twice in our chapel, on Good Friday and on Easter
+Sunday, I think."
+
+"And did he visit the abbey often?"
+
+"Only when he wanted cheese or olive oil." (Shame, O Khalid!) "But he
+often repaired to the Hermitage. I went with him once to listen to his
+conversation with the Hermit. They often disagreed, but never
+quarrelled. I like that young man in spite of his oddities of thought,
+which savoured at times of infidelity. But he is honest, believe me;
+never tells a lie; and in a certain sense he is as pious as our
+Hermit, I think. Roll another cigarette."
+
+"Thank you. And the Hermit, what is your opinion of him?"
+
+"Well, h'm--h'm--go visit him. A good man he is, but very simple. And
+between us, he likes money too much. H'm, h'm, go visit him. If I were
+not engaged at present, I would accompany you thither."
+
+We thank our good monk and retrace our steps to the Hermitage, rolling
+meanwhile in our mind that awful remark about the Hermit's love of
+money. Blindness and Plague! even the troglodyte loves and worships
+thee, thou silver Demiurge! We can not believe it. The grudges of
+monks against each other often reach darker and more fatal depths.
+Alas, if the faith of the cheese-monger is become adulterated, what
+shall we say of the faith of our monkhood? If the salt of the
+earth--but not to the nunnery nor to the monkery, we go. Rather let us
+to the Hermitage, Reader, and with an honest heart; in earnest, not in
+sport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE VINEYARD IN THE KAABA
+
+
+This, then, is the cave of our troglodyte! Allah be praised, even the
+hermits of the Lebanon mountains, like the prophets of America and
+other electric-age species, are subject to the laws of evolution. A
+cottage and chapel set in a vineyard, the most beautiful we have yet
+seen, looms up in this rocky wilderness like an oasis in a desert. For
+many miles around, the vicinage presents a volcanic aspect, wild,
+barren, howlingly dreary. At the foot of Mt. Sanneen in the east,
+beyond many ravines, are villages and verdure; and from the last
+terrace in the vineyard one overlooks the deep chasm which can boast
+of a rivulet in winter. But in the summer its nakedness is appalling.
+The sun turns its pocket inside out, so to speak, exposing its
+boulders, its little windrows of sands, and its dry ditches full of
+dead fish spawn. And the cold, rocky horizon, rising so high and near,
+shuts out the sea and hides from the Hermit the glory of the sundown.
+But we can behold its effects on Mt. Sanneen, on the clouds above us,
+on the glass casements in the villages far away. The mountains in the
+east are mantled with etherial lilac alternating with mauve; the
+clouds are touched with purple and gold; the casements in the distance
+are scintillating with mystical carbuncles: the sun is setting in the
+Mediterranean,--he is waving his farewell to the hills.
+
+We reach the first gate of the Hermitage; and the odour peculiar to
+monks and monkeries, a mixed smell of mould and incense and burning
+oil, greets us as we enter into a small open space in the centre of
+which is a Persian lilac tree. To the right is a barbed-wire fence
+shutting in the vineyard; directly opposite is the door of the chapel;
+and near it is a wicket before which stands a withered old woman.
+Against the wall is a stone bench where another woman is seated. As we
+enter, we hear her, standing at the wicket, talking to some one behind
+the scene. "Yes, that is the name of my husband," says she. "Allah
+have mercy on his soul," sighs an exiguous voice within; "pray for
+him, pray for him." And the woman, taking to weeping, blubbers out,
+"Will thirty masses do, think your Reverence?" "Yes, that will cheer
+his soul," replies the oracle.
+
+The old woman thereupon enters the chapel, pays the priest or
+serving-monk therein, one hundred piasters for thirty masses, and
+goes away in tears. The next woman rises to the gate. "I am the
+mother of--," she says. "Ah, the mother of--," repeats the exiguous
+voice. "How are you? (She must be an old customer.) How is your
+husband? How are your children? And those in America, are they
+well, are they prosperous? Yes, yes, your deceased son. Well,
+h'm--h'm--you must come again. I can not tell you anything yet.
+Come again next week." And she, too, visits the chapel, counts out
+some money to the serving-monk, and leaves the Hermitage, drying
+her tears.
+
+The Reader, who must have recognised the squeaking, snuffling,
+exiguous voice, knows not perhaps that the Hermit, in certain moments
+of _inkhitaf_ (abstraction, levitation) has glimpses into the
+spirit-world and can tell while in this otherworldliness how the
+Christian souls are faring, and how many masses those in Purgatory
+need before they can rejoin the bosom of Father Abraham. And those who
+seek consolation and guidance through his occult ministrations are
+mostly women. But the money collected for masses, let it here be said,
+as well as the income of the vineyard, the Hermit touches not. The
+monks are the owners of the occult establishment, and they know better
+than he what to do with the revenue. But how far this ancient
+religious Medium can go in the spirit-world, and how honest he might
+be in his otherworldliness, let those say who have experience in
+spookery and table-rapping.
+
+Now, the women having done and gone, the wicket is open, and the
+serving-monk ushers us through the dark and stivy corridor to the
+rear, where a few boxes marked "Made in America"--petroleum boxes,
+these--are offered us as seats. Before the door of the last cell are a
+few potsherds in which sweet basil plants are withering from thirst.
+Presently, the door squeaks, and one, not drooping like the plants,
+comes out to greet us. This is Father Abd'ul-Messiah (Servitor of the
+Christ), as the Hermit is called. Here, indeed, is an up-to-date
+hermit, not an antique troglodyte. Lean and lathy, he is, but not
+hungry-looking; quick of eye and gesture; quick of step, too. He seems
+always on the alert, as if surrounded continually with spirits. He is
+young, withal, or keeps so, at least, through the grace and
+ministration of Allah and the Virgin. His long unkempt hair and beard
+are innocent of a single white line. And his health? "Through my five
+and twenty years of seclusion," said he, "I have not known any
+disease, except, now and then, in the spring season, when the sap
+begins to flow, I am visited by Allah with chills and fever.--No; I
+eat but one meal a day.--Yes; I am happy, Allah be praised, quite
+happy, very happy."
+
+And he lifts his eyes heavenward, and sighs and rubs his hands in
+joyful satisfaction. To us, this Servitor of the Christ seemed not to
+have passed the climacteric. But truly, as he avowed, he was entering
+the fifth lustrum beyond it. Such are the advantages of the ascetic
+life, and of such ascetics the Kingdom of Heaven. A man of sixty can
+carry twenty years in his pocket, and seem all honesty, and youth, and
+health, and happiness.
+
+We then venture a question about the sack-cloth, a trace of which was
+seen under his tunic sleeve. And fetching a deep sigh, he gazes on the
+drooping sweet basils in silence. No, he likes not to speak of these
+mortifications of the flesh. After some meditation he tells us,
+however, that the sack-cloth on the first month is annoying,
+torturing. "But the flesh," he continues naively, "is inured to it,
+as the pile, in the course of time, is broken and softened down." And
+with an honest look in his eyes, he smiled and sighs his assurance.
+For his Reverence always punctuates his speech with these sweet sighs
+of joy. The serving-monk now comes to whisper a word in his ear, and
+we are asked to "scent the air" a while in the vineyard.
+
+This lovely patch of terrace-ground the Hermit tills and cultivates
+alone. And so thoroughly the work is done that hardly a stone can be
+seen in the soil. And so even and regular are the terrace walls that
+one would think they were built with line and plummet. The vines are
+handsomely trimmed and trellised, and here and there, to break the
+monotony of the rows, a fig, an apricot, an almond, or an olive,
+spreads its umbrageous boughs. Indeed, it is most cheering in the
+wilderness, most refreshing to the senses, this lovely vineyard, the
+loveliest we have seen.
+
+Father Abd'ul-Messiah might be a descendant of Simeon of the Pillar
+for all we know; but instead of perching on the top of it, he breaks
+it down and builds with its stones a wall of his vineyard. Here he
+comes with his serving-monk, and we resume the conversation under the
+almond tree.
+
+"You should come in the grape season to taste of my fruits," says he.
+
+"And do you like the grape?" we ask.
+
+"Yes, but I prefer to cultivate it."
+
+"Throughout the season," the serving-monk puts in, "and though the
+grapes be so plentiful, he tastes them not."
+
+"No?"
+
+The Hermit is silent; for, as we have said, he is reluctant in making
+such confessions. Virtue, once bragged about, once you pride yourself
+upon it, ceases to be such.
+
+In his vineyard the Hermit is most thorough, even scientific. One
+would think that he believed only in work. No; he does not sprinkle
+the vines with holy water to keep the grubs away. Herein he has sense
+enough to know that only in _kabrit_ (sulphur) is the phylactery which
+destroys the phylloxera.
+
+"And what do you do when you are not working in your vineyard or
+praying?"
+
+"I have always somewhat to do, always. For to be idle is to open the
+door for Iblis. I might walk up and down this corridor, counting the
+slabs therein, and consider my time well spent." Saying which he rises
+and points to the sky. The purple fringes of the clouds are gone to
+sable; the lilac tints on the mountains are waxing grey; and the
+sombre twilight with his torch--the evening star had risen--is
+following in the wake of day; 'tis the hour of prayer.
+
+But before we leave him to his devotion, we ask to be permitted to see
+his cell. Ah, that is against the monastic rules. We insist. And with
+a h'm, h'm, and a shake of the head, he rubs his hands caressingly and
+opens the door. Yes, the Reader shall peep into this eight by six
+cell, which is littered all around with rubbish, sacred and profane.
+In the corner is a broken stove with a broken pipe attached,--broken
+to let some of the smoke into the room, we are told. "For smoke,"
+quoth the Hermit, quoting the Doctor, "destroys the microbes--and
+keeps the room warm after the fire goes out."
+
+In the corner opposite the stove is a little altar with the
+conventional icons and gewgaws and a number of prayer books lying
+pell-mell around. Nearby is an old pair of shoes, in which are stuck a
+few candles and St. Anthony's Book of Contemplations. In the corner
+behind the door is a large cage, a pantry, suspended middleway between
+the floor and ceiling, containing a few earthen pots, an oil lamp, and
+a jar, covered with a cloth. Between the pantry and the altar, on a
+hair-mat spread on the floor, sleeps his Reverence. And his bed is not
+so hard as you might suppose, Reader; for, to serve your curiosity, we
+have been rude enough to lift up a corner of the cloth, and we found
+underneath a substantial mattress! On the bed is his book of accounts,
+which, being opened, when we entered, he hastened to close.
+
+"You keep accounts, too, Reverence?"
+
+"Indeed, so. That is a duty devolved on every one with mortal
+memory."
+
+Let it not be supposed, however, that he has charge of the crops. In
+his journal he keeps the accounts of his masses? And here be evil
+sufficient for the day.
+
+This, then, is the inventory of Abd'ul-Messiah's cell. And we do
+not think we have omitted much of importance. Yes; in the fourth
+corner, which we have not mentioned, are three or four petroleum cans
+containing provisions. From one of these he brings out a handful of
+dried figs, from another a pinch of incense, which he gives us as a
+token of his love and blessing. One thing we fain would emphasise,
+before we conclude our account. The money part of this eremitic
+business need not be harshly judged; for we must bear in mind that
+this honest Servitor of Christ is strong enough not to have his
+will in the matter. And remember, too, that the abbey's bills of
+expenses run high. If one of the monks, therefore, is blessed with a
+talent for solitude and seclusion, his brother monks shall profit
+by it. Indeed, we were told, that the income of the Hermitage, that
+is, the sum total in gold of the occult and the agricultural
+endeavours of Abd'ul-Messiah, is enough to defray the yearly
+expenditures of the monkery. Further, we have nothing to say on the
+subject. But Khalid has. And of his lengthy lucubration on _The Uses
+of Solitude_, we cull the following:
+
+"Every one's life at certain times," writes he, "is either a Temple, a
+Hermitage, or a Vineyard: every one, in order to flee the momentary
+afflictions of Destiny, takes refuge either in God, or in Solitude, or
+in Work. And of a truth, work is the balm of the sore mind of the
+world. God and Solitude are luxuries which only a few among us
+nowadays can afford. But he who lives in the three, though his life be
+that of a silk larva in its cocoon, is he not individually considered
+a good man? Is he not a mystic, though uncreative, centre of goodness?
+Surely, his influence, his Me alone considered, is living and benign,
+and though it is not life-giving. He is a flickering taper under a
+bushel; and this, _billah_, were better than the pissasphaltum-souls
+which bushels of quackery and pretence can not hide. But alas, that a
+good man by nature should be so weak as to surrender himself entirely
+to a lot of bad men. For the monks, my brother Hermit, being a silk
+worm in its cocoon, will asphyxiate the larva after its work is done,
+and utilise the silk. Ay, after the Larva dies, they pickle and
+preserve it in their chapel for the benefit of those who sought its
+oracles in life. Let the beef-packers of America take notice; the
+monks of my country are in the market with 'canned hermits!'
+
+"And this Larva, be it remembered, is not subject to decay; a saint
+does not decompose in the flesh like mortal sinners. One of these, I
+have been told, dead fifty years ago and now canonised, can be seen
+yet in one of the monasteries of North Lebanon, keeping well his flesh
+and bones together--divinely embalmed. It has been truly said that the
+work of a good man never dies; and these leathery hermits continue in
+death as in life to counsel and console the Faithful.
+
+"In the past, these Larvae, not being cultivated for the market,
+continued their natural course of development and issued out of their
+silk prisons full fledged moths. But those who cultivate them to-day
+are in sore need. They have masses and indulgences to sell; they have
+big bills to pay. But whether left to grow their wings or not, their
+solitude is that of a cocoon larva, narrow, stale, unprofitable to the
+world. While that of a philosopher, a Thoreau, for instance, might be
+called Nature's filter; and one, issuing therefrom benefited in every
+sense, morally, physically, spiritually, can be said to have been
+filtered through Solitude."
+
+"The study of life at a distance is inutile; the study of it at close
+range is defective. The only method left, therefore, and perhaps the
+true one, is that of the artist at his canvas. He works at his picture
+an hour or two, and retires a little to study and criticise it from a
+distance. It is impossible to withdraw entirely from life and pretend
+to take an interest in it. Either like my brother Hermit in these
+parts, a spiritual larva in its cocoon, or like a Thoreau, who during
+his period of seclusion, peeped every fortnight into the village to
+keep up at least his practice of human speech. Else what is the use of
+solitude? A life of fantasy, I muse, is nearer to the heart of Nature
+and Truth than a life in sack-cloth and ashes....
+
+"And yet, deeply considered, this eremitic business presents another
+aspect. For does not the eremite through his art of prayer and
+devotion, seek an ideal? Is he not a transcendentalist, at least in
+the German sense of the word? Is not his philosophy above all the
+senses, as the term implies, and common sense included? For through
+Mother Church, and with closed eyes, he will attain the ideal, of
+which my German philosopher, through the logic-mill, and with eyes
+open, hardly gets a glimpse.
+
+"The devout and poetic souls, and though they walk among the crowd,
+live most of their lives in solitude. Through Mother Sorrow, or Mother
+Fancy, or Mother Church, they are ever seeking the ideal, which to
+them is otherwise unattainable. And whether a howler of Turabu or a
+member of the French Academy, man, in this penumbra of faith and
+doubt, of superstition and imagination, is much the same. 'The higher
+powers in us,' says Novalis, 'which one day, as Genii, shall fulfil
+our will, are for the present, Muses, which refresh us on our toilsome
+course with sweet remembrances.' And the jinn, the fairies, the
+angels, the muses, are as young and vivacious to-day as they were in
+the Arabian and Gaelic Ages of Romance.
+
+"But whether Mother Church or Poetry or Philosophy or Music be the
+magic-medium, the result is much the same if the motive be not
+religiously sincere, sincerely religious, piously pure, lofty, and
+humane. Ay, my Larva-Hermit, with all his bigotry and straitness of
+soul, stands higher than most of your artists and poets and musicians
+of the present day. For a life sincerely spent between the Temple and
+the Vineyard, between devotion and honest labour, producing to one man
+of all mankind some positive good, is not to be compared with the life
+which oscillates continuously between egoism and vanity, quackery and
+cowardice, selfishness and pretence, and which never rises, do what it
+may, above the larva state....
+
+"Let every one cultivate with pious sincerity some such vineyard
+as my Hermit's and the world will not further need reform. For
+through all the vapour and mist of his ascetic theology, through the
+tortuous chasm of his eremitic logic, through the bigotry and crass
+superstition of his soul, I can always see the Vineyard on the one
+side of his cell, and the Church on the other, and say to myself:
+Here be a man who is never idle; here be one who loves the leisure
+praised by Socrates, and hates the sluggishness which Iblis decks and
+titivates. And if he crawls between his Church and his Vineyard, and
+burrows in both for a solution of life, nay, spins in both the cocoon
+of his ideal, he ought not to be judged from on high. Come thou near
+him; descend; descend a little and see: has he not a task, and
+though it be of the taper-under-the-bushel kind? Has he not a faith
+and a sincerity which in a Worm of the Earth ought to be reckoned
+sublime? 'If there were sorrow in heaven,' he once said to me, 'how
+many there would continuously lament the time they wasted in this
+world?'
+
+"O my Brothers, build your Temples and have your Vineyards, even
+though it be in the rocky wilderness."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE THIRD
+
+IN KULMAKAN
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO GOD[1]
+
+_In the religious systems of mankind, I sought thee, O God, in
+vain; in their machine-made dogmas and theologies, I sought thee in
+vain; in their churches and temples and mosques, I sought thee long,
+and long in vain; but in the Sacred Books of the World, what have I
+found? A letter of thy name, O God, I have deciphered in the Vedas,
+another in the Zend-Avesta, another in the Bible, another in the
+Koran. Ay, even in the Book of the Royal Society and in the Records of
+the Society for Psychical Research, have I found the diacritical signs
+which the infant races of this Planet Earth have not yet learned to
+apply to the consonants of thy name. The lisping infant races of this
+Earth, when will they learn to pronounce thy name entire? Who shall
+supply the Vowels which shall unite the Gutturals of the Sacred Books?
+Who shall point out the dashes which compound the opposite loadstars
+in the various regions of thy Heaven? On the veil of the eternal
+mystery are palimpsests of which every race has deciphered a
+consonant. And through the diacritical marks which the seers and
+paleologists of the future shall furnish, the various dissonances in
+thy name shall be reduced, for the sake of the infant races of the
+Earth, to perfect harmony._--KHALID.
+
+-----
+
+ [1] Arabic Symbol.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DISENTANGLEMENT OF THE ME
+
+
+"Why this exaggerated sense of thine importance," Khalid asks himself
+in the K. L. MS., "when a little ptomaine in thy cheese can poison the
+source of thy lofty contemplations? Why this inflated conception of
+thy Me, when an infusion of poppy seeds might lull it to sleep, even
+to stupefaction? What avails thy logic when a little of the Mandragora
+can melt the material universe into golden, unfolding infinities of
+dreams? Why take thyself so seriously when a leaf of henbane, taken by
+mistake in thy salad, can destroy thee? But the soul is not dependent
+on health or disease. The soul is the source of both health and
+disease. And life, therefore, is either a healthy or a diseased state
+of the soul.
+
+"One day, when I was rolling these questions in my mind, and working
+on a reed basket to present to my friend the Hermit as a farewell
+memento, his serving-monk brings me some dried figs in a blue kerchief
+and says, 'My Master greets thee and prays thee come to him.' I do so
+the following morning, bringing with me the finished basket, and as I
+enter the Hermitage court, I find him repairing a stone wall in the
+vineyard. As he sees me, he hastens to put on his cloak that I might
+not remark the sack-cloth he wore, and with a pious smile of
+assurance and thankfulness, welcomes and embraces me, as is his wont.
+We sit down in the corridor before the chapel door. The odorous vapor
+of what was still burning in the censer within hung above us. The holy
+atmosphere mantled the dread silence of the place. And the slow,
+insinuating smell of incense, like the fumes of gunga, weighed heavy
+on my eyelids and seemed to brush from my memory the cobwebs of time.
+A drowsiness possessed me; I felt like one awaking from a dream. I
+asked for the water jug, which the Hermit hastened to bring. And
+looking through the door of the chapel, I saw on the altar a burning
+cresset flickering like the planet Mercury on a December morning. How
+often did I light such a cresset when a boy, I mused. Yes, I was an
+acolyte once. I swang the censer and drank deep of the incense fumes
+as I chanted in Syriac the service. And I remember when I made a
+mistake one day in reading the Epistle of Paul, the priest, who was of
+an irascible humour, took me by the ear and made me spell the words I
+could not pronounce. And the boys in the congregation tittered
+gleefully. In my mortification was honey for them. Such was my pride,
+nevertheless, such the joy I felt, when, of all the boys that gathered
+round the lectern at vespers, I was called upon to read in the
+_sinksar_ (hagiography) the Life of the Saint of the day.
+
+"I knew then that to steal, for instance, is a sin; and yet, I emptied
+the box of wafers every morning after mass and shared them with the
+very boys who laughed at my mistakes. One day, in the purest
+intention, I offered one of these wafers to my donkey and he would
+not eat it. I felt insulted, and never after did I pilfer a wafer.
+Now, as I muse on these sallies of boyish waywardness I am impressed
+with the idea that the certainty and daring of Ignorance, or might I
+say Innocence, are great. Indeed, to the pure everything is pure. But
+strange to relate that as I sat in the corridor of the Hermitage and
+saw the light flickering on the altar, I hankered for a wafer, and was
+tempted to go into the chapel and filch one. What prevented me? Alas,
+knowledge makes sceptics and cowards of us all. And the pursuit of
+knowledge, according to my Hermit, nay, the noblest pursuit, even the
+serving of God, ceases to be a virtue the moment we begin to enjoy
+it.
+
+"'It is necessary to conquer, not only our instincts,' he continued,
+'but our intellectual and our spiritual passions as well. To force our
+will in the obedience of a higher will, to leave behind all our
+mundane desires in the pursuit of the one great desire, herein lies
+the essence of true virtue. St. Anthony would snatch his hours of
+devotion from the Devil. Even prayer to him was a struggle, an effort
+not to feel the joy of it. Yes, we must always disobey our impulses,
+and resist the tyranny of our desires. When I have a strong desire to
+pray, I go out into the vineyard and work. When I begin to enjoy my
+work in the vineyard, I cease to do it well. Therefore, I take up my
+breviary. Do that which you must not do, when you are suffering, and
+you will not want to do it again, when you are happy. The other day,
+one who visited the Hermitage, spoke to me of you, O Khalid. He said
+you were what is called an anarchist. And after explaining to me what
+is meant by this--I never heard of such a religion before--I
+discovered to my surprise that I, too, am an anarchist. But there is
+this difference between us: I obey only God and the authority of God,
+and you obey your instincts and what is called the authority of
+reason. Yours, O Khalid, is a narrow conception of anarchy. In truth,
+you should try to be an anarchist like me: subordinate your
+personality, your will and mind and soul, to a higher will and
+intelligence, and resist with all your power everything else. Why do
+you not come to the Hermitage for a few days and make me your
+confessor?'
+
+"'I do not confess in private, and I can not sleep within doors.'
+
+"'You do not have to do so; the booth under the almond tree is at your
+disposal. Come for a spiritual exercise of one week only.'
+
+"'I have been going through such an exercise for a year, and soon I
+shall leave my cloister in the pines.'
+
+"'What say you? You are leaving our neighbourhood? No, no; remain
+here, O Khalid. Come, live with me in the Hermitage. Come back to
+Mother Church; return not to the wicked world. O Khalid, we must
+inherit the Kingdom of Allah, and we can not do so by being anarchist
+like the prowlers of the forest. Meditate on the insignificance and
+evanescence of human life.'
+
+"'But it lies within us, O my Brother, to make it significant and
+eternal.'
+
+"'Yes, truly, in the bosom of Mother Church. Come back to your
+Mother--come to the Hermitage--let us pass this life together.'
+
+"'And what will you do, if in the end you discover that I am in the
+right?'
+
+"Here he paused a moment, and, casting on me a benignant glance, makes
+this reply: 'Then, I will rejoice, rejoice,' he gasped; 'for we shall
+both be in the right. You will become an anarchist like me and not
+against the wretched authorities of the world, but against your real
+enemies, Instinct and Reason.'
+
+"And thus, now and then, he would salt his argument with a pinch of
+casuistic wit. Once he was hard set, and, to escape the alternatives
+of the situation, he condescended to tell me the story of his first
+and only love.
+
+"'In my youth,' said the Hermit, 'I was a shoemaker, and not a little
+fastidious as a craftsman. In fact, I am, and always have been, an
+extremist, a purist. I can not tolerate the cobblings of life. Either
+do your work skilfully, devotedly, earnestly, or do it not. So, as a
+shoemaker, I succeeded very well. Truth to tell, my work was as good,
+as neat, as elegant as that of the best craftsman in Beirut. And you
+know, Beirut is noted for its shoemakers. Yes, I was successful as any
+of them, and I counted among my customers the bishop of the diocese
+himself. One day, forgive me, Allah! a young girl, the daughter of a
+peasant neighbour, comes into the shop to order a pair of shoes. In
+taking the measure of her foot--but I must not linger on these
+details. A shoemaker can not fail to notice the shape of his
+customer's foot. Well, I measured, too, her ankle--ah, forgive me,
+Allah!
+
+"'In brief, when the shoes were finished--I spent a whole day in the
+finishing touches--I made her a present of them. And she, in
+recognition of my favor, made a plush tobacco bag, on which my name
+was worked in gold threads, and sent it to me, wrapped in a silk
+handkerchief, with her brother. Now, that is the opening chapter. I
+will abruptly come to the last, skipping the intermediate parts, for
+they are too silly, all of them. I will only say that I was as
+earnest, as sincere, as devoted in this affair of love as I was in my
+craft. Of a truth, I was mad about both.
+
+"'Now the closing chapter. One day I went to see her--we were
+engaged--and found she had gone to the spring for water. I follow her
+there and find her talking to a young man, a shoemaker like myself.
+No, he was but a cobbler. On the following day, going again to see
+her, I find this cobbler there. I remonstrate with her, but in vain.
+And what is worse, she had sent to him the shoes I made, to be
+repaired. He was patching my own work! I swallowed my ire and went
+back to my shop. A week later, to be brief, I went there again, and
+what I beheld made my body shiver. She, the wench. Forgive me, Allah!
+had her hands around his neck and her lips--yes, her lying lips, on
+his cheek! No, no; even then I did not utter a word. I could but cry
+in the depth of my heart. How can woman be so faithless, so
+treacherous--in my heart I cried.
+
+"'It was a terrible shock; and from it I lay in bed for days with
+chills and fever. Now, when I recovered, I was determined on pursuing
+a new course of life. No longer would I measure women's feet. I sold
+my stock, closed my shop, and entered the monastery. I heard
+afterwards that she married that young cobbler; emigrated with him to
+America; deserted him there; returned to her native village; married
+again, and fled with her second husband to South Africa. Allah be
+praised! even He appreciates the difference between a shoemaker and a
+cobbler; and the bad woman He gives to the bad craftsman. That is why
+I say, Never be a cobbler, whatever you do.
+
+"'But in the monastery--draw near, I will speak freely--in the
+monastery, too, there are cobblers and shoemakers. There, too, is much
+ungodliness, much treachery, much cobbling. Ah me, I must not speak
+thus. Forgive me, Allah! But I promised to tell you the whole story.
+Therefore, I will speak freely. After passing some years in the
+monastery, years of probation and grief they were, I fell sick with a
+virulent fever. The abbot, seeing that there was little chance of my
+recovery, would not send for the physician. And so, I languished for
+weeks, suffering from thirst and burning pains and hunger. I raved and
+chattered in my delirium. I betrayed myself, too, they told me. The
+monks my brothers, even during my suffering, made a scandal of the
+love affair I related. They said that I exposed my wounds and my
+broken heart before the Virgin, that I sinned in thought and word on
+my death-bed. Allah forgive them. It may be, however; for I know not
+what I said and what I did. But when I recovered, I was determined not
+to remain in the monastery, and not to return to the world. The wicked
+world, I disentangled myself absolutely from its poisoned meshes. I
+came to the Hermitage, to this place. And never, since I made my
+second remove until now, have I known disease, or sorrow, nor
+treachery, which is worse than both. Allah be praised! One's people,
+one's brothers, one's lovers and friends, are a hindrance and
+botheration. We are nothing, nothing: God is everything. God is the
+only reality. And in God alone is my refuge. That is my story in
+brief. If I did not like you, I would not have told it, and so freely.
+Meditate upon it, and on the insignificance and evanescence of human
+life. The world is a snare, and a bad snare, at that. For it can not
+hold us long enough in it to learn to like it. It is a cobbler's
+snare. The world is full of cobblers, O Khalid. Come away from it; be
+an ideal craftsman--be an extremist--be a purist--come live with me.
+Let us join our souls in devotion, and our hearts in love. Come, let
+us till and cultivate this vineyard together.'
+
+"And taking me by the hand, he shows me a cell furnished with a
+hair-mat, a _masnad_ (leaning pillow), and a chair. 'This cell,' says
+he, 'was occupied by the Bishop when he came here for a spiritual
+exercise of three weeks. It shall be yours if you come; it's the best
+cell in the Hermitage. Now, let us visit the chapel.' I go in with
+him, and as we are coming out, I ask him child-like for a wafer. He
+brings the box straightway, begs me to take as much as I desire, and
+placing his hand on my shoulder, encircles me with one of his
+benignant glances, saying, 'Allah illumine thy heart, O Khalid.'
+'Allah hear thy prayer,' I reply. And we part in tears."
+
+Here Khalid bursts in ecstasy about the higher spiritual kingdom, and
+chops a little logic about the I and the not-I, the Reality and the
+non-Reality.--"God," says the Hermit. "Thought," says the Idealist,
+"that is the only Reality." And what is Thought, and what is God, and
+what is Matter, and what is Spirit? They are the mysterious vessels of
+Life, which are always being filled by Love and emptied by Logic. "The
+external world," says the Materialist--"Does not exist," says the
+Idealist. "'Tis immaterial if it does or not," says the Hermit. And
+what if the three are wrong? The Universe, knowable and unknowable,
+will it be affected a whit by it? If the German Professor's Chair of
+Logic and Philosophy were set up in the Hermitage, would anything be
+gained or lost? Let the _I_ deny the stars, and they will nevertheless
+roll in silence above it. Let the not-I crush this I, this "thinking
+reed," and the higher universal I, rising above the stars and flooding
+the sidereal heavens with light, will warm, remold, and regenerate the
+world.
+
+"I can conceive of a power," writes Khalid in that vexing Manuscript,
+"which can create a beautiful parti-colored sun-flower of the
+shattered fragments of Idealism, Materialism, and my Hermit's
+theology. Why not, if in the New World--" And here, of a sudden, to
+surprise and bewilder us, he drags in Mrs. Eddy and the Prophet Dowie
+yoked under the yoke of Whitman. He marks the _Key to Scripture_ with
+blades from _Leaves of Grass_, and such fuel as he gathers from both,
+he lights with an ember borrowed from the chariot to Elijah. And thus,
+for ten whole pages, beating continually, now in the dark of
+Metaphysics, now in the dusk of Science; losing himself in the tangled
+bushes of English Materialism, and German Mysticism, and Arabic
+Sufism; calling now to Berkeley, now to Hackel; meeting with Spencer
+here, with Al-Gazzaly there; and endeavoring to extricate himself in
+the end with some such efforts as "the Natural being Negativity, the
+Spiritual must be the opposite of that, and both united in God form
+the Absolute," etc., etc. But we shall not give ourselves further pain
+in laying before the English reader the like heavy and unwieldy
+lumber. Whoever relishes such stuff, and can digest it, need not apply
+to Khalid; for, in this case, he is but a poor third-hand caterer.
+Better go to the Manufacturers direct; they are within reach of every
+one in this Age of Machinery and Popular Editions. But there are
+passages here, of which Khalid can say, 'The Mortar at least is mine.'
+And in this Mortar he mixes and titrates with his Neighbour's Pestle
+some of his fantasy and insight. Of these we offer a sample:
+
+"I say with psychologists, as the organism, so is the personality.
+The revelation of the Me is perfect in proportion to the sound state
+of the Medium. But according to the Arabic proverb, the jar oozes of
+its contents. If these be of a putridinous mixture, therefore, no
+matter how sound the jar, the ooze is not going to smell of ambergris
+and musk. So, it all depends on the contents with which the Potter
+fills his jugs and pipkins, I assure you. And if the contents are
+good and the jar is sound, we get such excellence of soul as is rare
+among mortals. If the contents are excellent and the jar is cracked,
+the objective influence will then predominate, and putrescence,
+soon or late, will set in. Now, the Me in the majority of mankind
+comes to this world in a cracked pipkin, and it oozes out entirely as
+soon as it liquifies in youth. The pipkin, therefore, goes through
+life empty and cracked, ever sounding flat and false. While in
+others the Me is enclosed in a sealed straw-covered flask and can
+only be awakened by either evaporation or decapitation, in other
+words, by a spiritual revolution. And in the very few among mortals,
+it emerges out of the iron calyx of a flower of red-hot steel, or
+flows from the transparent, odoriferous bosom of a rose of light. In
+the first we have a Caesar, an Alexander, a Napoleon; in the second,
+a Buddha, a Socrates, a Christ.
+
+"But consider that Science, in the course of psychological analysis,
+speaks of Christ, Napoleon, and Shakespeare, as patients. Such exalted
+states of the soul, such activity of the mind, such exuberance of
+spiritual strength, are but the results of the transformation of the
+Me in the subject, we are told, and this transformation has its roots
+in the organism. But why, I ask, should there be such a gulf between
+individuals, such a difference in their Mes, when a difference in the
+organism is a trifle in comparison? How account for the ebb and flow
+in the souls, or let us say, in the expression of the individualities,
+of Mohammad the Prophet, for instance, and Mohammad the camel-herd?
+And why is it in psychological states that are similar, the
+consciousness of the one is like a mountain peak, so to speak, and
+that of the other like a cave?
+
+"A soldier is severely wounded in battle and a change takes place in
+his nervous organism, by reason of which he loses his organic
+consciousness; or, to speak in the phraseology of the psychologist, he
+loses the sense of his own body, of his physical personality. The
+cause of this change is probably the wound received; but the nature of
+the change can be explained only by hypotheses, which are become
+matters of choice and taste--and sometimes of personal interest among
+scientists. Now, when the question is resolved by hypothesis, is not
+even a layman free to offer one? If I say the Glass is shattered and
+the Me within is sadly reflected, or in a more tragic instance the
+light of the Me runs out, would I not be offering thee a solution as
+dear and tenable as that of the professor of psychology?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE VOICE OF THE DAWN
+
+
+Breathless but scathless, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and
+psychology where man and the soul are ever playing hide-and-seek; and
+where Khalid was pleased to display a little of his killing skill in
+fencing. To those mazes, we promise the Reader, we shall not return
+again. In our present sojourn, however, it is necessary to go through
+the swamps and Jordans as well as the mountains and plains. Otherwise,
+we would not have lingered a breathing while in the lowlands of
+mystery. But now we know how far Khalid went in seeking health, and
+how deep in seeking the Me, which he would disentangle from the meshes
+of philosophy and anchoretism, and bring back to life, triumphant,
+loving, joyous, free. And how far he succeeded in this, we shall soon
+know.
+
+On the morning of his last day in the pines, meanwhile, we behold him
+in the chariot of Apollo serenading the stars. He no longer would
+thrust a poker down his windpipe; for he breathes as freely as the
+mountain bears and chirps as joyously as the swallows. And his lungs?
+The lungs of the pines are not as sound. And his eyes? Well, he can
+gaze at the rising sun without adverting the head or squinting or
+shedding a tear. Now, as a sign of this healthy state of body and
+mind, and his healthier resolve to return to the world, to live
+opposite his friend the Hermit on the other antipode of life, and
+furthermore, as a relief from the exhausting tortuosities of thought
+in the last Chapter, we give here a piece of description notably
+symbolical.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I slept very early last night; the lights in the chapel of the abbey
+were still flickering, and the monks were chanting the complines. The
+mellow music of a drizzle seemed to respond sombrely to the melancholy
+echo of the choir. About midnight the rain beat heavily on the pine
+roof of the forest, and the thunder must have struck very near,
+between me and the monks. But rising very early this morning to
+commune for the last time with the pensive silence of dawn in the
+pines, I am greeted, as I peep out of my booth, by a knot of ogling
+stars. But where is the opaque breath of the storm, where are the
+clouds? None seem to hang on the horizon, and the sky is as limpid and
+clear as the dawn of a new life. Glorious, this interval between night
+and dawn. Delicious, the flavour of the forest after a storm.
+Intoxicating, the odours of the earth, refreshed and satisfied.
+Divine, the whispers of the morning air, divine!
+
+"But where is the rain, and where are the thunderbolts of last night?
+The forest and the atmosphere retain but the sweet and scented
+memories of their storming passion. Such a December morning in these
+mountain heights is a marvel of enduring freshness and ardour. All
+round one gets a vivid illusion of Spring. The soft breezes caressing
+the pines shake from their boughs the only evidence of last night's
+storm. And these are more like the dew of Summer than the lees of the
+copious tears of parting Autumn. A glorious morning, too glorious to
+be enjoyed by a solitary soul. But near the rivulet yonder stands a
+fox sniffing the morning air. Welcome, my friend. Welcome to my
+coffee, too.
+
+"I gather my mulberry sticks, kindle them with a handful of dried pine
+needles, roast my coffee beans, and grind them while the water boils
+in the pot. In half an hour I am qualified to go about my business.
+The cups and coffee utensils I wash and restore to the chest--and what
+else have I to do to-day? Pack up? Allah be praised, I have little
+packing to do. I would pack up, if I could, a ton of the pine air and
+the forest perfume, a strip of this limpid sky, and a cluster of those
+stars. Never at such an hour and in this season of the year did I
+enjoy such transporting limpidity in the atmosphere and such
+reassuring expansiveness on the horizon. Why, even the stars, the
+constellations, and the planets, are all here to enjoy this with me.
+Not one of them, I think, is absent.
+
+"The mountains are lost in the heavens. They are seeking, as it were,
+the sisters of the little flowers sleeping at their feet. The moon,
+resembling a crushed orange, is sinking in the Mediterranean. The
+outlines of earth and sky all round are vague, indistinct. Were not
+the sky so clear and the atmosphere so rare, thus affording the
+planets and the constellations to shed their modicum of light, the
+dusk of this hour would have deprived the scene of much of its pensive
+beauty of colour and shade. But there is Pegasus, Andromeda,
+Aldebaran, not to mention Venus and Jupiter and Saturn,--these alone
+can conquer the right wing of darkness. And there is Mercury, like a
+lighted cresset shaken by the winds, flapping his violet wings above
+the Northeastern horizon; and Mars, like a piece of gold held out by
+the trembling hand of a miser, is sinking in the blue of the sea with
+Neptune; the Pleiades are stepping on the trail of the blushing moon;
+the Balance lingers behind to weigh the destinies of the heroes who
+are to contend with the dawn; while Venus, peeping from her tower over
+Mt. Sanneen, is sending love vibrations to all. I would tell thee more
+if I knew. But I swear to thee I never read through the hornbook of
+the heavens. But if I can not name and locate more of the stars, I can
+tell thee this about them all: they are the embers of certainty
+eternally glowing in the ashes of doubt.
+
+"The Eastern horizon is yet lost in the dusk; the false dawn is
+spreading the figments of its illusion; the trees in the distance seem
+like rain-clouds; and the amorphous shadows of the monasteries on the
+mountain heights and hilltops all around, have not yet developed into
+silhouettes. Everything, except the river in the wadi below, is yet
+asleep. Not even the swallows are astir. Ah, but my neighbour yonder
+is; the light in the loophole of his hut sends a struggling ray
+through the mulberries, and the tintinnabulations of his daughter's
+loom are like so many stones thrown into this sleeping pond of
+silence. The loom-girl in these parts is never too early at her
+harness and shuttle. I know a family here whose loom and spinning
+wheel are never idle: the wife works at the loom in the day and her
+boy at the wheel; while in the night, her husband and his old mother
+keep up the game. And this hardly secures for them their flour and
+lentils the year round. But I concern not myself now with questions of
+economy.
+
+"There, another of my neighbours is awake; and the hinges of his door,
+shrieking terribly, fiendishly, startle the swallows from their sleep.
+And here are the muleteers, yodling, as they pass by, their
+
+    'Dhome, Dhome, Dhome,
+       O mother, he is come;
+     Hide me, hide me quickly,
+       And say I am not home.'
+
+"Lo, the horizon is disentangling itself from the meshes of darkness.
+The dust of haze and dusk on the scalloped edges of the mountains, is
+blown away by the first breath of dawn. The lighter grey of the
+horizon is mirrored in the clearer blue of the sea. But the darkness
+seems to gather on the breast of the sloping hills. Conquered on the
+heights, it retreats into the wadi. Ay, the darkest hour is nearest
+the dawn.
+
+"Now the light grey is become a lavender; the outlines of earth and sky
+are become more distinct; the mountain peaks, the dusky veil being
+rent, are separating themselves from the heaven's embrace; the trees
+in the distance no longer seem like rain-clouds; and the silhouettes
+of the monasteries are casting off the cloak of night. The lavender is
+melting now into heliotrope, and the heliotrope is bursting here and
+there in pink; the stars are waning, the constellations are dying out,
+and the planets are following in their wake. The darkness, too, which
+has not yet retreated from the wadi, must soon follow; for the front
+guard of the dawn is near. Behold the shimmer of their steel! And
+see, in the dust of the retreating darkness, the ochre veins of the
+lime cliffs are now perceptible. And that huge pillar, which looked
+like the standard-bearer of Night, is transformed into a belfry; and a
+monk can be seen peeping through the ogive beneath it. Mt. Sanneen, its
+black and ochre scales thrown in relief on a coat of grey, is like a
+huge panther sleeping over the many-throated ravine of Kisrawan. Ah,
+the pink flower of dawn is bursting in golden glory, thrilling in
+orange and saffron, flaming with the ardency of love and hope. The
+dawn! The glow and glamour of the Eastern dawn!...
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The dawn of a new life, of a better, purer, healthier, higher
+spiritual kingdom. I would have its temples and those of the vast
+empire of wealth and material well-being, stand side by side. Ay, I
+would even rear an altar to the Soul in the temple of Materialism, and
+an altar to Materialism in the temple of the Soul. Each shall have
+its due, each shall glory in the sacred purity and strength of life;
+each shall develop and expand, but never at the expense of the other.
+I will have neither the renunciation which ends in a kind of idiocy
+dignified with a philosophic or a theologic name, nor the worldliness
+which ends in bestiality. I am a citizen of two worlds--a citizen of
+the Universe; I owe allegiance to two kingdoms. In my heart are those
+stars and that sun, and the LIGHT of those stars and that sun.
+
+"Yes, I am equally devoted both to the material and the spiritual. And
+when the two in me are opposed to each other, conflicting, inimical,
+obdurate, my attitude towards them is neither that of my friend the
+Hermit nor that of my European superman. I sit down, shut my eyes,
+compose myself, and concentrate my mind on the mobility of things. If
+the clouds are moving, why, I have but to sit down and let them move
+away. I let my No-will, in this case, dominate my will, and that
+serves my purpose well. To be sure, every question tormenting us would
+resolve itself favourably, or at least indifferently, if we did not
+always rush in, wildly, madly, and arrogate to ourselves such claims
+of authority and knowledge as would make Olympus shake with laughter.
+The resignation and passiveness of the spirit should always alternate
+equitably with the terrible strivings of the will. For the dervish who
+whirls himself into a foaming ecstasy of devotion and the strenuous
+American who works himself up to a sweating ecstasy of gain, are the
+two poles of the same absurdity, the two ends of one evil. Indeed, to
+my way of thinking, the man on the Stock Exchange and the demagogue on
+the stump, for instance, are brothers to the blatant corybant."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SELF ECSTATIC
+
+
+To graft the strenuosity of Europe and America upon the ease of the
+Orient, the materialism of the West upon the spirituality of the
+East,--this to us seems to be the principal aim of Khalid. But often
+in his wanderings and divagations of thought does he give us fresh
+proof of the truism that no two opposing elements meet and fuse
+without both losing their original identity. You may place the bit of
+contentment in the mouth of ambition, so to speak, and jog along in
+your sterile course between the vast wheat fields groaning under
+the thousand-toothed plough and the gardens of delight swooning
+with devotion and sensuality. But cross ambition with contentment and
+you get the hinny of indifference or the monster of fatalism. We do
+not say that indifference at certain passes of life, and certain
+stages, is not healthy, and fatalism not powerful; but both we
+believe are factors as potent in commerce and trade as pertinacity and
+calculation. "But is there not room in the garden of delight for a
+wheat field?" asks Khalid. "Can we not apply the bow to the
+telegraph wires of the world and make them the vehicle of music as of
+stock quotations? Can we not simplify life as we are simplifying the
+machinery of industry? Can we not consecrate its Temple to the
+Trinity of Devotion, Art, and Work, or Religion, Romance, and Trade?"
+
+This seems to be the gist of Khalid's gospel. This, through the
+labyrinths of doubt and contradiction, is the pinnacle of faith he
+would reach. And often in this labyrinthic gloom, where a gleam of
+light from some recess of thought or fancy reveals here a Hermit in
+his cloister, there an Artist in his studio, below a Nawab in his
+orgies, above a Broker on the Stock Exchange, we have paused to ask a
+question about these glaring contrarieties in his life and thought.
+And always would he make this reply: "I have frequently moved and
+removed between extremes; I have often worked and slept in opposing
+camps. So, do not expect from me anything like the consistency with
+which the majority of mankind solder and shape their life. Deep
+thought seems often, if not always, inconsistent at the first blush.
+The intensity and passiveness of the spirit are as natural in their
+attraction and repulsion as the elements, whose harmony is only patent
+on the surface. Consistency is superficial, narrow, one-sided. I am
+both ambitious, therefore, and contented. My ambition is that of the
+earth, the ever producing and resuscitating earth, doing the will of
+God, combatting the rasure of time; and my contentment is that of the
+majestic pines, faring alike in shade and sunshine, in calm and storm,
+in winter as in spring. Ambition and Contentment are the night and day
+of my life-journey. The day makes room for the fruits of solacement
+which the night brings; and the night gives a cup of the cordial of
+contentment to make good the promise of day to day.
+
+"Ay, while sweating in the tortuous path, I never cease to cherish the
+feeling in which I was nourished; the West for me means ambition, the
+East, contentment: my heart is ever in the one, my soul, in the other.
+And I care not for the freedom which does not free both; I seek not
+the welfare of the one without the other. But unlike my Phoenician
+ancestors, the spiritual with me shall not be limited by the natural;
+it shall go far above it, beyond or below it, saturating, sustaining,
+purifying what in external nature is but a symbol of the invisible.
+Nor is my idea of the spiritual developed in opposition to nature, and
+in a manner inimical to its laws and claims, as in Judaism and
+Christianity.
+
+"The spiritual and natural are so united, so inextricably entwined
+around each other, that I can not conceive of them separately,
+independently. And both in the abstract sense are purportless and
+ineffectual without Consciousness. They are blind, dumb forces,
+beautiful, barbaric pageants, careering without aim or design through
+the immensities of No-where and No-time, if they are not impregnated
+and nourished with Thought, that is to say, with Consciousness,
+vitalised and purified. You may impregnate them with philosophy,
+nourish them with art; they both emanate from them, and remain as
+skidding clouds, as shining mirages, as wandering dust, until they
+find their exponent in Man.
+
+"I tell thee then that Man, that is to say Consciousness, vitalised
+and purified, in other words Thought--that alone is real and eternal.
+And Man is supreme, only when he is the proper exponent of Nature, and
+spirit, and God: the three divine sources from which he issues, in
+which he is sustained, and to which he must return. Nature and the
+spiritual, without this embodied intelligence, this somatic being,
+called man or angel or ape, are as ermine on a wax figure. The human
+factor, the exponent intelligence, the intellective and sensuous
+faculties, these, my Brothers, are whole, sublime, holy, only when, in
+a state of continuous expansion, the harmony among themselves and the
+affirmative ties between them and Nature, are perfect and pure. No,
+the spiritual ought not and can not be free from the sensuous, even
+the sensual. The true life, the full life, the life, pure, robust,
+sublime, is that in which all the nobler and higher aspirations of the
+soul AND THE BODY are given free and unlimited scope, with the view of
+developing the divine strain in Man, and realising to some extent the
+romantic as well as the material hopes of the race. God, Nature,
+Spirit, Passion--Passion, Spirit, Nature, God--in some such panorama
+would I paint the life of a highly developed being. Any of these
+elements lacking, and the life is wanting, defective, impure.
+
+"I have no faith in men who were conceived in a perfunctory manner,
+on a pragmatical system, so to speak; the wife receiving her
+husband in bed as she would a tedious guest at an afternoon tea.
+Only two flames uniting produce a third; but a flame and a name,
+or a flame and a spunge, produce a hiff and nothing. Oh, that the
+children of the race are all born phoenix-like in the fire of noble
+and sacred passion, in the purgatory, as it were, of Love. What a
+race, what a race we should have. What men, what women! Yes, that is
+how the children of the earth should be conceived, not on a
+pragmatical system, in an I-don't-care-about-the-issue manner. I
+believe in evoking the spirit, in dreaming a little about the gods
+of Olympus, and a little, too, about the gods of the abysmal depths,
+before the bodily communion. And in earnest, O my Brother, let us do
+this, despite what old Socrates says about the propriety and
+wisdom of approaching your wife with prudence and gravity...."
+
+And thus, if we did not often halloo, Khalid, like a huntsman pursuing
+his game, would lose himself in the pathless, lugubrious damp of the
+forest. If we did not prevent him at times, holding firmly to his
+coat-tail, he would desperately pursue the ghost of his thoughts even
+on such precipitous paths to those very depths in which Socrates and
+Montaigne always felt at home. But he, a feverish, clamorous,
+obstreperous stripling of a Beduin, what chance has he in extricating
+his barbaric instincts from such thorny hedges of philosophy? And had
+he not quoted Socrates in that last paragraph, it would have been
+expunged. No, we are not utterly lost to the fine sense of propriety
+of this chaste and demure age. But no matter how etiolated and sickly
+the thought, it regains its colour and health when it breathes the
+literary air. Prudery can not but relish the tang of lubricity when
+flavoured with the classical. Moreover, if Socrates and Montaigne
+speak freely of these midnight matters, why not Khalid, if he has
+anything new to say, any good advice to offer. But how good and how
+new are his views let the Reader judge.
+
+'Tis very well to speak "of evoking the spirit before the bodily
+communion," but those who can boast of a deeper experience in such
+matters will find in Socrates' dictum, quoted by Montaigne, the very
+gist of reason and wisdom. Those wise ones were as far-sighted as they
+were far gone. And moderation, as it was justly said once, is the
+respiration of the philosopher. But Khalid, though always invoking the
+distant luminary of transcendentalism for light, can not arrogate to
+himself this high title. The expansion of all the faculties, and the
+reduction of the demands of society and the individual to the lowest
+term;--this, as we understand it, is the aim of transcendentalism. And
+Khalid's distance from the orbit of this grand luminary seems to vary
+with his moods; and these vary with the librations and revolutions of
+the moon. Hallucinated, moonstruck Khalid, your harmonising and
+affinitative efforts do not always succeed. That is our opinion of the
+matter. And the Reader, who is no respecter of editors, might quarrel
+with it, for all we know.
+
+Only by standing firmly in the centre can one preserve the equilibrium
+of one's thoughts. But Khalid seldom speaks of equilibrium: he cares
+not how he fares in falling on either side of the fence, so he knows
+what lies behind. Howbeit, we can not conceive of how the affinity of
+the mind and soul with the senses, and the harmony between these and
+nature, are possible, if not exteriorised in that very superman whom
+Khalid so much dreads, and on whom he often casts a lingering glance
+of admiration. So there you are. We must either rise to a higher
+consciousness on the ruins of a lower one, of no-consciousness,
+rather, or go on seeming and simulating, aspiring, perspiring, and
+suffering, until our turn comes. Death denies no one. Meanwhile,
+Khalid's rhapsodies on his way back to the city, we shall heed and try
+to echo.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"On the high road of the universal spirit," he sings, "the world, the
+whole world before me, thrilling and radiating, chanting of freedom,
+faith, hope, health and power, and joy. Back to the City, O
+Khalid,--the City where Truth, and Faith, and Honesty, and Wisdom, are
+ever suffering, ever struggling, ever triumphing. No, it matters not
+with me if the spirit of intelligence and power, of freedom and
+culture, which must go the rounds of the earth, is always dominated by
+the instinct of self-interest. That must be; that is inevitable. But
+the instinct of self-interest, O my Brother, goes with the flesh; the
+body-politic dies; nations rise and fall; and the eternal Spirit, the
+progenitor of all ideals, passes to better or worse hands, still
+chastening and strengthening itself in the process.
+
+"The Orient and Occident, the male and female of the Spirit, the two
+great streams in which the body and soul of man are refreshed,
+invigorated, purified--of both I sing, in both I glory, to both I
+consecrate my life, for both I shall work and suffer and die. My
+Brothers, the most highly developed being is neither European nor
+Oriental; but rather he who partakes of the finer qualities of both
+the European genius and the Asiatic prophet.
+
+"Give me, ye mighty nations of the West, the material comforts of
+life; and thou, my East, let me partake of thy spiritual heritage.
+Give me, America, thy hand; and thou, too, Asia. Thou land of
+origination, where Light and Spirit first arose, disdain not the
+gifts which the nations of the West bring thee; and thou land of
+organisation and power, where Science and Freedom reign supreme,
+disdain not the bounties of the sunrise.
+
+"If the discoveries and attainments of Science will make the body of
+man cleaner, healthier, stronger, happier, the inexhaustible Oriental
+source of romantic and spiritual beauty will never cease to give the
+soul of man the restfulness and solacement it is ever craving. And
+remember, Europa, remember, Asia, that foreign culture is as necessary
+to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its industries.
+Elsewise, thy materialism, Europa, or thy spiritualism, Asia, no
+matter how trenchant and impregnable, no matter how deep the
+foundation, how broad the superstructure thereof, is vulgar, narrow,
+mean--is nothing, in a word, but parochialism.
+
+"I swear that neither religious nor industrial slavery shall forever
+hold the world in political servitude. No; the world shall be free of
+the authority, absolute, blind, tyrannical, of both the Captains of
+Industry and the High Priests of the Temple. And who shall help to
+free it? Science alone can not do it; Science and Faith must do it.
+
+"I say with thee, O Goethe, 'Light, more light!' I say with thee, O
+Tolstoi, 'Love, more love!' I say with thee, O Ibsen, 'Will, more
+will!' Light, Love, and Will--the one is as necessary as the other;
+the one is dangerous without the others. Light, Love, and Will, are
+the three eternal, vital sources of the higher, truer, purer cosmic
+life.
+
+"Light, Love, and Will--with corals and pearls from their seas would I
+crown thee, O my City. In these streams would I baptise thy children,
+O my City. The mind, and the heart, and the soul of man I would
+baptise in this mountain lake, this high Jordan of Truth, on the
+flourishing and odoriferous banks of Science and Religion, under the
+sacred _sidr_ of Reason and Faith.
+
+"Ay, in the Lakes of Light, Love, and Will, I would baptise all
+mankind. For in this alone is power and glory, O my European Brothers;
+in this alone is faith and joy, O my Brothers of Asia.
+
+"The Hudson, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Thames, the Seine, the
+Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Ganges--every one of these great
+streams shall be such a Jordan in the future. In every one of them
+shall flow the confluent Rivers of Light, Love, and Will. In every
+one of them shall sail the barks of the higher aspirations and hopes
+of mankind.
+
+"I come now to be baptised, O my City. I come to slake my thirst in
+thy Jordan. I come to launch my little skiff, to do my little work, to
+pay my little debt.
+
+"In thy public-squares, O my City, I would raise monuments to Nature;
+in thy theatres to Poesy and Thought; in thy bazaars to Art; in thy
+homes, to Health; in thy temples of worship, to universal Goodwill; in
+thy courts, to Power and Mercy; in thy schools, to Simplicity; in thy
+hospitals, to Faith; and in thy public-halls to Freedom and Culture.
+And all these, without Light, Love, and Will, are but hollow affairs,
+high-sounding inanities. Without Light, Love, and Will, even thy
+Nabobs in the end shall curse thee; and with these, thy hammals under
+their burdens shall thank the heavens under which thy domes and
+turrets and minarets arise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ON THE OPEN HIGHWAY
+
+
+And Khalid, packing his few worldly belongings in one of his reed
+baskets, gives the rest to his neighbours, leaves his booth in the
+pines to the swallows, and bids the monks and his friend the Hermit
+farewell. The joy of the wayfaring! Now, where is the jubbah, the
+black jubbah of coarse wool, which we bought from one of the monks? He
+wraps himself in it, tightens well his shoe-strings, draws his fur cap
+over his ears, carries his basket on his back, takes up his staff,
+lights his cigarette, and resolutely sets forth. The joy of the
+wayfaring! We accompany him on the open highway, through the rocky
+wilderness, down to the fertile plains, back to the city. For the
+account he gives us of his journey enables us to fill up the lacuna in
+Shakib's _Histoire Intime_, before we can have recourse to it again.
+
+"From the cliffs 'neath which the lily blooms," he muses as he issues
+out of the forest and reaches the top of the mountain, "to the cliffs
+round which the eagles flit,--what a glorious promontory! What a
+contrast at this height, in this immensity, between the arid rocky
+haunts of the mountain bear and eagle and the spreading, vivifying
+verdure surrounding the haunts of man. On one side are the sylvan
+valleys, the thick grown ravines, the meandering rivulets, the
+fertile plains, the silent villages, and on the distant horizon, the
+sea, rising like a blue wall, standing like a stage scene; on the
+other, a howling immensity of boulders and prickly shrubs and plants,
+an arid wilderness--the haunt of the eagle, the mountain bear, and the
+goatherd. One step in this direction, and the entire panorama of
+verdant hills and valleys is lost to view. Its spreading, riant beauty
+is hidden behind that little cliff. I penetrate through this forest of
+rocks, where the brigands, I am told, lie in ambush for the caravans
+traveling between the valley of the Leontes and the villages of the
+lowland. But the brigands can not harm a dervish; my penury is my
+amulet--my salvation.
+
+"The horizon, as I proceed, shrinks to a distance of ten minutes' walk
+across. And thus, from one circle of rocks to another, I pass through
+ten of them before I hear again the friendly voice of the rill, and
+behold again the comforting countenance of the sylvan slopes. I reach
+a little grove of slender poplars, under the brow of a little hill,
+from which issues a little limpid stream and runs gurgling through the
+little ferns and bushes down the heath. I swing from the road and
+follow this gentle rill; I can not find a better companion now. But
+the wanton lures me to a village far from the road on the other side
+of the gorge. Now, I must either retrace my steps to get to it by a
+long detour, or cross the gorge, descending to the deep bottom and
+ascending in a tangled and tortuous path to reach the main road on the
+breast of the opposite escarpment. Here is a short-cut which is long
+and weary. It lures me as the stream; it cheats me with a name. And
+when I am again on the open road, I look back with a sigh of relief on
+the dangers I had passed. I can forgive the luring rill, which still
+smiles to me innocently from afar, but not the deluding, ensnaring
+ravine. The muleteer who saw me struggling through the tangled bushes
+up the pathless, hopeless steep, assures me that my mother is a pious
+woman, else I would have slipped and gone into an hundred pieces among
+the rocks below. 'Her prayers have saved thee,' quoth he; 'thank thy
+God.'
+
+"And walking together a pace, he points to the dizzy precipice around
+which I climbed and adds: 'Thou seest that rock? I hallooed to thee
+when thou wert creeping around it, but thou didst not hear me. From
+that same rock a woodman fell last week, and, falling, looked like a
+potted bird. He must have died before he reached the ground. His bones
+are scattered among those rocks. Thank thy God and thy mother. Her
+prayers have saved thee.'
+
+"My dear mother, how long since I saw thee, how long since I thought
+of thee. My loving mother, even the rough, rude spirit of a muleteer
+can see in the unseen the beauty and benevolence of such devotion as
+thine. The words of this dusky son of the road, coming as through the
+trumpet of revelation to rebuke me, sink deep in my heart and draw
+tears from mine eyes. For art thou not ever praying for thy grievous
+son, and for his salvation? How many beads each night dost thou tell,
+how many hours dost thou prostrate thyself before the Virgin,
+sobbing, obsecrating, beating thy breast? And all for one, who until
+now, ever since he left Baalbek, did not think on thee.--Let me kiss
+thee, O my Brother, for thy mild rebuke. Let me kiss thee for
+reminding me of my mother.--No, I can not further with thee; I am
+waygone; I must sit me a spell beneath this pine--and weep. O Khalid,
+wretched that thou art, can the primitive soul of this muleteer be
+better than thine? Can there be a sounder intuitiveness, a healthier
+sense of love, a grander sympathy, beneath that striped aba, than
+there is within thy cloak? Wilt thou not beat thy cheeks in ignominy
+and shame, when a stranger thinks of thy mother, and reverently, ere
+thou dost? No matter how low in the spiritual circles she might be, no
+matter how high thou risest, her prayer and her love are always with
+thee. If she can not rise to thee on the ladder of reason, she can
+soar on the wings of affection. Yea, I prostrate myself beneath this
+pine, bury my forehead in its dust, thanking Allah for my mother. Oh,
+I am waygone, but joyous. The muleteer hath illumined thee, O
+Khalid.--
+
+"There, the snow birds are passing by, flitting to the lowland. The
+sky is overcast; there is a lull in the wind. Hark, I hear the piping
+of the shepherd and the tinkling bell of the wether. Yonder is his
+flock; and there sits he on a rock blowing his doleful reed. I am
+almost slain with thirst. I go to him, and cheerfully does he milk for
+me. I do not think Rebekah was kinder and sweeter in Abraham's
+servant's eyes than was this wight in mine. 'Where dost thou sleep?'
+I ask, 'Under this rock,' he replies. And he shows me into the cave
+beneath it, which is furnished with a goat-skin, a masnad, and a
+little altar for the picture of the Virgin. Before this picture is an
+oil lamp, ever burning, I am told. 'And this altar,' quoth the
+shepherd, 'was my mother's. When she died she bequeathed it to me. I
+carry it with me in the wilderness, and keep the oil burning in her
+memory.' Saying which he took to weeping. Even the shepherd, O Khalid,
+is sent to rebuke thee. I thank him, and resume my march.
+
+"At eventide, descending from one hilltop to another, I reach a
+village of no mean size. It occupies a broad deep steep, in which the
+walnut and poplar relieve the monotony of the mulberries. I hate the
+mulberry, which is so suggestive of worms; and I hate worms, and
+though they be of the silk-making kind. I hate them the more, because
+the Lebanon peasant seems to live for the silk-worms, which he tends
+and cultivates better than he does his children.
+
+"When I stood on the top of the steep, the village glittering with a
+thousand lights lay beneath like a strip of the sidereal sky. It made
+me feel I was above the clouds, even above the stars. The gabled
+houses overtopping each other, spreading in clusters and half-circles,
+form here an aigrette, as it were, on the sylvan head of the mountain,
+there a necklace on its breast, below a cestus brilliant with an
+hundred lights. I descend into the village and stop before the first
+house I reach. The door is wide open; and the little girl who sees me
+enter runs in fright to tell her mother. Straightway, the woman and
+her son, a comely and lusty youth, come out in a where-is-the-brigand
+manner, and, as they see me, stand abashed, amazed. The young man who
+wore a robe-de-chambre and Turkish slippers worked in gold, returns my
+salaam courteously and invites me up to the divan. There is a spark of
+intelligence in his eyes, and an alien affectation in his speech. I
+foresaw that he had been in America. He does not ask me the
+conventional questions about my religious persuasion; but after his
+inquiries of whence and whither, he offers me an Egyptian cigarette,
+and goes in to order the coffee. It did not occur to him that I was
+his guest for the night.--
+
+"Ah me, I no longer know how to recline on a cushion, and a rug under
+my feet seems like a sheet of ice. But with my dust and mud I seem
+like Diogenes trampling upon Plato's pride. I survey the hall, which
+breathes of rural culture and well-being, and in which is more
+evidence of what I foresaw. On the wall hung various photographs and
+oil prints, among which I noticed those of the King and Queen of
+England, that of Theodore Roosevelt, a framed cartoon by an American
+artist, an autographed copy of an English Duke's, and a large
+photograph of a banquet of one of the political Clubs of New York. On
+the table were a few Arabic magazines, a post-card album, and a
+gramophone! Yes, mine host was more than once in the United States.
+And knowing that I, too, had been there, he is anxious to display
+somewhat of his broken English. His father, he tells me, speaks
+English even as good as he does, having been a dragoman for forty
+years.
+
+"After supper, he orders me a narghilah, and winds for my entertainment
+that horrible instrument of torture." Khalid did not seem to mind it;
+but he was anxious about the sacred peace of the hills, sleeping in
+the bosom of night. My Name is Billy Muggins, I Wish I Had a Pal Like
+You, Tickle Me, Timothy, and such like ragtime horrors come all the
+way from America to violate the antique grandeur and beauty of the
+Lebanon hills. That is what worried Khalid. And he excuses himself,
+saying, "I am waygone from the day's wayfaring." The instrument of
+torture is stopped, therefore, and he is shown into a room where a
+mattress is spread for him on the floor.
+
+"In the morning," he continues, "mine host accompanies me through the
+populous village, which is noted for its industries. Of all the
+Lebanon towns, this is, indeed, the busiest; its looms, its potteries,
+and its bell foundries, are never idle. And the people cultivate
+little of the silk worm; they are mostly artisans. American cotton
+they spin, and dye, and weave into substantial cloth; Belgian iron
+they melt and cast into bells; and from their native soil they dig the
+clay which they mould into earthenware. The tintinnabulations of the
+loom can be heard in other parts of the Lebanons; but no where else
+can the vintner buy a dolium for his vine, or the housewife, a pipkin
+for her oil, or the priest, a bell for his church. The sound of these
+foundries' anvils, translated into a wild, thrilling, far-reaching
+music, can be heard in every belfry and bell-cote of Syria.
+
+"We descend to the potteries below, not on the carriage road which
+serpentines through the village, and which is its only street, but
+sheer down a steep path, between the noise of the loom and spinning
+wheel and the stench of the dyeing establishments. And here is the
+real potter and his clay, not the symbol thereof. And here is the
+pottery which is illustrated in the Bible. For in the world to-day, if
+we except the unglazed tinajas of the Pueblo Indians, nothing, above
+ground at least, can be more ancient and primitive. Such a pitcher, I
+muse, did Rebekah carry to the well; with such a Jar on her shoulder
+did Hagar wander in the wilderness; and in such vessels did the widow,
+by Elijah's miracle, multiply her jug of oil.
+
+"The one silk-reeling factory of the village, I did not care to visit;
+for truly I can not tolerate the smell of asphyxiated larvas and
+boiling cocoons. 'But the proprietor,' quoth mine host, 'is very
+honourable, and of a fine wit.' As honourable as a sweater can be, I
+thought. No, no; these manufacturers are all of a piece. I know
+personally one of them, who is a Scrooge, and of the vilest. I watched
+him one day buying cocoons from the peasants. He does not trust any of
+his employees at the scales; they do not know how to press their hand
+over the weights in the pan. Ay, that little pressure of his chubby
+hand on the weights makes a difference in his favour of more than ten
+per cent. of what he buys. That little pressure of his hand is five
+or six piasters out of the peasant's pocket, who, with five or six
+piasters, remember, can satisfy his hunger on bread and olives and
+pulverised thyme, for five or six days. So, we visit not the
+cocoon-man, about whom the priest of his private chapel--he prays at
+home like the Lebanon Amirs of old, this khawaja--tells me many
+edifying things. Of these, I give out the most curious and least
+injurious. As the sheikh (squire) of the town, he is generous; as the
+operator of a silk-reeling factory, he is grasping, niggardly, mean.
+For, to misgovern well, one must open his purse as often as he forces
+the purses of others. He was passing by in his carriage this great
+khawaja, when we were coming out of the pottery. And of a truth, his
+paunch and double chin and ruddy cheeks seemed to illustrate what the
+priest told me about his usurious propensities.
+
+"What a contrast between him and the swarthy, leathery, hungry-looking
+potters. I can not think that Nature has aught to do with these naked
+inequalities. I can not believe that, to produce one roseate
+complexion, she must etiolate a thousand. I can not see how, in
+drinking from the same gushing spring, and breathing the same mountain
+air, and basking in the same ardent sun, the khawaja gets a double
+chin and the peasant a double curse. But his collops and his ruddiness
+are due to the fact that he misgoverns as well as his Pasha and his
+Sultan. He battens, even like a Tammany chief, on political jobbery,
+on extortion, on usury. His tree is better manured, so to speak;
+manured by the widows and tended by the orphans of his little
+kingdom. In a word, this great khawaja is what I call a political
+coprophagist. Hence, his suspicious growth, his lustre and lustiness.
+
+"But he is not the only example in the village of this superabundance
+of health; the priests are many more. For I must not fail to mention
+that, in addition to its potteries and founderies, the town is blessed
+with a dozen churches. Every family, a sort of tribe, has its church
+and priests; and consequently, its feuds with all the others. It is a
+marvel how the people, in the lethal soot and smoke of strife and
+dissension, can work and produce anything. Farewell, ye swarthy
+people! Farewell, O village of bells and potteries! Were it not for
+the khawaja who misgoverns thee, and the priests who sow their
+iniquity in thee, thou shouldst have been an ideal town. I look back,
+as I descend into the wadi, and behold, thou art as beautiful in the
+day as thou art in the night. Thy pink gables under a December sky
+seem not as garish as they do in summer. And the sylvan slopes,
+clustered with thy white-stone homes, peeping here through the
+mulberries, standing there under the walnuts and poplars, rising
+yonder in a group like a mottled pyramid, this most picturesque slope,
+whereon thou art ever beating the anvil, turning the wheel, throwing
+the shuttle, moulding the clay, and weltering withal in the mud of
+strife and dissension, this beautiful slope seems, nevertheless, from
+this distance, like an altar raised to Nature. I look not upon thee
+more; farewell.
+
+"I descend in the wadi to the River Lykos of the ancients; and
+crossing the stone-bridge, an hour's ascent brings me to one of the
+villages of Kisrawan. On the grey horizon yonder, is the limed bronze
+Statue of Mary the Virgin, rising on its sable pedestal, and looking,
+from this distance, like a candle in a bronze candle-stick. That
+Statue, fifty years hence, the people of the Lebanons will rebaptise
+as the Statue of Liberty. Masonry, even to-day, raises around it her
+mace. But whether these sacred mountains will be happier and more
+prosperous under its regime, I can not say. The Masons and the
+Patriarch of the Maronites are certainly more certain. Only this I
+know, that between the devil and the deep sea, Mary the Virgin shall
+hold her own. For though the name be changed, and the alm-box thrown
+into the sea, she shall ever be worshipped by the people. The Statue
+of the Holy Virgin of Liberty it will be called, and the Jesuits and
+priests can go a-begging. Meanwhile, the Patriarch will issue his
+allocutions, and the Jesuits, their pamphlets, against rationalism,
+atheism, masonry, and other supposed enemies of their Blessed Virgin,
+and point them out as enemies of Abd'ul-Hamid. 'Tis curious how the
+Sultan of the Ottomans can serve the cause of the Virgin!
+
+"I visit the Statue for the love of my mother, and mounting to the
+top of the pedestal, I look up and behold my mother before me. The
+spectre of her, standing before the monument, looks down upon me,
+reproachfully, piteously, affectionately. I sit down at the feet
+of the Virgin Mary and bury my face in my hands and weep. I love
+what thou lovest, O my mother, but I can see no more what thou seest.
+For thy love, O my mother, these kisses and tears. For thy love, I
+stand here like a child, and look up to this inanimate figure as I
+did when I was an acolyte. My intellect, O my mother, I would
+drown in my tears, and thy faith I would stifle with my kisses. Only
+thus is reconciliation possible.
+
+"Leaving this throne of modern mythology, I cross many wadis, descend
+and ascend many hills, pass through many villages, until I reach, at
+Ghina and Masshnaka, the tomb of the mythology of the ancients. At
+Ghina are ruins and monuments, of which Time has spared enough to
+engage the interest of archaeologists. Let the Peres Jesuit,
+Bourquenoud and Roz, make boast of their discoveries and scholarship;
+I can only boast of the fact that the ceremonialisms of worship are
+the same to-day as they were in the days of my Phoenician ancestors.
+Which, indeed, speaks well for THEM. This tablet, representing an
+armed figure and a bear, commemorates, it is said, the death of
+Tammuz. And the figure of the weeping woman near it is probably that
+of Ashtaroth. Other figures there are; but nothing short of the
+scholarship of Bourquenoud and Roz can unveil their marble mystery.
+
+"At Masshnaka, overlooking the River Adonis, are ruins of an ancient
+temple in which can still be seen a few Corinthian columns. This, too,
+we are told, was consecrated to Tammuz; and in this valley the women
+of Byblus bemoaned every year the fate of their god. Isis and Osiris,
+Tammuz and Ashtaroth, Venus and Adonis,--these, I believe, are one and
+the same. Their myth borrowed from the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and
+the Romans, from either of the two. But the Venus of Rome is cheerful,
+joyous, that of the Phoenicians is sad and sorrowful. Even mythology
+triumphs in its evolution.
+
+"Here, where my forebears deliquesced in sensuality, devotion, and
+grief, where the ardency of the women of Byblus flamed on the altar of
+Tammuz, on this knoll, whose trees and herbiage are fed perchance with
+their dust, I build my _athafa_ (little kitchen), Arab-like, and cook
+my noonday meal. On the three stones, forming two right angles, I
+place my skillet, kindle under it a fire, pour into it a little sweet
+oil, and fry the few eggs I purchased in the village. I abominate the
+idea of frying eggs in water as the Americans do.[1] I had as lief fry
+them in vinegar or syrup, where neither olive oil nor goat-butter is
+obtainable. But to fry eggs in water? O the barbarity of it! Why not,
+my friend, take them boiled and drink a little hot water after them?
+This savours of originality, at least, and is just as insipid, if not
+more. Withal, they who boil cabbage, and heap it in a plate over a
+slice of corn-beef, and call it a dish, can break a few boiled eggs in
+a cup of hot water and call them fried. Be this as it may. The
+Americans will be solesistically simple even in their kitchen.
+
+"Now, my skillet of eggs being ready, I draw out of my basket a cake
+of cheese, a few olives, an onion, and three paper-like loaves, rather
+leaves, of bread, and fall to. With what relish, I need not say. But
+let it be recorded here, that under the karob tree, on the bank of the
+River Adonis, in the shadow of the great wall surrounding the ruins of
+the temple of Tammuz, I Khalid, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign
+of Abd'ul-Hamid, gave a banquet to the gods--who, however, were
+content in being present and applauding the devouring skill of the
+peptic host and toast-master. Even serene Majesty at Yieldiz would
+give away, I think, an hundred of its sealed dishes for such a skillet
+of eggs in such an enchanted scene. But for it, alas! such wild and
+simple joy is a sealed book. Poor Serene Majesty! Now, having gone
+through the fruit course--and is not the olive a fruit?--I fill my jug
+at the River to make my coffee. And here I ask, In what Hotel Cecil or
+Waldorf or Savoy, or in what Arab tent in the desert, can one get a
+better cup of coffee than this, which Khalid makes for himself? The
+gods be praised, before and after. Ay, even in washing my pots and
+dishes I praise the good gods.
+
+"And having done this, I light my cigarette, lug my basket on my back,
+and again set forth. In three hours, on my way to Byblus, I reach a
+hamlet situated in a deep narrow wadi, closed on all sides by huge
+mountain walls. The most sequestered, the most dreary place, I have
+yet seen. Here, though unwilling, the dusk of the December day having
+set in, I lay down the staff of wayfare. And as I enter the little
+village, I am greeted by the bleat of sheep and the low of the kine.
+The first villager I meet is an aged woman, who stands in her door
+before which is a pomegranate tree, telling her beads. She returns my
+salaam graciously, and invites me, saying, 'Be kind to tarry
+overnight.' But can one be kinder than such an hostess? Seeing that I
+laid down my burden, she calls to her daughter to light the seraj
+(naphtha lamp) and bring some water for the stranger. 'Methinks thou
+wouldst wash thy feet,' quoth she. Indeed, that is as essential and
+refreshing, after a day's walk, as washing one's face. I sit me down,
+therefore, under the pomegranate, take off my shoes and stockings, and
+the little girl, a winsome, dark-eyed, quick-witted lass, pours to me
+from the pitcher. I try to take it from her; but she would not, she
+said, be deprived of the pleasure of serving the stranger. Having
+done, I put on my stockings, and, leaving my shoes and basket near the
+door, enter a beit (one-room house) meagrely but neatly furnished. The
+usual straw mats are spread on the winter side, behind the door; in
+the corner is a little linen-covered divan with trimming of beautiful
+hand-made lace, the work of the little girl; and nearby are a few
+square cushions on the floor and a crude chair. The seraj, giving out
+more smoke and smell than light, is placed on a little shelf attached
+to the central pillar of the beit. Near the door is a bench for the
+water jars, and in the other corner are the mattresses and quilts,
+and the earthen tub containing the round leaves of bread. Of these
+consist the furniture and provision of mine hostess.
+
+"Her son, a youth of not more than two score years, returns from his
+day's labour a while after I had arrived. And as he stands in the
+door, his pick-axe and spade on his shoulder, his sister runs to meet
+him, and whispers somewhat about the stranger. Sitting on the
+threshold, he takes off his spats of cloth and his clouted shoes,
+while she gets the pitcher of water. After having washed, he enters,
+salaams graciously, and squats on the floor. The mother then brings a
+wicker tray on which is set the supper, consisting of only bread and
+olives. 'Thou wilt overlook our penury,' she falters out; 'here be all
+we have.' In truth, my hostess is of the poorest of the Lebanon
+peasants; even her sweet-oil pipkin and her jars of lentils and beans,
+are empty. She lays the tray before her son and invites me to partake
+of the repast. I go to my basket, bring forth the few onions and the
+two cakes of cheese I had left, lay them with an apology on the
+tray--the mother, abashed, protests--and we sit down cross-legged in a
+circle to supper. When we rise, the little girl lights a little fire,
+and they enjoy the cup of coffee I make for them. And the mother, in
+taking hers, tells me naively, and with a sigh, that it is five years
+now since she had had a cup of coffee. Indeed, she had seen better
+days. And 'tis sorrow, forestalling Time, which furrows her cheeks and
+robs her black eyes of their lustre and spark.
+
+"She had once cattle, and a beit of her own, and rugs, too, and jars
+full of provision. But now she is a tenant. And her husband, ever
+since he emigrated to America, did not send a single piaster or even
+write a letter. From necessity she becomes a prey of usurers; for
+those Lebanon Moths, of which we saw a specimen in the village of
+bells and potteries, fall mostly in the wardrobe of women. They are
+locusts rather, who visit only the wheat fields of the poor. Her home
+was mortgaged to one such, and failing to meet her obligation, the
+mortgage is closed and he takes possession. Soon after she is evicted,
+her son, the first-born, a youth of much promise, dies.
+
+"'He could read and write, my son,' quoth she, sobbing; 'of a sharp
+wit he was, and very assiduous in his studies. Once he accompanied the
+priest of the village on a visit to the Patriarch, and read there a
+eulogium of his own composition, for which he received a silver medal.
+The Patriarch then sent him to a Seminary; he was to become a priest,
+my son. He wrote a beautiful hand--both Arabic and French; he was of a
+fine wit, sharp, quick, brilliant. Ah, me, but those who are of such
+minds never live!'
+
+"She then tells me how they lost their last head of cattle. An
+excellent sheep it was; which one night they forgot outside; and the
+wolf, visiting the village, sees it tied to the mulberry, howls for
+joy, and carries it off. And thus Death robs the poor woman of her
+son; America, of her husband; the Shylock of the village, of her home;
+and the wolf, of her last head of cattle. And this were enough to age
+even a Spartan woman. Late in the evening, after she had related at
+length of her sorrows, three mattresses--all she had--are laid on the
+straw mat near each other, and the little girl had to sleep with her
+mother.
+
+"Early in the morning I bid them farewell, and pass on my way to
+Amsheet, where Henriette Renan, the sister of Ernest, is buried. An
+hour's walk, and the incarcerated wadi and its folk lie concealed
+behind. I breathe again the open air of the mountain expanse; I behold
+again the emerald stretch of water on the horizon, where the baggalas
+and saics, from this distance, seem like doves basking in the morning
+sun. I cross the last rill, mount the last hilltop on my journey, and
+lo, at the foot of the gently sloping heath are the orchards and palms
+of Amsheet. Further below is Jbail, or ancient Byblus, looking like a
+clutter of cliffs on the shore. Farewell to the mountain heights, and
+the arid wilderness! Welcome the fertile plains, and hopeful strands.
+In half an hour I reach the immense building--the first or the last of
+the village, according to your direction--which, from the top of the
+hill, I thought to be a fortress. A huge structure this, still
+a-building, and of an architecture altogether different from the
+conventional Lebanon type. No plain square affair, with three pointed
+arches in the facade, and a gable of pink tiles; but here are quoins,
+oriels, embrasures, segmental arches, and other luxuries of
+architecture. Out of place in these wilds, altogether out of place.
+Hard by are two primitive flat-roofed beits, standing grimly there as
+a rebuke to the extravagant tendencies of the age. I go there in the
+hope of buying some cheese and eggs, and behold a lady of severe
+beauty smoking a narghilah and giving orders to a servant. She returns
+my salaam seated in her chair, and tells me in an injured air, after I
+had made known to her my desire, that eggs and cheese are sold in the
+stores.
+
+"'You may come in for breakfast,' she adds; and clapping for the
+servant, orders him to lay the table for me. I enter the beit, which
+is partitioned into a kitchen, a dining-room, and a parlour. On the
+table is spread the usual breakfast of a Lebanonese of affluence:
+namely, cheese, honey, fig-jam, and green olives. The servant, who is
+curious to know my name, my religion, my destination, and so forth,
+tells me afterwards that Madame is the wife of the kaiemkam, and the
+castle, which is building, is their new home.
+
+"Coming out, I thank Madame, and ask her about the grave of Renan's
+sister. She pauses amazed, blows her narghilah smoke in my face,
+surveys me from top to toe, and puts to me those same questions with
+which I was tormented by her servant. Indeed, I had answered ten of
+hers, before I got this answer to mine: 'The sister of whom, thou
+sayst? That Frenchman who came here in the sixties for antiquities?
+Yes; his sister died and was buried here, but no Christian remembers
+her for good. She must have been a bad one like her brother, who was
+an infidel, they say, and did not know or fear God.--What wouldst thou
+see there? Art like the idiot Franje (Europeans) who come here and
+carry away from around the grave some stones and dust? Go thou with
+him--(this to the servant) and show him the vault of the Toubeiyahs,
+where she was buried.' This, in a supercilious air, while she drew
+from the narghilah the smoke, which I could not relish.
+
+"We come to the cemetery near the church in the centre of the town.
+The vault where Henriette was laid, a plain, plastered square cell, is
+not far from an oak which in the morning envelopes it with its shadow;
+and directly across are palms, whose shades at sundown, make a vain
+effort to kiss its dust. No grass, no flowers around; but much of the
+dust of neglect. And of this I take up a handful, like 'the idiot
+Franje'; but instead of carrying it away, I press therein my lips and
+leave my planted kisses near the vault.--When the mothers and the
+sisters of these sacred hills, O Henriette, can see the flowers of
+these kisses in thy dust, when they can appreciate the sacred purity
+of thy spirit and devotion, what mothers then we shall have, and what
+sisters!
+
+"I pass through the village descending on the carriage road to Jbail,
+or Byblus. In these diggings the shrewd antiquary digs for those
+precious tear-bottles of my ancestors. And everywhere one turns are
+tombs in which the archaeologist finds somewhat to noise abroad. His,
+indeed, is a scholarship which is essentially necrophagous. For
+consider, what would become of it, if a necropolis, for instance, did
+not yield somewhat of nourishment,--a limb, a torso, a palimpsest, or
+even an earthen lamp, a potsherd, or a coin? I rail not at these
+scholarly grave-diggers because I can not interest myself in their
+work; that were unwise and unfair. But truly, I abominate this
+business of 'cashing,' as it were, the ruins and remains, the ashes
+and dust, of our ancestors. Archaeology for archaeology's sake is
+pardonable; archaeology for the sake of writing a book is intolerable;
+and archaeology for lucre is abominable.
+
+"At Jbail I visited the citadel, said to be of Phoenician origin,
+which is occupied by the mudir of the District. Entering the gate,
+near which is a chapel consecrated to Our Lady of that name, where
+litigants, when they can not prove their claims, are made to swear to
+them, we pass through a court between rows of Persian lilac trees,
+into a dark, stivy arcade on both sides of which are dark, stivy cells
+used as stables. Reaching the citadel proper, we mount a high stairway
+to the loft occupied by the mudir. This, too, is partitioned, but with
+cotton sheeting, into various apartments.
+
+"The zabtie, in zouave uniform, at the door, would have me wait
+standing in the corridor outside; for his Excellency is at dinner. And
+Excellency, as affable as his zabtie, hearing the parley without,
+growls behind the scene and orders me gruffly to go to the court.
+'This is not the place to make a complaint,' he adds. But the
+stranger at thy door, O gracious Excellency, complains not against
+any one in this world; and if he did, assure thee, he would not
+complain to the authorities of this world. This, or some such
+plainness of distemper, the zouave communicates to his superior
+behind the cotton sheeting, who presently comes out, his anger
+somewhat abated, and, taking me for a monk--my jubbah is responsible
+for the deception--invites me to the sitting-room in the enormous
+loophole of the citadel. He himself was beginning to complain of the
+litigants who pester him at his home, and apologise for his ill
+humour, when suddenly, disabused on seeing my trousers beneath my
+jubbah, he subjects me to the usual cross-examination. I could not
+refrain from thinking that, not being of the cowled gentry, he
+regretted having honoured me with an apology.
+
+"But after knowing somewhat of the pilgrim stranger, especially that
+he had been in America, Excellency tempers the severity of his
+expression and evinces an agreeable curiosity. He would know many
+things of that distant country; especially about a Gold-Mining
+Syndicate, or Gold-Mining Fake, in which he invested a few hundred
+pounds of his fortune. And I make reply, 'I know nothing about Gold
+Mines and Syndicates, Excellency: but methinks if there be gold in
+such schemes, the grubbing, grabbing Americans would not let it
+come to Syria.' 'Indeed, so,' he murmurs, musing; 'indeed, so.' And
+clapping for the serving-zabtie--the mudirs and kaiemkams of the
+Lebanon make these zabties, whose duty is to serve papers, serve,
+too, in their homes--he orders for me a cup of coffee. And further
+complaining to me, he curses America for robbing the country of
+its men and labourers.--'We can no more find tenants for our
+estates, despite the fact that they get more of the income than
+we do. The shreek (partner), or tenant, is rightly called so. For the
+owner of an estate that yields fifty pounds, for instance, barely
+gets half of it; while the shreek, he who tills and cultivates the
+land, gets away with the other half, sniffing and grumbling
+withal. Of a truth, land-tenants are not so well-off anywhere. And if
+the land but yields a considerable portion, any one with a few
+grains of the energy of those Americans, would prefer to be a
+shreek than a real-estate owner.' Thus, his Excellency, complaining
+of the times, regretting his losses, cursing America and its Gold
+Mines; and having done, drops the narghilah tube from his hand and
+dozes on the divan.
+
+"I muse meanwhile on Time, who sees in a citadel of the ancient
+Phoenicians, after many thousand years, that same propensity for
+gold, that same instinct for trade. The Phoenicians worked gold
+mines in Thrace, and the Syrians, their descendants, are working
+gold mines in America. But are we as daring, as independent, as
+honest? I am not certain, however, if those Phoenicians had anything
+to do with bubbles. My friend Sanchuniathon writes nothing on the
+subject. History records not a single instance of a gold-mine
+bubble in Thrace, or a silver ditto in Africa. Apart from this, have
+we, the descendants of those honest Phoenicians, any of their
+inventive skill and bold initiative? They taught other nations the
+art of ship-building; we can not as much as learn from other
+nations the art of building a gig. They transmitted to the people
+of the West a knowledge of mathematics, weights, and measures; we
+can not as much as weigh or measure the little good Europe is
+transmitting to us. They always fought bravely against their
+conquerors, always gave evidence of their love of independence; and we
+dare not raise a finger or whisper a word against the red Tyrant by
+whom we are degraded and enslaved. We are content in paying tribute
+to a criminal Government for pressing upon our necks the yoke and
+fettering hopelessly our minds and souls--and my brave Phoenicians,
+ah, how bravely they thought and fought. What daring deeds they
+accomplished! what mysteries of art and science they unveiled!
+
+"On these shores they hammered at the door of invention, and,
+entering, showed the world how glass is made; how colours are
+extracted from pigments; how to measure, and count, and communicate
+human thought. The swarthy sons of the eternal billows, how shy they
+were of the mountains, how enamoured of the sea! For the mountains, it
+was truly said, divide nations, and the seas connect them. And my
+Phoenicians, mind you, were for connection always. Everywhere, they
+lived on the shores, and ever were they ready to set sail.
+
+"In this mammoth loophole, measuring about ten yards in length,--this
+the thickness of the wall--I muse of another people skilled in the art
+of building. But between the helots who built the pyramids and the
+freemen who built this massive citadel, what a contrast! The Egyptian
+mind could only invent fables; the Phoenician was the vehicle of
+commerce and the useful arts. The Egyptians would protect their dead
+from the tyranny of Time; the Phoenicians would protect themselves,
+the living, from the invading enemy: those based their lives on the
+vagaries of the future; these built it on the solid rock of the
+present...."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we have had enough of Khalid's gush about the Phoenicians, and we
+confess we can not further walk with him on this journey. So, we leave
+his Excellency the mudir snoring on the divan, groaning under the
+incubus of the Gold Mine Fake, bemoaning his losses in America; pass
+the zabtie in zouave uniform, who is likewise snoring on the
+door-step; and, hurrying down the stairway and out through the stivy
+arcade, we say farewell to Our Lady of the Gate, and get into one of
+the carriages which ply the shore between Junie and Jbail. We reach
+Junie about sundown, and Allah be praised! Even this toy of a train
+brings us, in thirty minutes, to Beirut.
+
+-----
+
+ [1] Khalid would speak here of poached eggs, we believe. And the
+     Americans, to be fair, are not so totally ignorant of the art of
+     frying. They have lard--much worse than water--in which they
+     cook, or poach, or fry--but the change in the name does not
+     change the taste. So, we let Khalid's stricture on fried eggs and
+     boiled cabbage stand.--EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+UNION AND PROGRESS
+
+
+Had not Khalid in his retirement touched his philosophic raptures with
+a little local colouring, had he not given an account of his tramping
+tour in the Lebanons, the hiatus in Shakib's _Histoire Intime_ could
+not have been bridged. It would have remained, much to our vexation
+and sorrow, somewhat like the ravine in which Khalid almost lost his
+life. But now we return, after a year's absence, to our Scribe, who at
+this time in Baalbek is soldering and hammering out rhymes in praise
+of Niazi and Enver, Abd'ul-Hamid and the Dastur (Constitution).
+
+"When Khalid, after his cousin's marriage, suddenly disappeared from
+Baalbek," writes he, "I felt that something had struck me violently
+on the brow, and everything around me was dark. I could not
+withhold my tears: I wept like a child, even like Khalid's mother. I
+remember he would often speak of suicide in those days. And on the
+evening of that fatal day we spent many hours discussing the question.
+'Why is not one free to kill himself,' he finally asked, 'if one is
+free to become a Jesuit?' But I did not believe he was in earnest.
+Alas, he was. For on the morning of the following day, I went up to
+his tent on the roof and found nothing of Khalid's belongings but
+a pamphlet on the subject, 'Is Suicide a Sin?' and right under the
+title the monosyllable LA (no) and his signature. The frightfulness
+of his intention stood like a spectre before me. I clapped one hand
+upon the other and wept. I made inquiries in the city and in the
+neighbouring places, but to no purpose. Oh, that dreadful, dismal
+day, when everywhither I went something seemed to whisper in my
+heart, 'Khalid is no more.' It was the first time in my life that I
+felt the pangs of separation, the sting of death and sorrow. The
+days and months passed, heartlessly confirming my conjecture, my
+belief.
+
+"One evening, when the last glimmer of hope passed away, I sat down
+and composed a threnody in his memory. And I sent it to one of the
+newspapers of Beirut, in the hope that Khalid, if he still lived,
+might chance to see it. It was published and quoted by other journals
+here and in Egypt, who, in their eulogies, spoke of Khalid as the
+young Baalbekian philosopher and poet. One of these newspapers, whose
+editor is a dear friend of mine, and of comely ancient virtue, did not
+mention, from a subtle sense of tender regard for my feelings, the
+fact that Khalid committed suicide. 'He died,' the Notice said, 'of a
+sudden and violent defluxion of rheums,[1] which baffled the
+physician and resisted his skill and physic.' Another journal, whose
+editor's religion is of the Jesuitical pattern, spoke of him as a
+miserable God-abandoned wretch who was not entitled to the right of
+Christian burial; and fulminated at its contemporaries for eulogising
+the youthful infidel and moaning his death, thus spreading and
+justifying his evil example.
+
+"And so, the days passed, and the months, and Khalid was still dead.
+In the summer of this year, when the Constitution was proclaimed, and
+the country was rioting in the saturnalia of Freedom and Equality, my
+sorrow was keener, deeper than ever. Not I alone, but the cities and
+the deserts of Syria and Arabia, missed my loving friend. How
+gloriously he would have filled the tribune of the day, I sadly
+mused.... O Khalid, I can never forgive this crime of thine against
+the sacred rites of Friendship. Such heartlessness, such inexorable
+cruelty, I have never before observed in thee. No matter how much thou
+hast profited by thy retirement to the mountains, no matter how much
+thy solitude hath given thee of health and power and wisdom, thy cruel
+remissness can not altogether be drowned in my rejoicing. To forget
+those who love thee above everything else in the world,--thy mother,
+thy cousin, thine affectionate brother--"
+
+And our Scribe goes on, blubbering like a good Syrian his complaint
+and joy, gushing now in verse, now in what is worse, in rhymed prose,
+until he reaches the point which is to us of import. Khalid, in the
+winter of the first year of the Dastur (Constitution) writes to him
+many letters from Beirut, of which he gives us not less than fifty!
+And of these, the following, if not the most piquant and interesting,
+are the most indispensable to our History.
+
+Letter I (As numbered in the Original)
+
+  My loving Brother Shakib:
+
+  To whom, if not to you, before all, should I send the first word
+  of peace, the first sign of the resurrection? To my mother? To
+  my cousin Najma? Well, yes. But if I write to them, my letters
+  will be brought to you to be read and answered. So I write now
+  direct, hoping that you will convey to them these tidings of
+  joy. 'Tis more than a year now since I slinked out of Baalbek,
+  leaving you in the dark about me. Surely, I deserve the
+  chastisement of your bitterest thoughts. But what could I do?
+  Such is the rigour of the sort of life I lived that any
+  communication with the outside world, especially with friends
+  and lovers, would have marred it. So, I had to be silent as the
+  pines in which I put up, until I became as healthy as the
+  swallows, my companions there. When we meet, I shall recount to
+  you the many curious incidents of my solitude and my journey in
+  the sacred hills of Lebanon. To these auspicious mountains, my
+  Brother, I am indebted for the health and joy and wisdom that
+  are now mine; and yours, too, if you consider.
+
+  Strange, is it not, that throughout my journey, and I have
+  passed in many villages, nothing heard I of this great political
+  upheaval in the Empire. Probably the people of the Lebanons
+  cherish not the Revolution. There is so much in common, I find,
+  between them and the Celtic races, who always in such instances
+  have been more royalists than the king. And I think Mt. Lebanon
+  is going to be the Vendee of the Turks.
+
+  I have been in Beirut but a few days. And truly, I could not
+  believe my eyes, when in the Place de la Concorde (I hope the
+  Turks are not going to follow in the steps of the French
+  Revolutionists in all things), I could not believe my eyes,
+  when, in this muddy Square, on the holy Stump of Liberty, I
+  beheld my old friend the Spouter dispensing to the turbaned and
+  tarboushed crowd, among which were cameleers and muleteers with
+  their camels and mules, of the blessing of that triple political
+  abracadabra of the France of more than a century passed.
+  Liberty, Fraternity, Equality!--it's a shame that the show has
+  been running for six months now and I did not know it. I begin
+  by applauding the Spouters of Concord Square, the donkey that I
+  am. But how, with my cursed impulsiveness, can I always keep on
+  the sidewalk of reason? I, who have suckled of the milk of
+  freedom and broke the bottle, too, on my Nurse's head, I am not
+  to blame, if from sheer joy, I cheer those who are crowning her
+  on a dung-hill with wreaths of stable straw. It's better,
+  billah, than breaking the bottle on her head, is it not? And so,
+  let the Spouters spout. And let the sheikh and the priest and
+  the rabbi embrace on that very Stump and make up. Live the Era
+  of Concord and peace and love! Live the Dastur! Hurrah for the
+  Union and Progress Heroes! Come down to Beirut and do some
+  shouting with your fellow citizens.
+
+Letter V
+
+  No; I do not approve of your idea of associating with that young
+  Mohammedan editor. You know what is said about the tiger and its
+  spots. Besides, I had another offer from a Christian oldtimer;
+  but you might as well ask me to become a Jesuit as to became a
+  Journalist. I wrote last week a political article, in which I
+  criticised Majesty's Address to the Parliament, and mauled those
+  oleaginous, palavering, mealy-mouthed Representatives, who would
+  not dare point out the lies in it. They hear the Chief Clerk
+  read of "the efforts made by the Government during the past
+  thirty years in the interest of education," and applaud; while
+  at the Royal Banquet they jostle and hustle each other to kiss
+  the edge of Majesty's frock-coat. The abject slaves!
+
+  The article was much quoted and commented upon; I was flouted by
+  many, defended by a few, these asked: "Was the Government of
+  Abd'ul-Hamid, committing all its crimes in the interest of
+  education, were we being trained by the Censorship and the
+  Bosphorus Terror for the Dastur?" "But the person of Majesty,
+  the sacredness of the Khalifate," cried the others. And a
+  certain one, in the course of his attack, denies the existence
+  of Khalid, who died, said he, a year ago. And what matters it if
+  a dead man can stir a whole city and blow into the nostrils of
+  its walking spectres a breath of life?
+
+  I spoke last night in one of the music halls and gave the
+  Mohammedans a piece of my mind. The poor Christians!--they
+  feared the Government in the old regime; they cower before the
+  boatmen in this. For the boatmen of Beirut have not lost their
+  prestige and power. They are a sort of commune and are yet
+  supreme. Yes, they are always riding the whirlwind and directing
+  the storm. And who dares say a word against them? Every one of
+  them, in his swagger and bluster, is an Abd'ul-Hamid. Alas,
+  everything is yet in a chaotic state. The boatman's shriek can
+  silence the Press and make the Spouters tremble.
+
+  I am to lecture in the Public Hall of one of the Colleges here
+  on the "Moral Revolution." Believe me, I would not utter a word
+  or write a line if I were not impelled to it. And just as soon
+  as some one comes to the front to champion in this land
+  spiritual and moral freedom, I'll go "way back and sit down."
+  For why should I then give myself the trouble? And the applause
+  of the multitude, mind you, brings me not a single olive.
+
+Letter XXII
+
+  I had made up my mind to go to Cairo, and I was coming up to say
+  farewell to you and mother. For I like not Beirut, where one in
+  winter must go about in top-boots, and in a dust-coat in summer.
+  I wonder what Rousseau, who called Paris the city of mud, would
+  have said of this? Besides, a city ruled by boatmen is not a
+  city for gentlemen to live in. So, I made up my mind to get out
+  of it, and quickly. But yesterday morning, before I had taken my
+  coffee, some one knocked at my door. I open, and lo, a policeman
+  in shabby uniform, makes inquiry about Khalid. What have I done,
+  I thought, to deserve this visit? And before I had time to
+  imagine the worst, he delivers a card from the Deputy to Syria
+  of the Union and Progress Society of Salonique. I am desired in
+  this to come at my earliest convenience to the Club to meet this
+  gentleman. There, I am received by an Army Officer and a certain
+  Ahmed Bey. And after the coffee and the formalities of civility
+  are over, I am asked to accompany them on a tour to the
+  principal cities of upper Syria--to Damascus, Homs, Hama, and
+  Aleppo. The young Army Officer is to speechify in Turkish, I, in
+  Arabic, and Ahmed Bey, who is as oleaginous as a Turk could be,
+  will take up, I think, the collection. Seeing in this a chance
+  to spread the Idea among our people, I accept, and in a
+  fortnight we shall be in Damascus. You must come there, for I am
+  burning to meet and embrace you.
+
+Letter XXV
+
+  Whom do you think I met yesterday? Why, nothing gave me greater
+  pleasure ever since I have been here than this: I was crossing
+  the Square on my way to the Club, when some one plucking at my
+  jubbah angrily greets me. I look back, and behold our dear old
+  Im-Hanna, who has just returned from New York. She stood there
+  waving her hand wildly and rating me for not returning her
+  salaam. "You know no one any more, O Khalid," she said
+  plaintively; "I call to you three times and you look not, hear
+  not. No matter, O Khalid." Thereupon, she embraces me as fondly
+  as my mother. "And why," she inquired, "do you wear this black
+  jubbah? Are you now a monk? Were it not for that long hair and
+  that cap of yours, I would not have known you. Let me see, isn't
+  that the cap I bought you in New York?" And she takes it off my
+  head to examine it. "Yes, that's it. How good of you to keep it.
+  Well, how are you now? Do you cough any more? Are you still
+  crazy about books? I don't think so, for you have rosy cheeks
+  now." And sobbing for joy, she embraces me again and again.
+
+  She is neatly dressed, wears a silk fiche, and is as alert as
+  ever. In the afternoon, I visit her at the Hotel, and she asks
+  me to accompany her to the Bank, where she cashes three bills of
+  exchange for three hundred pounds each! I ask her what she is
+  going to do with all this money, and she tells me that she is
+  going to build a little home for her grandson and send him to
+  the College of the Americans here.
+
+  "And is there like America in all the world?" she exclaims. "Ah,
+  my heart for America!" And on asking her why she did not remain
+  there: "Fear not; just as soon as I build my house and place my
+  son in the College I am going back to New York. What, O Khalid,
+  will you return with me?" She then takes some gold pieces in her
+  hand, and lowering her voice: "May be you need some money; take,
+  take these." Dear old Im-Hanna, I would not refuse her favour,
+  and I would not accept one such. What was I to do? Coming
+  through the Jewellers' bazaar I hit upon an idea, and with the
+  money she slipped into my pocket, I bought a gold watch in one
+  of the stores and charged her to present it to her grandson.
+  "Say it is from his brother, your other grandson Khalid." She
+  protests, scolds, and finally takes the watch, saying, "Well,
+  nothing is changed in you: still the same crazy Khalid."
+
+  To-morrow she is coming to see my room, and to cook for me a
+  dish of _mojadderah_! Ah, the old days in the cellar!
+
+In the thirtieth Letter, one of considerable length, dated March, is
+an exceedingly titillating divagation on the _gulma_ (oustraation of
+animals), called forth, we are told, "by the rut of the d----d cats in
+the yard." Poor Khalid can not sleep. One night he jumps out of bed
+and chases them away with his skillet, saying, "Why don't I make such
+a row, ye wantons?" They come again the following night, and Khalid on
+the following morning moves to a Hotel which, by good or ill chance,
+is adjacent to the lupanars of the city. His window opens on another
+yard in which other cats, alas!--of the human species this time--are
+caterwauling, harrowing the soul of him and the night. He makes a
+second remove, but finds himself disturbed this time by the rut of a
+certain roebuck within. Nature, O Khalid, will not be cheated, no more
+than she will be abused, without retaliating soon or late. True, you
+got out of many ruts heretofore; but this you can not get out of
+except you go deeper into it. Your anecdotes from Ad-Damiry and your
+quotations from Montaigne shall not help you. And your allusions to
+March-cats and March-Khalids are too pitiful to be humorous. Indeed,
+were not the tang of lubricity in this Letter too strong, we would
+have given in full the confession it contains.
+
+We now come to the last of this Series, in which Khalid speaks of a
+certain American lady, a Mrs. Goodfree, or Gotfry, who is a votary of
+Ebbas Effendi, the Pope of Babism at Heifa. Mrs. Gotfry may not be a
+Babist in the strict sense of the word; but she is a votary and
+worshipper of the Bab. To her the personal element in a creed is of
+more importance than the ism. Hence, her pilgrimage every year to
+Heifa. She comes with presents and gold; and Ebbas Effendi, who is not
+impervious to the influence of other gods than his own, permits her
+into the sanctuary, where she shares with him the light of divine
+revelation and returns to the States, as the Priestess of the Cult, to
+bless and console the Faithful. Khalid was dining with Ahmed Bey at
+the Grand Hotel--but here is a portion of the Letter.
+
+By a devilish mischance she occupied the seat opposite to mine. And
+in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is
+an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or
+such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would think
+her from the South, or further down from Mexico. Nay, of Andalusian,
+and consequently of Arabian, origin she must be. Her hair and her eyes
+are of the richest jet; her glance, voluptuous, mysterious; her
+complexion, neither white nor olive, but partakes of both,--a
+gauze-like shade of heliotrope, as it were, over a pink and straw
+surface, if you can imagine that; and her expression, a play between
+devotion and diabolism--now a question mark to love, now an
+exclamation to sorrow, and at times a dash between both. By what
+mysterious medium of romance and adventure did America produce such a
+beauty, I can not tell. Perhaps she, too, can not. If you saw her, O
+Shakib, you'd do nothing for months but dedicate odes to her eyes,--to
+the deep, dark infinity of their luring, devouring beauty,--which seem
+to drop honey and poison from every arched hair of their fulsome
+lashes. Withal,--another devilish mischance,--she was dressed in black
+and wore a white silk ruffle, like myself. And her age? Well, she can
+not have passed her sixth lustrum. And really, as the Novelist would
+say in his Novel, she looks ten years younger.... To say we were
+attracted to each other were presumptuous: but _I was_ taken.... Near
+her sat a Syrian gentleman of my acquaintance, with whom she was
+conversing when we entered. That is the lady whose beauty, when she
+was sitting, I described to you: but when she got up to leave the
+table,--alas, and _ay me_, and all the other expressions of regret and
+sorrow. That such a beautiful face should be denied a corresponding
+beauty of figure. And what is more pitiable about her, she is lame in
+the right leg. Poor dear Misfortune, I wish it were in my power to add
+an inch of my limb to hers.
+
+And Khalid goes on limping, drooling, alassing, to the end. After
+dinner he is introduced to his "poor dear Misfortune" by his Syrian
+friend. But being with Ahmed Bey he can not remain this evening. On
+the following day, however, he is invited to lunch; and on the terrace
+facing the sea, they pass the afternoon discussing various subjects.
+Mrs. Gotfry is surprised how a Syrian of Khalid's mind can not see the
+beauties of Babism, or Buhaism, as it is now called, and the lofty
+spirituality of the Bab. But she forgives him his lack of faith, gives
+him her card, and invites him to her home, if he ever returns to the
+United States.
+
+Now, maugre the fact that, in a postscript to this Letter, Khalid
+closes with these words, "And what have I to do with priests and
+priestesses?" we can not but harbour a suspicion that his "Union and
+Progress" tour is bound to have more than a political significance. By
+ill or good hap those words are beginning to assume a double meaning;
+and maugre all efforts to the contrary, the days must soon unfold the
+twofold tendency and result of the "Union and Progress" ideas of
+Khalid.
+
+-----
+
+ [1] In some parts of Syria, as in Arabia, almost every ill and
+     affection is attributed to the rheums, or called so. Rheumatism,
+     for instance, is explained by the Arab quack as a defluxion of
+     rheums, failing to discharge through the upper orifices, progress
+     downward, and settling in the muscles and joints, produce the
+     affection. And might there not be more truth in that than the
+     diagnosis of him who is a Membre de la Faculte de Medicine de
+     France?--EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+REVOLUTIONS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
+
+
+"Even Carlyle can be longwinded and short-sighted on occasions. 'Once
+in destroying the False,' says he, 'there was a certain inspiration.'
+And always there is, to be sure, my Master. For the world is not
+Europe, and the final decision on Who Is and What Is To Rule, was not
+delivered by the French Revolution. The Orient, the land of
+origination and prophecy, must yet solve for itself this eternal
+problem of the Old and New, the False and True. And whether by
+Revolutions, Speculations, or Constitutions, ancient Revelation will
+be purged and restored to its original pristine purity: the
+superannuated lumber that accumulated around it during centuries of
+apathy, fatalism, and sloth, must go: the dust and mould and cobwebs
+of the Temple will be swept away. Indeed, 'a war must be eternally
+waged on evils eternally renewed.' The genius of destruction has done
+its work, you say, O my esteemed Master? and there is nothing more to
+destroy? The gods might say this of other worlds than ours. In Europe,
+as in Asia, there is to be considered and remembered: if this mass of
+things we call humanity and civilisation were as healthy as the
+eternal powers would have them, the healthiest of the race would not
+be constantly studying and dissecting our social and political ills.
+
+"In a certain sense, we are healthier to-day than the Europeans; but
+our health is that of the slave and not the master: it is of more
+benefit to others than it is to ourselves. We are doomed to be the
+drudges of neurasthenic, psychopathic, egoistic masters, if we do not
+open our minds to the light of science and truth. 'Every age has its
+Book,' says the Prophet. But every book, if it aspires to be a guide
+to life, must contain of the eternal truth what was in the one that
+preceded it. We can not afford to let aught of this die. Leave the
+principal original altar in the Temple, and destroy all the others.
+Light on that altar the torch of science, which the better mind and
+cleaner hand of Europe are transmitting to us, and place your foot
+upon its false and unspeakable divinities. The gods of wealth, of
+egoism, of alcohol, of fornication, we must not acknowledge; nay, we
+must resist unto death their malign influence and power. But alas,
+what are we doing to-day? Instead of looking up to the pure and lofty
+souls of Europe for guidance, we welter in the mud with the lowest and
+most degenerate. We are beginning to know and appreciate English
+whiskey, but not English freedom; we know the French grisettes, but
+not the French sages; we guzzle German beer, but of German wisdom we
+taste not a drop.
+
+"O my Brothers, let us cease rejoicing in the Dastur; for at heart we
+know no freedom, nor truth, nor order. We elect our representatives to
+Parliament, but not unlike the Europeans; we borrow from France what
+the deeper and higher mind of France no longer believes; we imitate
+England in what England has long since discarded; but our Books of
+Revelation, which made France and Germany and England what they are,
+and in which is the divine essence of truth and right and freedom, we
+do not rightly understand. A thousand falsehoods are cluttered around
+the truth to conceal it from us. I call you back, O my Brothers, to
+the good old virtues of our ancestors. Without these the Revolution
+will miscarry and our Dastur will not be worth a date-stone. Our
+ancestors,--they never bowed their proud neck to tyranny, whether
+represented in an autocrat or in a body of autocrats; they never
+betrayed their friends; they never soiled their fingers with the coin
+of usury; they never sacrificed their manhood to fashion; they never
+endangered in the cafes and lupanars their health and reason. The
+Mosque and the Church, notwithstanding the ignorance and bigotry they
+foster, are still better than lunatic asylums. And Europe can not have
+enough of these to-day.
+
+"Continence, purity of heart, fidelity, simplicity, a sense of true
+manhood, magnanimity of spirit, a healthiness of body and mind,--these
+are the beautiful ancient virtues. These are the supreme truths of the
+Books of Revelation: in these consists the lofty spirituality of the
+Orient. But through what thick, obscene growths we must pass to-day,
+through what cactus hedges and thistle-fields we must penetrate,
+before we rise again to those heights.
+
+"'There can be no Revolution without a Reformation,' says a German
+philosopher. And truly so. For the fetters which bind us can not be
+shaken off, before the conscience is emancipated. A political
+revolution must always be preceded by a spiritual one, that it might
+have some enduring effect. Otherwise, things will revert to their
+previous state of rottenness as sure as Allah lives. But mind you, I
+do not say, Cut down the hedges; mow the thistle-fields; uproot the
+obscene plants; no: I only ask you to go through them, and out of
+them, to return no more. Sell your little estate there, if you have
+one; sell it at any price: give it away and let the dead bury their
+dead. Cease to work in those thorny fields, and God and nature will do
+the rest.
+
+"I am for a reformation by emigration. And quietly, peacefully, this
+can be done. Nor fire, nor sword bring I: only this I say: Will and
+do; resolve and act upon your resolution. The emigration of the mind
+before the revolution of the state, my Brothers. The soul must be
+free, and the mind, before one has a right to be a member of a free
+Government, before one can justly enjoy his rights and perform his
+duties as a subject. But a voting slave, O my Brothers, is the
+pitifulest spectacle under the sun. And remember that neither the
+Dastur, nor the Unionists, nor the Press, can give you this spiritual
+freedom, if you do not awake and emigrate. Come up to the highlands:
+here is a patrimony for each of you; here are vineyards to cultivate.
+Leave the thistle-fields and marshes behind; regret nothing. Come out
+of the superstitions of the sheikhs and ulema; of the barren mazes of
+the sufis; of the deadly swamps of theolougues and priests: emigrate!
+Every one of us should be a Niazi in this moral struggle, an Enver in
+this spiritual revolution. A little will-power, a little heroism,
+added to those virtues I have named, the solid virtues of our
+ancestors, and the Orient will no longer be an object of scorn and
+gain to commercial Europe. We shall then stand on an equal footing
+with the Europeans. Ay, with the legacy of science which we shall
+learn to invest, and with our spirituality divested of its cobwebs,
+and purified, we shall stand even higher than the Americans and
+Europeans."--
+
+On the following day Damascus was simmering with excitement--Damascus,
+the stronghold of the ulema--the learned fanatics--whom Khalid has
+lightly pinched. But they scarcely felt it; they could not believe it.
+Now, the gentry of Islam, the sheikhs and ulema, would hear this
+lack-beard dervish, as he was called. But they disdain to stand with
+the rabble in the Midan or congregate with the _Mutafarnejin_
+(Europeanised) in the public Halls. Nowhere but at the Mosque,
+therefore, can they hear what this Khalid has to say. This was
+accordingly decided upon, and, being approved by all parties
+concerned,--the Mufti, the Vali, the Deputies of the Holy Society and
+the speaker,--a day was set for the great address at the great Mosque
+of Omaiyah.
+
+Meanwhile, the blatant Officer, the wheedling Politician, and the
+lack-beard Dervish, are feasted by the personages and functionaries of
+Damascus. The Vali, the Mufti, Abdallah Pasha,--he who owns more than
+two score villages and has more than five thousand braves at his beck
+and call,--these, and others of less standing, vie with each other in
+honouring the distinguished visitors. And after the banqueting, while
+Ahmed Bey retires to a private room with his host to discuss the
+political situation, Khalid, to escape the torturing curiosity of the
+bores and quidnuncs of the evening, goes out to the open court, and
+under an orange tree, around the gurgling fountain, breathes again of
+quietude and peace. Nay, breathes deeply of the heavy perfume of the
+white jasmines of his country, while musing of the scarlet salvias of
+a distant land.
+
+And what if the salvia, as by a miracle, blossoms on the jasmine? What
+if the former stifles the latter? Indeed, one can escape boredom, but
+not love. One can flee the quidnuncs of the salon, but not the
+questioning perplexity of one's heart. A truce now to ambiguities.
+
+'Tis high time that we give a brief account of what took place after
+Khalid took leave of Mrs. Gotfry. Many "devilish mischances" have
+since then conspired against Khalid's peace of mind. For when they
+were leaving Beirut, only a few minutes before the train started, Mrs.
+Gotfry, who was also going to Damascus, steps into the same carriage,
+which he and his companions occupied: mischance first. Arriving in
+Damascus they both stay at the same Hotel: mischance second. At table
+this time he occupies the seat next to hers, and once, rising
+simultaneously, their limbs touch: mischance third. And the last and
+worst, when he retires to his room, he finds that her own is in the
+same side-hall opposite to his. Now, who could have ordered it thus,
+of all the earthly powers? And who can say what so many mischances
+might not produce? True, a thousand thistles do not make a rose; but
+with destiny this logic does not hold. For every new mischance makes
+us forget the one preceding; and the last and worst is bound to be the
+harbinger of good fortune. Yes, every people, we imagine, has its
+aphorisms on the subject: Distress is the key of relief, says the
+Arabic proverb; The strait leads to the plain, says the Chinese; The
+darkest hour is nearest the dawn, says the English.
+
+But we must not make any stipulations with time, or trust in
+aphorisms. We do not know what Mrs. Gotfry's ideas are on the subject.
+Nor can we say how she felt in the face of these strange coincidences.
+In her religious heart, might there not be some shadow of an ancient
+superstition, some mystical, instinctive strain, in which the
+preternatural is resolved? That is a question which neither our Scribe
+nor his Master will help us to answer. And we, having been faithful so
+far in the discharge of our editorial duty, can not at this juncture
+afford to fabricate.
+
+We know, however, that the Priestess of Buhaism and the beardless,
+long-haired Dervish have many a conversation together: in the train,
+in the Hotel, in the parks and groves of Damascus, they tap their
+hearts and minds, and drink of each other's wine of thought and
+fancy.
+
+"I first mistook you for a Mohammedan," she said to him once; and he
+assured her that she was not mistaken.
+
+"Then, you are not a Christian?"
+
+"I am a Christian, too."
+
+And he relates of the Buha when he was on trial in Rhodes. "Of what
+religion are you," asks the Judge. "I am neither a Camel-driver nor a
+Carpenter," replies the Buha, alluding thereby to Mohammad and
+Christ. "If you ask me the same question," Khalid continues--"but
+I see you are uncomfortable." And he takes up the cushion which
+had fallen behind the divan, and places it under her arm. He then
+lights a cigarette and holds it up to her inquiringly. Yes? He,
+therefore, lights another for himself, and continues. "If you ask me
+the same question that was asked the Buha, I would not hesitate in
+saying that I am both a Camel-driver and Carpenter. I might also be
+a Buhaist in a certain sense. I renounce falsehood, whatsoever be
+the guise it assumes; and I embrace truth, wheresoever I find it.
+Indeed, every religion is good and true, if it serves the high
+purpose of its founder. And they are false, all of them, when they
+serve the low purpose of their high priests. Take the lowest of the
+Arab tribes, for instance, and you will find in their truculent
+spirit a strain of faith sublime, though it is only evinced at times.
+The Beduins, rovers and raveners, manslayers and thieves, are in
+their house of moe-hair the kindest hosts, the noblest and most
+generous of men. They receive the wayfarer, though he be an enemy,
+and he eats and drinks and sleeps with them under the same root, in
+the assurance of Allah. If a religion makes a savage so good, so kind,
+it has well served its purpose. As for me, I admire the grand
+passion in both the Camel-driver and the Carpenter: the barbaric
+grandeur, the magnanimity and fidelity of the Arab as well as the
+sublime spirituality, the divine beauty, of the Nazarene, I deeply
+reverence. And in one sense, the one is the complement of the
+other: the two combined are _my_ ideal of a Divinity."
+
+And now we descend from the chariot of the empyrean where we are
+riding with gods and apostles, and enter into one drawn by mortal
+coursers. We go out for a drive, and alight from the carriage in the
+poplar grove, to meander in its shades, along its streams. But
+digressing from one path into another, we enter unaware the eternal
+vista of love. There, on a boulder washed by the murmuring current, in
+the shade of the silver-tufted poplars, Khalid and Mrs. Gotfry sit
+down for a rest.
+
+"Everything in life must always resolve itself into love," said
+Khalid, as he stood on the rock holding out his hand to his friend.
+"Love is the divine solvent. Love is the splendour of God."
+
+Mrs. Gotfry paused at the last words. She was startled by this image.
+Love, the splendour of God? Why, the Bab, the Buha, is the splendour
+of God. Buha mean splendour. The Buha, therefore, is love. Love is the
+new religion. It is the old religion, the eternal religion, the only
+religion. How came he by this, this young Syrian? Would he rival the
+Buha? Rise above him? They are of kindred races--their ancestors,
+too, may be mine. Love the splendour of God--God the splendour of
+Love. Have I been all along fooling myself? Did I not know my own
+heart?
+
+These, and more such, passed through Mrs. Gotfry's mind, as shuttles
+through a loom, while Khalid was helping her up to her seat on the
+boulder, which is washed by the murmuring current.
+
+"If life were such a rock under our feet," said he, pressing his lips
+upon her hand, "the divine currents around it will melt it, soon or
+late, into love."
+
+They light cigarettes. A fresh breeze is blowing from the city. It is
+following them with the perfume of its gardens. The falling leaves are
+whispering in the grove to the swaying boughs. The narcissus is
+nodding to the myrtle across the way. And the bulbuls are pouring
+their golden splendour of song. Khalid speaks.
+
+"Beauty either detains, repels, or enchants. The first is purely
+external, linear; the second is an imitation of the first, its
+artistic artificial ideal, so to speak; and the third"--He is silent.
+His eyes, gazing into hers, take up the cue.
+
+Mrs. Gotfry turns from him exhausted. She looks into the water.
+
+"See the rose-beds in the stream; see the lovely pebbles dancing
+around them."
+
+"I can see everything in your eyes, which are like limpid lakes shaded
+with weeping-willows. I can even hear bulbuls singing in your
+brows.--Turn not from me your eyes. They reflect the pearls of your
+soul and the flowers of your body, even as those crystal waters
+reflect the pebbles and rose-beds beneath."
+
+"Did you not say that love is the splendour of God?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, why look for it in my eyes?"
+
+"And why look for it in the heart of the heavens, in the depths of
+the sea--in the infinities of everything that is beautiful and
+terrible--in the breath of that little flower, in the song of the
+bulbul, in the whispers of your silken lashes, in--"
+
+"Shut your eyes, Khalid; be more spiritual."
+
+"With my eyes open I see but one face; with my eyes closed I see a
+million faces: they are all yours. And they are loving, and sweet, and
+kind. But I am content with one, with the carnate symbol of them, with
+you, and though you be cold and cruel. The divine splendour is here,
+and here and here--"
+
+"Why, your ardour is exhausting."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+But on their way back to the Hotel, Khalid gives her this from
+Swedenborg: "'Do you love me' means 'do you see the same truth that I
+see?'"
+
+There is no use. Khalid is impossible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A DREAM OF EMPIRE
+
+
+"I'm not starving for pleasure," Khalid once said to Shakib; "nor
+for the light free love of an exquisite caprice. Those little
+flowers that bloom and wither in the blush of dawn are for the
+little butterflies. The love that endures, give me that. And it
+must be of the deepest divine strain,--as deep and divine as
+maternal love. Man is of Eternity, not of Time; and love, the
+highest attribute of man, must be likewise. With me it must endure
+throughout all worlds and immensities; else I would not raise a
+finger for it. Pleasure, Shakib, is for the child within us; sexual
+joy, for the animal; love, for the god. That is why I say when you
+set your seal to the contract, be sure it is of the kind which all
+the gods of all the future worlds will raise to their lips in
+reverence."
+
+But Khalid's child-spirit, not to say childishness, is not, as he
+would have us believe, a thing of the past. Nor are the animal and the
+god within him always agreed as to what is and what is not a love
+divine and eternal. In New York, to be sure, he often brushed his
+wings against those flowerets that "bloom and wither in the blush of
+dawn." And he was not a little pleased to find that the dust which
+gathers on the wings adds a charm to the colouring of life. But how
+false and trivial it was, after all. The gold dust and the dust of the
+road, could they withstand a drop of rain? A love dust-deep, as it
+were, close to the earth; too mean and pitiful to be carried by the
+storm over terrible abysses to glorious heights. A love, in a word,
+without pain, that is to say impure. In Baalbek, on the other hand, he
+drank deep of the pain, but not of the joy, of love. He and his cousin
+Najma had just lit in the shrine of Venus the candles of the altar of
+the Virgin, when a villainous hand that of Jesuitry, issuing from the
+darkness, clapped over them the snuffer and carried his Happiness off.
+Here was a love divine, the promised bliss of which was snatched away
+from him.
+
+And now in Damascus, he feels, for the first time, the exquisite
+pain and joy of a love which he can not yet fathom; a love, which like
+the storm, is carrying him over terrible abysses to unknown heights.
+The bitter sting of a Nay he never felt so keenly before. The
+sleep-stifling torture and joy of suspense he did not fully
+experience until now. But if he can not sleep, he will work. He has
+but a few days to prepare his address. He can not be too careful of
+what he says, and how he says it. To speak at the great Mosque of
+Omaiyah is a great privilege. A word uttered there will reach the
+furthermost parts of the Mohammedan world. Moreover, all the ulema
+and all the heavy-turbaned fanatics will be there.
+
+But he can not even work. On the table before him is a pile of
+newspapers from all parts of Syria and Egypt--even from India--and
+all simmering, as it were, with Khalid's name, and Khalidism, and
+Khalid scandals. He is hailed by some, assailed by others; glorified
+and vilified in tawdry rhyme and ponderous prose by Christians and
+Mohammedans alike. "Our new Muhdi," wrote an Egyptian wit (one of
+those pallid prosers we once met in the hasheesh dens, no doubt), "our
+new Muhdi has added to his hareem an American beauty with an Oriental
+leg."
+
+What he meant by this only the hasheesh smokers know. "An instrument in
+the hands of some American speculators, who would build sky-scrapers
+on the ruins of our mosques," wrote another. "A lever with which
+England is undermining Al-Islam," cried a voice in India. "A base one
+in the service of some European coalition, who, under the pretext of
+preaching the spiritualities, is undoing the work of the Revolution.
+The gibbet is for ordinary traitors; for him the stake," etc., etc.
+
+On the other hand, he is hailed as the expected one,--the true leader,
+the real emancipator,--"who has in him the soul of the East and the
+mind of the West, the builder of a great Asiatic Empire." Of course,
+the foolish Damascene editor who wrote this had to flee the country
+the following day. But Khalid's eyes lingered on that line. He read it
+and reread it over and over again--forward and backward, too. He
+juggled, so to speak, with its words.
+
+How often people put us, though unwittingly, on the path we are
+seeking, he thought. How often does a chance word uttered by a
+stranger reveal to us our deepest aims and purposes.
+
+Before him was ink and paper. He took up the pen. But after scrawling
+and scribbling for ten minutes, the sheet was filled with circles and
+arabesques, and the one single word Dowla (Empire).
+
+He could not think: he could only dream. The soul of the East--The
+mind of the West--the builder of a great Empire. The triumph of the
+Idea, the realisation of a great dream: the rise of a great race who
+has fallen on evil days; the renaissance of Arabia; the reclaiming of
+her land; the resuscitation of her glory;--and why not? especially if
+backed with American millions and the love of a great woman. He is
+enraptured. He can neither sleep nor think: he can but dream. He puts
+on his jubbah, refills his cigarette box, and walks out of his room.
+He paces up and down the hall, crowning his dream with wreaths of
+smoke. But the dim lights seemed to be ogling each other and smiling,
+as he passed. The clocks seemed to be casting pebbles at him. The
+silence horrified him. He pauses before a door. He knocks--knocks
+again.
+
+The occupant of that room was not yet asleep. In fact, she, too, could
+not sleep. The clock in the hall outside had just struck one, and she
+was yet reading. After inquiring who it was that knocked, she puts on
+a kimono and opens the door. She is surprised.
+
+"Anything the matter with you?"
+
+"No; but I can not sleep."
+
+"That is amusing. And do you take me for a soporific? If you think
+you can sleep here, stretch yourself on the couch and try." Saying
+which, she laughed and hurried back to her bed.
+
+"I did not come to sleep."
+
+"What then? How lovely of you to wake me up so early.--No, no; don't
+apologise. For truly, I too, could not sleep. You see, I was still
+reading. Sit on the couch there and talk to me.--Of course, you may
+smoke.--No, I prefer to sit in bed."
+
+Khalid lights another cigarette and sits down. On the table before
+him are some antique colour prints which Mrs. Gotfry had bought in
+the Bazaar. These one can only get in Damascus. And--strange
+coincidence!--they represented some of the heroes of Arabia--Antar,
+Ali, Saladin, Harun ar-Rashid--done in gorgeous colouring, and in
+that deliciously ludicrous angular style which is neither Arabic
+nor Egyptian, but a combination perhaps of both. Khalid reads the
+poetry under each of them and translates it into English. Mrs. Gotfry
+is charmed. Khalid is lost in thought. He lays the picture of
+Saladin on the table, lights another cigarette, looks intently upon
+his friend, his face beaming with his dream.
+
+"Jamilah." It was the first time he called her by her first name--an
+Arabic name which, as a Bahaist she had adopted. And she was neither
+surprised nor displeased.
+
+"We need another Saladin to-day,--a Saladin of the Idea, who will wage
+a crusade, not against Christianity or Mohammedanism, but against
+those Tataric usurpers who are now toadying to both."
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"I mean the Turks. They were given a last chance to rise; they tried
+and failed. They can not rise. They are demoralised; they have no
+stamina, no character; no inborn love for truth and art; no
+instinctive or acquired sense of right and justice. Whiskey and
+debauch and high-sounding inanities about fraternity and equality can
+not regenerate an Empire. The Turk must go: he will go. But out in
+those deserts is a race which is always young, a race that never
+withers; a strong, healthy, keen-eyed, quick-witted race; a fighting,
+fanatical race; a race that gave Europe a civilisation, that gave the
+world a religion; a race with a past as glorious as Rome's; and with a
+future, too, if we had an Ali or a Saladin. But He who made those
+heroes will make others like them, better, too. He may have made one
+already, and that one may be wandering now in the desert. Now think
+what can be done in Arabia, think what the Arabs can accomplish, if
+American arms and an up-to-date Koran are spread broadcast among them.
+With my words and your love and influence, with our powers united, we
+can build an Arab Empire, we can resuscitate the Arab Empire of the
+past. Abd'ul-Wahhab, you know, is the Luther of Arabia; and Wahhabism
+is not dead. It is only slumbering in Nejd. We will wake it; arm it;
+infuse into it the living spirit of the Idea. We will begin by
+building a plant for the manufacture of arms on the shore of the
+Euphrates, and a University in Yaman. The Turk must go--at least out
+of Arabia. And the Turk in Europe, Europe will look after. No; the
+Arab will never be virtually conquered. Nominally, maybe. And I doubt
+if any of the European Powers can do it. Why? Chiefly because Arabia
+has a Prophet. She produced one and she will produce more. Cannons can
+destroy Empires; but only the living voice, the inspired voice can
+build them."
+
+Mrs. Gotfry is silent. In Khalid's vagaries is a big idea, which she
+can not wholly grasp. And she is moreover devoted to another
+cause--the light of the world--the splendour of God--Buhaism. But why
+not spread it in Arabia as in America? She will talk to Ebbas Effendi
+about Khalid. He is young, eloquent, rising to power. And with her
+love, and influence superadded, what might he not do? what might he
+not accomplish? These ideas flashed through her mind, while Khalid was
+pacing up and down the room, which was already filled with smoke. She
+is absorbed in thought. Khalid comes near her bed, bends over her, and
+buries his face in her wealth of black hair.
+
+Mrs. Gotfry is startled as from a dream.
+
+"I can not see all that you see."
+
+"Then you do not love me."
+
+"Why do you say that? Here, now go sit down. Oh, I am suffocating. The
+smoke is so thick in the room I can scarcely see you. And it is so
+late.--No, no. Give me time to think on the subject. Now, come."
+
+And Mrs. Gotfry opens the door and the window to let out Khalid and
+his smoke.
+
+"Go, Khalid, and try to sleep. And if you can not sleep, try to write.
+And if you can not write, read. And if you can neither read nor write
+nor sleep, why, then, put on your shoes and go out for a walk. Good
+night. There. Good night. But don't forget, we must visit Sheikh Taleb
+to-morrow."
+
+The astute Mrs. Gotfry might have added, And if you do not feel like
+walking, take a dip in the River Barada. But in her words, to be
+sure, were a douche cold enough for Khalid. Now, to be just and
+comprehensive in our History we must record here that she, too, did
+not, and could not sleep that night. The thought that Khalid would
+make a good apostle of Buhaism and incidentally a good companion,
+insinuated itself between the lines on every page of the book she was
+trying to read.
+
+On the following day they visit Sheikh Taleb, who is introduced to us
+by Shakib in these words:
+
+"A Muslem, like Socrates, who educates not by lesson, but by going
+about his business. He seldom deigns to write; and yet, his words are
+quoted by every writer of the day, and on every subject sacred and
+profane. His good is truly magnetic. He is a man who lives after his
+own mind and in his own robes; an Arab who prays after no Imam, but
+directly to Allah and his Apostle; a scholar who has more dryasdust
+knowledge on his finger ends than all the ulema of Cairo and Damascus;
+a philosopher who would not give an orange peel for the opinion of the
+world; an ascetic who flees celebrity as he would the plague; a sage
+who does not disdain to be a pedagogue; an eccentric withal to amuse
+even a Diogenes:--this is the noted Sheikh Taleb of Damascus, whom
+Mrs. Gotfry once met at Ebbas Effendy's in Akka, and whom she was
+desirous of meeting again. When we first went to visit him, this
+charming lady and Khalid and I, we had to knock at the door until his
+neighbour peered from one of the windows above and told us that the
+Sheikh is asleep, and that if we would see him, we must come in the
+evening. I learned afterwards that he, reversing the habitual practice
+of mankind, works at night and sleeps during the day.
+
+"We return in the evening. And the Sheikh, with a lamp in his hand,
+peers through a small square opening in the door to see who is
+knocking. He knew neither Khalid nor myself; but Mrs. Gotfry--'Eigh!'
+he mused. And as he beheld her face in the lamplight he exclaimed
+'Marhaba (welcome)! Marhaba!' and hastened to unbolt the door. We are
+shown through a dark, narrow hall, into a small court, up to his
+study. Which is a three-walled room--a sort of stage--opening on the
+court, and innocent of a divan or a settle or a chair. While he and
+Mrs. Gotfry were exchanging greetings in Persian, I was wondering why
+in Damascus, the city of seven rivers and of poetry and song, should
+there be a court guilty like this one of a dry and dilapidated
+fountain. I learned afterwards, however, that the Sheikh can not
+tolerate the noise of the water; and so, suffering from thirst and
+neglect, the fountain goes to ruin.
+
+"On the stage, which is the study, is a clutter of old books and
+pamphlets; in the corner is the usual straw mat, a cushion, and a sort
+of stool on which are ink and paper. This he clears, places the
+cushion upon it, and offers to Mrs. Gotfry; he himself sits down on
+the mat; and we are invited to arrange for ourselves some books.
+Indeed, the Sheikh is right; most of these tomes are good for nothing
+else.
+
+"Mrs. Gotfry introduces us.
+
+"'Ah, but thou art young and short of stature,' said he to Khalid;
+'that is ominous. Verily, there is danger in thy path.'
+
+"'But he will embrace Buhaism,' put in Mrs. Gotfry.
+
+"'That might save him. Buhaism is the old torch, relighted after many
+centuries, by Allah.'
+
+"Meanwhile Khalid was thinking of second-hand Jerry of the second-hand
+book-shop of New York. The Sheikh reminded him of his old friend.
+
+"And I was holding in my hand a book on which I chanced while
+arranging my seat. It was Debrett's Baronetage, Knightage, and
+Companionage. How did such a book find its way into the Sheikh's
+rubbish, I wondered. But birds of a feather, thought I.
+
+"'That book was sent to me,' said he, 'by a merchant friend, who found
+it in the Bazaar. They send me all kinds of books, these simple of
+heart. They think I can read in all languages and discourse on all
+subjects. Allah forgive them.'
+
+"And when I tell him, in reply to his inquiry, that the book treats of
+Titles, Orders, and Degrees of Precedence, he utters a sharp whew, and
+with a quick gesture of weariness and disgust, tells me to take it.
+'I have my head full of our own ansab (pedigrees),' he adds, 'and I
+have no more respect for a green turban (the colour of the Muslem
+nobility) than I have for this one,' pointing to his, which is white.
+
+"Mrs. Gotfry then asks the Sheikh what he thinks of Wahhabism.
+
+"'It is Islam in its pristine purity; it is the Islam of the first
+great Khalifs. "Mohammed is dead; but Allah lives," said Abu Bekr to
+the people on the death of the Prophet. And Wahhabism is a direct
+telegraph wire between mortal man and his God.
+
+"'But why should these Wahhabis of Nejd be the most fanatical, when
+their doctrines are the most pure?' asked Khalid.
+
+"'In thy question is the answer to it. They are fanatical _because_ of
+their purity of doctrine, and withal because they live in Nejd. If
+there were a Wahhabi sect in Barr'ush-Sham (Syria), it would not be
+thus, assure thee.'
+
+"And expressing his liking for Khalid, he advises him to be careful of
+his utterances in Damascus, if he believes in self-preservation. 'I am
+old,' he continues; 'and the ulema do not think my flesh is good for
+sacrifice. But thou art young, and plump--a tender yearling--ah, be
+careful sheikh Khalid. Then, I do not talk to the people direct. I
+talk to them through holy men and dervishes. The people do not believe
+in a philosopher; but the holy man, and though he attack the most
+sacred precepts of the Faith, they will believe. And Damascus is the
+very hive of turbans, green and otherwise. So guard thee, my child.'
+
+"Mrs. Gotfry then asks for a minute's privacy with the Sheikh. And
+before he withdraws with her to the court, he searches through a heap
+of mouldy tomes, draws from beneath them a few yellow pamphlets on the
+Comparative Study of the Semetic Alphabets and on The Rights of the
+Khalifate--such is the scope of his learning--and dusting these on his
+knee, presents them to us, saying, 'Judge us not severely.'
+
+"This does not mean that he cares much if we do or not. But in our
+country, in the Orient, even a Diogenes does not disdain to handle the
+coin of affability. We are always meekly asked, even by the most
+supercilious, to overlook shortcomings, and condone.
+
+"I could not in passing out, however, overlook the string of orange
+peels which hung on a pole in the court. Nor am I sensible of an
+indecorum if I give out that the Sheikh lives on oranges, and
+preserves the peels for kindling the fire. And this, his only article
+of food, he buys at wholesale, like his robes and undergarments. For
+he never changes or washes anything. A robe is worn continually, worn
+out in the run, and discarded. He no more believes in the efficacy of
+soap than in the efficacy of a good reputation. 'The good opinion of
+men,' he says, 'does not wash our hearts and minds. And if these be
+clean, all's clean.'
+
+"That is why, I think, he struck once with his staff a journalist for
+inserting in his paper a laudatory notice on the Sheikh's system of
+living and thinking and speaking of him as 'a deep ocean of learning
+and wisdom.' Even in travelling he carries nothing with him but his
+staff, that he might the quicker flee, or put to flight, the vulgar
+curious. He puts on a few extra robes, when he is going on a journey,
+and in time, becoming threadbare, sheds them off as the serpent its
+skin...."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+And we pity our Scribe if he ever goes back to Damascus after this,
+and the good Sheikh chances upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ADUMBRATIONS
+
+
+"In the morning of the eventful day," it is set forth in the _Histoire
+Intime_, "I was in Khalid's room writing a letter, when Ahmed Bey
+comes in to confer with him. They remain together for some while
+during which I could hear Khalid growl and Ahmed Bey gently
+whispering, 'But the Dastur, the Unionists, Mother Society,'--this
+being the burden of his song. When he leaves, Khalid, with a scowl on
+his brow, paces up and down the room, saying, 'They would treat me
+like a school boy; they would have me speak by rule, and according to
+their own dictation. They even espy my words and actions as if I were
+an enemy of the Constitution. No; let them find another. The servile
+spouters in the land are as plenty as summer flies. After I deliver my
+address to-day, Shakib, we will take the first train for Baalbek. I
+want to see my mother. No, billah! I can not go any further with these
+Turks. Why, read this.' And he hands me the memorandum, or outline of
+the speech given to him by Ahmed Bey."
+
+And this, we learn, is a litany of praises, beginning with Abd'ul-Hamid
+and ending with the ulema of Damascus; which litany the Society
+Deputies would place in the mouth of Khalid for the good of all
+concerned. Ay, for his good, too, if he but knew. If he but looked
+behind him, he would have yielded a whit, this Khalid. The deep chasm
+between him and the Deputy, however, justifies the conduct of each
+on his side: the lack of gumption in the one and the lack of depth in
+the other render impossible any sort of understanding between them.
+While we recommend, therefore, the prudence of the oleaginous Ahmed,
+we can not with justice condemn the perversity of our fretful Khalid.
+For he who makes loud boast of spiritual freedom, is, nevertheless, a
+slave of the Idea. And slavery in some shape or shade will clutch at
+the heart of the most powerful and most developed of mortals. Poor
+Khalid! if Truth commands thee to destroy the memorandum of Ahmed
+Bey, Wisdom suggests that thou destroy, too, thine address. And
+Wisdom in the person of Sheikh Taleb now knocks at thy door.
+
+The Sheikh is come to admonish Khalid, not to return his visit. For at
+this hour of the day he should have been a-bed; but his esteem for
+Mrs. Gotfry, billah, his love, too, for her friend Khalid, and his
+desire to avert a possible danger, banish sleep from his eyes.
+
+"My spirit is perturbed about thee," thus further, "and I can not feel
+at ease until I have given my friendly counsel. Thou art free to
+follow it or not to follow it. But for the sake of this beard Sheikh
+Khalid, do not speak at the Mosque to-day. I know the people of this
+City: they are ignorant, obtuse, fanatical, blind. 'God hath sealed
+up their hearts and their hearing.' They will not hear thee; they can
+not understand thee. I know them better than thou: I have lived
+amongst them for forty years. And what talk have we wasted. They will
+not hear; they can not see. It's a dog's tail, Sheikh Khalid. And what
+Allah hath twisted, man can not straighten. So, let it be. Let them
+wallow in their ignorance. Or, if thou wilt help them, talk not to
+them direct. Use the medium of the holy man, like myself. This is my
+advice to thee. For thine own sake and for the sake of that good
+woman, thy friend and mine, I give it. Now, I can go and sleep.
+Salaam."
+
+And the grey beard of Sheikh Taleb and his sharp blue eyes were
+animated, as he spoke, agitated like his spirit. What he has heard
+abroad and what he suspects, are shadowed forth in his friendly
+counsel. Let Khalid reflect upon it. Our Scribe, at least, is
+persuaded that Sheikh Taleb spoke as a friend. And he, too, suspects
+that something is brewing abroad. He would have Khalid hearken,
+therefore, to the Sheikh.
+
+But Khalid in silence ponders the matter. And at table, even Mrs.
+Gotfry can not induce him to speak. She has just returned from the
+bazaar; she could hardly make her way through the choked arcade
+leading to the Mosque; the crowd is immense and tumultuous; and a
+company of the Dragoons is gone forth to open the way and maintain
+order. "But I don't think they are going to succeed," she added.
+Silently, impassively, Khalid hears this. And after going through the
+second course, eating as if he were dreaming, he gets up and leaves
+the table. Mrs. Gotfry, somewhat concerned, orders her last course,
+takes her thimble-full of coffee at a gulp, and, leaving likewise,
+hurries upstairs and calls Khalid, who was pacing up and down the
+hall, into her room.
+
+"What is the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," murmured Khalid absent-mindedly.
+
+"That's not true. Everything belies your words. Why, your actions,
+your expression, your silence oppresses me. I know what is disturbing
+you. And I would prevail upon you, if I could, to give up this
+afternoon's business. Don't go; don't speak. I have a premonition that
+things are not going to end well. Why, even my dragoman says that the
+Mohammedan mob is intent upon some evil business. Be advised. And
+since you are going to break with your associates, why not do so now.
+The quicker the better. Come, make up your mind. And we'll not wait
+for the morning train. We'll leave for Baalbek in a special carriage
+this afternoon. What say you?"
+
+Just then the brass band in front of the Hotel struck up the Dastur
+march in honour of the Sheikhs who come to escort the Unionist
+Deputies and the speaker to the Mosque.
+
+"I have made up my mind. I have given my word."
+
+And being called, Mrs. Gotfry, though loath to let him go, presses his
+hand and wishes him good speed.
+
+And here we are in the carriage on the right of the green-turbaned
+Sheikh. We look disdainfully on the troops, the brass band, and the
+crowd of nondescripts that are leading the procession. We cross the
+bridge, pass the Town-Hall, and, winding a narrow street groaning with
+an electric tramway, we come to the grand arcade in which the
+multitudes on both sides are pressed against the walls and into the
+stalls by the bullying Dragoons. We drive through until we reach the
+arch, where some Khalif of the Omayiahs used to take the air. And
+descending from the carriage, we walk a few paces between two rows of
+book-shops, and here we are in the court of the grand Mosque Omayiah.
+
+We elbow our way through the pressing, distressing multitudes,
+following Ahmed Bey into the Mosque, while the Army Officer mounts a
+platform in the court and dispenses to the crowd there of his Turkish
+blatherskite. We stand in the Mosque near the heavy tapestried square
+which is said to be the sarcophagus of St. John. Already a Sheikh is
+in the pulpit preaching on the excellences of liberty, chopping out
+definitions of equality, and quoting from Al-Hadith to prove that all
+men are Allah's children and that the most favoured in Allah's sight
+is he who is most loving to his brother man. He then winds up with an
+encomium on the heroes of the day, curses vehemently the reactionaries
+and those who curse them not (the Mosque resounds with "Curse the
+reactionists, curse them all!"), tramples beneath his heel every spy
+and informer of the New Era, invokes the great Allah and his Apostle
+to watch over the patriots and friends of the Ottoman nation, to
+visit with grievous punishment its enemies, and--descends.
+
+The silence of expectation ensues. The Mosque is crowded; and the
+press of turbans is such that if a pea were dropt from above it would
+not reach the floor. From the pulpit the great Mohammedan audience,
+with its red fezes, its green and white turbans, seemed to Khalid like
+a verdant field overgrown with daisies and poppies. "It is the
+beginning of Arabia's Spring, the resuscitation of the glory of
+Islam," and so forth; thus opening with a flourish of flattery like
+the spouting tricksters whom he so harshly judges. And what shall we
+say of him? It were not fair quickly to condemn, to cry him down at
+the start. Perhaps he was thus inspired by the august assembly;
+perhaps he quailed and thought it wise to follow thus far the advice
+of his friends. "It was neither this nor that," say our Scribe. "For
+as he stood in the tribune, the picture of the field of daisies and
+poppies suggested the picture of Spring. A speaker is not always
+responsible for the frolics of his fancy. Indeed, an audience of some
+five thousand souls, all intent upon this opaque, mysterious Entity in
+the tribune, is bound to reach the very heart of it; for think what
+five thousand rays focussed on a sensitive plate can do." Thus our
+Scribe, apologetically.
+
+But after the first contact and the vibrations of enthusiasm and
+flattery that followed, Khalid regains his equilibrium and reason, and
+strikes into his favourite theme. He begins by arraigning the
+utilitarian spirit of Europe, the rank materialism which is invading
+our very temples of worship. God, Truth, Virtue, with them, is no
+longer esteemed for its own worth, but for what it can yield of the
+necessities and luxuries of life. And with these cynical materialistic
+abominations they would be supreme even in the East; they would
+extinguish with their dominating spirit of trade every noble virtue of
+the soul. And yet, they make presumption of introducing civilisation
+by benevolent assimilation, rather dissimulation. For even an
+Englishman in our country, for instance, is unlike himself in his own.
+The American, too, who is loud-lunged about democracy and shirt-sleeve
+diplomacy, wheedles and truckles as good as the wiliest of our pashas.
+And further he exclaims:
+
+"Not to Christian Europe as represented by the State, therefore, or by
+the industrial powers of wealth, or by the alluring charms of
+decadence in art and literature, or by missionary and educational
+institutions, would I have you turn for light and guidance. No: from
+these plagues of civilisation protect us, Allah! No: let us have
+nothing to do with that practical Christianity which is become a sort
+of divine key to Colonisation; a mint, as it were, which continually
+replenishes the treasuries of Christendom. Let us have nothing to do
+with their propagandas for the propagation of supreme Fakes. No, no.
+Not this Europe, O my Brothers, should we take for our model or
+emulate: not the Europe which is being dereligionised by Material
+Science; disorganised by Communion and Anarchy; befuddled by
+Alcoholism; enervated by Debauch. To another Europe indeed, would I
+direct you--a Europe, high, noble, healthy, pure, and withal
+progressive. To the deep and inexhaustible sources of genius there, of
+reason and wisdom and truth, would I have you advert the mind. The
+divine idealism of German philosophy, the lofty purity of true French
+art, the strength and sterling worth of English freedom,--these we
+should try to emulate; these we should introduce into the gorgeous
+besottedness of Oriental life, and literature, and religion...."
+
+And thus, until he reaches the heart of his subject; while the field
+of daisies and poppies before him gently sways as under a soft morning
+breeze; nods, as it were, its approbation.
+
+"Truly," he continues, "religion is purely a work of the heart,--the
+human heart, and the heart of the world as well. For have not the
+three monotheistic religions been born in this very heart of the
+world, in Arabia, Syria, and Palestine? And are not our Books of
+Revelation the truest guides of life hitherto known to man? How then
+are we to keep this Heart pure, to free it, in other words, from the
+plagues I have named? And how, on the other hand, are we to strengthen
+it, to quicken its sluggish blood? In a word, how are we to attain to
+the pinnacle of health, and religion, and freedom,--of power, and
+love, and light? By political revolutions, and insurrections, and
+Dasturs? By blindly adopting the triple political tradition of France,
+which after many years of terror and bloodshed, only gave Europe a new
+Yoke, a new Tyranny, a new grinding Machine? No, my Brothers; not by
+political nomenclature, not by political revolutions alone, shall the
+nations be emancipated."
+
+Whereupon Ahmed Bey begins to knit his brows; Shakib shakes his head,
+biting his nether lip; and here and there in the audience is heard a
+murmur about retrogression and reaction. Khalid proceeds with his
+allegory of the Muleteer and the Pack-Mule.
+
+"See, the panel of the Mule is changed; the load, too; and a few
+short-cuts are made in the rocky winding road of statecraft and
+tyranny. Ah, the stolid, patient, drudging Mule always exults in a new
+Panel, which, indeed, seems necessary every decade, or so. For the old
+one, when, from a sense of economy, or from negligence or stupidity,
+is kept on for a length of time, makes the back sore, and the Mule
+becomes kickish and resty. Hence, the plasters of conservative
+homeopathists, the operations suggested by political leeches, the
+radical cures of social quacks, and such like. But the Mule continues
+to kick against the pricks; and the wise Muleteer, these days, when he
+has not the price of a new Panel, or knows not how to make one, sells
+him to the first bidder. And the new owner thereupon washes the sores
+and wounds, applies to them a salve of the patent kind, buys his Mule
+a new Panel, and makes him do the work. That is what I understand by a
+political revolution.... And are the Ottoman people free to-day? Who
+in all Syria and Arabia dare openly criticise the new Owner of the
+Mule?
+
+"Ours in a sense is a theocratic Government. And only by reforming
+the religion on which it is based, is political reform in any way
+possible and enduring." And here he argues that the so-called
+Reformation of Islam, of which Jelal ud-Din el-Afghani and Mohammed
+Abdu are the protagonists, is false. It is based on theological
+juggling and traditional sophisms. Their Al-Gazzali, whom they so much
+prize and quote, is like the St. Augustine of the Christians: each of
+these theologians finds in his own Book of Revelation a divine
+criterion for measuring and judging all human knowledge. No; a
+scientific truth can not be measured by a Koranic epigram: the Koran,
+a divine guide to life; a work of the heart should not attempt to
+judge a work of the mind or should be judged by it.
+
+"But I would brush the cobwebs of interpretation and sophism from this
+Work of the heart," he cries; "every spider's web in the Mosque, I
+would sweep away. The garments of your religion, I would have you
+clean, O my Brothers. Ay, even the threadbare adventitious wrappages,
+I would throw away. From the religiosity and cant of to-day I call you
+back to the religion pure of the heart...."
+
+But the Field of poppies and daisies begins to sway as under a gale.
+It is swelling violently, tumultuously.
+
+"I would free al-Islam," he continues, "from its degrading customs,
+its stupefying traditions, its enslaving superstitions, its imbruting
+cants."
+
+Here several voices in the audience order the speaker to stop.
+"Innovation! Infidelity!" they cry.
+
+"The yearly pestiferous consequences of the Haji"--But Khalid no
+longer can be heard. On all sides zealotry raises and shakes a
+protesting hand; on all sides it shrieks, objurgating, threatening.
+Here it asks, "We would like to know if the speaker be a Wahhabi."
+From another part of the Mosque comes the reply: "Ay, he is a
+Wahhabi." And the voice of the speaker thundering above the storm:
+"Only in Wahhabism pure and simple is the reformation of al-Islam
+possible."... Finis.
+
+Zealotry is set by the ear; the hornet's nest is stirred. Your field
+of poppies and daisies, O Khalid, is miraculously transformed into a
+pit of furious grey spectres and howling red spirits. And still you
+wait in the tribune until the storm subside? Fool, fool! Art now in a
+civilised assembly? Hast thou no eyes to see, no ears to hear?
+
+"Reactionist! Infidel! Innovator! Wahhabi! Slay him! Kill him!"--Are
+these likely to subside the while thou wait? By the tomb of St.
+John there, get thee down, and quickly. Bravo, Shakib!--He rushes
+to the tribune, drags him down by the jubbah, and, with the help of
+another friend, hustles him out of the Mosque. But the thirst for
+blood pursues them. And Khalid receives in the court outside a
+stiletto-thrust in the back and a slash in the forehead above the
+brow down to the ear. Which, indeed, we consider a part of his good
+fortune. Like the muleteer of his Lebanon tour, we attribute his
+escape with two wounds to the prayers of his good mother. For he is
+now in the carriage with Shakib, the blood streaming down his back
+and over his face. With difficulty the driver makes his way through
+the crowds, issues out of the arcade, and--crack the whip! Quickly
+to the Hotel.
+
+The multitudes behind us, both inside and outside the Mosque, are
+violently divided; for the real reactionists of Damascus, those who
+are hostile to the Constitution and the statochratic Government, are
+always watching for an opportunity to give the match to the dry sedges
+of sedition. And so, the liberals, who are also the friends of Khalid,
+and the fanatical mobs of the ulema, will have it out among
+themselves. They call each other reactionists, plotters, conspirators;
+and thereupon the bludgeons and poniards are brandished; the pistols
+here and there are fired; the Dragoons hasten to the scene of
+battle--but we are not writing now the History of the Ottoman
+Revolution. We leave them to have it out among themselves as best they
+can, and accompany our Khalid to the Hotel.
+
+Here the good Mrs. Gotfry washes the blood from his face, and Shakib,
+after helping him to bed, hastens to call the surgeon, who, having
+come straightway, sews and dresses the wounds and assures us that they
+are not dangerous. In the evening a number of Sheikhs of an
+enlightened and generous strain, come to inquire about him. They tell
+us that one of the assailants of Khalid, a noted brigand, and ten of
+the reactionists, are now in prison. The Society Deputies, however, do
+not seem much concerned about their wounded friend. Yes, they are
+concerned, but in another direction and on weightier matters. For the
+telegraph wires on the following day were kept busy. And in the
+afternoon of the second day after the event, the man who helped Shakib
+to save Khalid from the mob, comes to save Khalid's life. The
+Superintendent of the Telegraph himself is here to inform us that
+Khalid was accused to the Military Tribunal as a reactionist, and a
+cablegram, in which he is summoned there, is just received.
+
+"Had I delivered this to the Vali," he continues, "you would have been
+now in the hands of the police, and to-morrow on your way to
+Constantinople. But I shall not deliver it until you are safe out of
+the City. And you must fly or abscond to-day, because I can not delay
+the message until to-morrow."
+
+Now Khalid and Shakib and Mrs. Gotfry take counsel together. The one
+train for Baalbek leaves in the morning; the carriage road is ruined
+from disuse; and only on horseback can we fly. So, Mrs. Gotfry orders
+her dragoman to hire horses for three,--nay, for four, since we must
+have an extra guide with us,--and a muleteer for the baggage.
+
+And here Shakib interposes a suggestion: "They must not come to the
+Hotel. Be with them on the road, near the first bridge, about the
+first hour of night."
+
+At the office of the Hotel the dragoman leaves word that they are
+leaving for a friend's house on account of their patient.
+
+And after dinner Mrs. Gotfry and Khalid set forth afoot, accompanied
+by Shakib. In five minutes they reach the first bridge; the dragoman
+and the guide, with their horses and lanterns, are there waiting.
+Shakib helps Khalid to his horse and bids them farewell. He will leave
+for Baalbek by the first train, and be there ahead of them.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, Reader, were we really romancing, we should here dilate of
+the lovely ride in the lovely moonlight on the lovely road to Baalbek.
+But truth to tell, the road is damnable, the welkin starless, the
+night pitch-black, and our poor Dreamer is suffering from his wounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE STONING AND FLIGHT
+
+
+"And whence the subtle thrill of joy in suffering for the Truth," asks
+Khalid. "Whence the light that flows from the wounds of martyrs?
+Whence the rapture that triumphs over their pain? In the thick of
+night, through the alcoves of the mountains, over their barren peaks,
+down through the wadi of oblivion, silently they pass. And they dream.
+They dream of appearance in disappearance; of triumph in surrender; of
+sunrises in the sunset.
+
+"A mighty tidal wave leaves high upon the beach a mark which later on
+becomes the general level of the ocean. And so do the great thinkers
+of the world,--the poets and seers, the wise and strong and
+self-denying, the proclaimers of the Religion of Man. And I am but a
+scrub-oak in this forest of giants, my Brothers. A scrub-oak which you
+might cut down, but not uproot. Lop off my branches; apply the axe to
+my trunk; make of my timber charcoal for the censers of your temples
+of worship; but the roots of me are deep, deep in the soil, beyond the
+reach of mortal hands. They are even spreading under your tottering
+palaces and temples....
+
+"I dream of the awakening of the East; of puissant Orient nations
+rising to glorify the Idea, to build temples to the Universal
+Spirit--to Art, and Love, and Truth, and Faith. What if I am lost in
+the alcoves of the hills, if I vanish forever in the night? The sun
+that sets must rise. It is rising and lighting up the dark and distant
+continents even when setting. Think of that, ye who gloat over the
+sinking of my mortal self.
+
+"No; an idea is never too early annunciated. The good seed will grow
+among the rocks, and though the heavens withhold from it the sunshine
+and rain. It is because I will it, nay, because a higher Will than
+mine wills it, that the spirit of Khalid shall yet flow among your
+pilgrim caravans, through the fertile deserts of Arabia, down to the
+fountain-head of Faith, to Mecca and Medina," et cetera.
+
+This, perhaps the last of the rhapsodies of Khalid's, the Reader
+considering the circumstances under which it was written, will no
+doubt condone. Further, however, in the K. L. MS. we can not now
+proceed. Certainly the Author is not wanting in the sort of courage
+which is loud-lunged behind the writing table; his sufficiency of
+spirit is remarkable, unutterable. But we would he knew that the
+strong do not exult in their strength, nor the wise in their wisdom.
+For to fly and philosophize were one thing, and to philosophize in
+prison were another. Khalid this time does not follow closely in the
+way of the Masters. But he would have done so, if we can believe
+Shakib in this, had not Mrs. Gotfry persuaded him to the contrary. He
+would have stood in the Turkish Areopagus at Constantinople, defended
+himself somewhat Socratic before his judges, and hung out his tung on
+a rickety gibbet in the neighborhood of St. Sophia. But Mrs. Gotfry
+spoiled his great chance. She cheated him of the glory of dying for a
+noble cause.
+
+"The Turks are not worth the sacrifice," Shakib heard her say, when
+Khalid ejaculated somewhat about martyrdom. And when she offered to
+accompany him, the flight did not seem shameful in his eyes. Nay, it
+became necessary; and under the circumstances it was, indeed,
+cowardice not to fly. For is it not as noble to surrender one's self
+to Love as to the Turks or any other earthly despotism? Gladly,
+heroically, he adventures forth, therefore, and philosophizes on the
+way about the light that flows from the wounds of persecution. But we
+regret that this celestial stream is not unmixed; it is accompanied by
+blood and pus; by distention and fever, and other inward and outward
+sores.
+
+In this grievous state, somewhat like Don Quixote after the Battle of
+the Mill, our Khalid enters Baalbek. If the reader likes the
+comparison between the two Knights at this juncture, he must work it
+out for himself. We can not be so uncharitable as that; especially
+that our Knight is a compatriot, and is now, after our weary
+journeyings together, become our friend.--Our poor grievous friend who
+must submit again to the surgeon's knife.
+
+Mrs. Gotfry would not let him go to his mother, for she herself would
+nurse him. So, the doctor is called to the Hotel. And after opening,
+disinfecting, and dressing the wounds, he orders his patient to keep
+in bed for some days. They will then visit the ruins and resume their
+journeying to Egypt. Khalid no longer would live in Syria,--in a
+country forever doomed to be under the Turkish yoke, faring, nay,
+misfaring alike in the New Era as in the Old.
+
+Now, his mother, tottering with age and sorrow, comes to the Hotel,
+and begs him in a flood of tears to come home; for his father is now
+with the Jesuits of Beirut and seldom comes to Baalbek. And his cousin
+Najma, with a babe on her arm and a tale of woe in her eyes, comes
+also to invite her cousin Khalid to her house.
+
+She is alone; her father died some months ago; her husband,
+after the dethronement of Abd'ul-Hamid, being implicated in
+the reaction-movement, fled the country; and his relatives, to
+add to her affliction, would deprive her of her child. She is
+alone; and sick in the lungs. She coughs, too, the same sharp,
+dry, malignant cough that once plagued Khalid. Ay, the same
+disease which he buried in the pine forest of Mt. Lebanon, he
+beholds the ghost of it now, more terrible and heart-rending
+than anything he has yet seen or experienced. The disease which
+he conquered is come back in the person of his cousin Najma to
+conquer him. And who can assure Khalid that it did not steal
+into her breast along with his kisses? And yet, he is not the
+only one in Baalbek who returned from America with phthisis. O,
+but that thought is horrifying. Impossible--he can not believe
+it.
+
+But whether it be from you or from another, O Khalid, there is the
+ghost of it beckoning to you. Look at it. Are those the cheeks, those
+the eyes, this the body which a year ago was a model of rural charm
+and beauty and health? Is this the compensation of love? Is there
+anything like it dreamt of in your philosophy? There she is, who once
+in the ruined Temple of Venus mixed the pomegranate flower of her
+cheeks with the saffron of thy sickly lips. Wasted and dejected broken
+in body and spirit, she sits by your bedside nursing her baby and
+coughing all the while. And that fixed expression of sadness, so
+habitual among the Arab women who carry their punks and their children
+on their backs and go a-begging, it seems as if it were an hundred
+autumns old, this sadness. But right there, only a year ago, the
+crimson poppies dallied with the laughing breeze; the melting rubies
+dilated of health and joy.
+
+And now, deploring, imploring, she asks: "Will you not come to me, O
+Khalid? Will you not let me nurse you? Come; and your mother, too,
+will live with us. I am so lonesome, so miserable. And at night the
+boys cast stones at my door. My husband's relatives put them to it
+because I would not give them the child. And they circulate all kinds
+of calumnies about me too."
+
+Khalid promises to come, and assures her that she will not long remain
+alone. "And Allah willing," he adds, "you will recover and be happy
+again."
+
+She rises to go, when Mrs. Gotfry enters the room. Khalid introduces
+his cousin as his dead bride. "What do you mean?" she inquires. He
+promises to explain. Meanwhile, she goes to her room, brings some
+sweetmeats in a round box inlaid with mother-of-pearl for Khalid's
+guests. And taking the babe in her arms, she fondles and kisses it,
+and gives its mother some advice about suckling. "Not whenever the
+child cries, but only at stated times," she repeats.
+
+So much about Khalid's mother and cousin. A few days after, when he is
+able to leave his room, he goes to see them. His cousin Najma he would
+take with him to Cairo. He would not leave her behind, a prey to the
+cruelty of loneliness and disease. He tells her this. She is
+overjoyed. She is ready to go whenever he says. To-morrow? Please
+Allah, yes. But--
+
+Please Allah, ill-luck is following. For on his way back to the Hotel,
+a knot of boys, lying in wait in one of the side streets, cast stones
+at him. He looks back, and a missile whizzes above his head, another
+hits him in the forehead almost undoing the doctor's work. Alas, that
+wound! Will it ever heal? Khalid takes shelter in one of the shops; a
+cameleer rates the boys and chases them away. The stoning was repeated
+the following day, and the cause of it, Shakib tells us, is patent.
+For when it became known in Baalbek that Khalid, the excommunicated
+one, is living in the Hotel, and with an American woman! the old
+prejudices against him were aroused, the old enemies were astirring.
+The priests held up their hands in horror; the women wagged their long
+tongues in the puddle of scandal; and the most fanatical shrieked out,
+execrating, vituperating, threatening even the respectable Shakib, who
+persists in befriending this muleteer's son. Excommunicated, he now
+comes with this Americaniyah (American woman) to corrupt the
+community. Horrible! We will even go farther than this boy's play of
+stoning. We present petitions to the kaiemkam demanding the expulsion
+of this Khalid from the Hotel, from the City.
+
+From other quarters, however, come heavier charges against Khalid. The
+Government of Damascus has not been idle ever since the seditious
+lack-beard Sheikh disappeared. The telegraph wires, in all the
+principal cities of Syria, are vibrating with inquiries about him,
+with orders for his arrest. One such the kaiemkam of Baalbek had just
+received when the petition of the "Guardians of the Morals of the
+Community" was presented to him. To this, the kaiemkam, in a
+perfunctory manner, applies his seal, and assures his petitioners that
+it will promptly be turned over to the proper official. But Turk as
+Turks go, he "places it under the cushion," when they leave. Which
+expression, translated into English means, he quashes it.
+
+Now, by good chance, this is the same kaiemkam who sent Khalid a year
+ago to prison, maugre the efforts and importunities and other
+inducements of Shakib. And this time, he will do him and his friend a
+good turn. He was thinking of the many misfortunes of this Khalid, and
+nursing a little pity for him, when Shakib entered to offer a written
+complaint against a few of the more noted instigators of the
+assailants of his friend. His Excellency puts this in his pocket and
+withdraws with Shakib into another room. A few minutes after, Shakib
+was hurrying to the Hotel to confer with his brother Khalid and Mrs.
+Gotfry.
+
+"I saw the Order with these very eyes," said Shakib, almost poking his
+two forefingers into them. "The kaiemkam showed it to me."
+
+Hence, the secret preparations inside the Hotel and out of it for a
+second remove, for a final flight. Shakib packs up; Najma is all
+ready. And Khalid cuts his hair, doffs his jubbah, and appears again
+in the ordinary attire of civilised mortals. For how else can he get
+out of Beirut and the telegraph wires throughout Syria are flowing
+with orders for his arrest? In a hat and frock-coat, therefore
+(furnished by Shakib), he enters into the carriage with Mrs. Gotfry
+about two hours after midnight; and, with their whole retinue, make
+for Riak, and thence by train for Beirut. Here Shakib obtains
+passports for himself and Najma, and together with Mrs. Gotfry and her
+dragoman, they board in the afternoon the Austrian Liner for
+Port-Said; while, in the evening, walking at the side of one of the
+boatmen, Khalid, passportless, stealthily passes through the port, and
+rejoins his friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE DESERT
+
+
+We remember seeing once a lithographic print representing a Christmas
+legend of the Middle Ages, in which a detachment of the Heavenly
+Host--big, ugly, wild-looking angels--are pursuing, with sword and
+pike, a group of terror-stricken little devils. The idea in the
+picture produced such an impression that one wished to see the
+helpless, pitiful imps in heaven and the armed winged furies, their
+pursuers, in the other place. Now, as we go through the many pages of
+Shakib's, in which he dilates of the mischances, the persecutions, and
+the flights of Khalid, and of which we have given an abstract, very
+brief but comprehensive, in the preceding Chapters, we are struck with
+the similarity in one sense between his Dastur-legend, so to speak,
+and that of the Middle Ages to which we have alluded. The devils in
+both pictures are distressing, pitiful; while the winged persecutors
+are horribly muscular, and withal atrociously armed.
+
+Indeed, this legend of the Turkish angels of Fraternity and Equality,
+pursuing the Turkish little devils of reaction, so called, is most
+killing. But we can not see how the descendants of Yakut and Seljuk
+Khan, whether pursuers or pursued, whether Dastur winged furies they
+be, or Hamidian devils, are going to hold their own in face of the
+fell Dragon which soon or late must overtake them. That heavy,
+slow-going, slow-thinking Monster--and it makes little difference
+whether he comes from the North or from the West--will wait until the
+contending parties exhaust their strength and then--but this is not
+our subject. We would that this pursuing business cease on all sides,
+and that everybody of all parties concerned pursue rather, and
+destroy, the big strong devil within them. Thus sayeth the preacher.
+And thus, for once, we, too. For does not every one of these furious
+angels of Equality, whether in Constantinople, in Berlin, in Paris, in
+London, or in New York, sit on his wings and reveal his horns when he
+rises to power? We are tired of wings that are really nothing but
+horns, misshaped and misplaced.
+
+Look at our French-swearing, whiskey-drinking Tataric angels of the
+Dastur! Indeed, we rejoice that our poor little Devil is now beyond
+the reach of their dripping steel and rickety second-hand gibbets. And
+yet, not very far; for if the British Government consent or blink,
+Khalid and many real reactionists whom Cairo harbours, would have to
+seek an asylum elsewhere. And the third flight might not be as
+successful as the others. But none such is necessary. On the sands of
+the Libyan desert, not far from Cairo and within wind of Helwan, they
+pitch their tents. And Mrs. Gotfry is staying at Al-Hayat, which is a
+stone's throw from their evening fire. She would have Khalid live
+there too, but he refuses. He will live with his cousin and Shakib
+for a while. He is captivated, we are told, by that little cherub of a
+babe. But this does not prevent him from visiting his friend the
+Buhaist Priestess every day and dining often with her at the Hotel.
+
+She, too, not infrequently comes to the camp. Indeed, finding the
+solitude agreeable she has a tent pitched near theirs. And as a relief
+from the noise and bustle of tourists and the fatiguing formalities of
+Hotel life, she repairs thither for a few days every week.
+
+Now, in this austere delicacy of the desert, where allwhere is the
+softness of pure sand, Khalid is perfectly happy. Never did he seem so
+careless, our Scribe asserts, and so jovial and child-like in his
+joys. Far from the noise and strife of politics, far from the
+bewildering tangle of thought, far from the vain hopes and dreams and
+ambitions of life, he lives each day as if it were the last of the
+world. Here are joys manifold for a weary and persecuted spirit: the
+joy of having your dearest friend and comrade with you; the joy of
+nursing and helping to restore to health and happiness the woman
+dearest to your heart; the joy of a Love budding in beauty and
+profusion; and--this, the rarest and sublimest for Khalid--the joy of
+worshipping at the cradle--of fondling, caressing, and bringing up one
+of the brightest, sweetest, loveliest of babes.
+
+Najib is his name--it were cruel to neutralise such a prodigy--and
+he is just learning to walk and lisp. Khalid teaches him the first
+step and the first monosyllable, receiving in return the first
+kiss which his infant lips could voice. With what joy Najib makes his
+first ten steps! With what zest would he practise on the soft sands,
+laughing as he falls, and rising to try again. And thus, does he
+quickly, wonderfully develop, unfolding in the little circle of his
+caressers--in his mother's lap, in Shakib's arms, on Khalid's back,
+on Mrs. Gotfry's knee--the irresistible charm of his precocious
+spirit.
+
+In two months of desert life, Najib could run on the sands and sit
+down when tired to rest; in two months he could imitate in voice
+and gesture whatever he heard or saw: the donkey's bray, and with a
+tilt of the head like him; the cry of the cock; the shrill whistle
+of the train; and the howling of donkey boys. His keen sense of
+discrimination in sounds is incredible. And one day, seeing a
+Mohammedan spreading his rug to pray, he begins to kneel and kiss the
+ground in imitation of him. He even went into the tent and brought
+Khalid's jubbah to spread it on the sand likewise for that purpose.
+So sensitive to outside impressions is this child that he quickly
+responds to the least suggestion and with the least effort. Early
+in the morning, when the chill of night is still on the sands, he
+toddles into Khalid's tent cooing and warbling his joy. A walking
+jasmine flower, a singing ray of sunshine, Khalid calls him. And the
+mother, on seeing her child thus develop, begins to recuperate. In
+this little garden of happiness, her hope begins to blossom.
+
+But Khalid would like to know why Najib, on coming into his tent in
+the morning and seeing him naked, always pointed with his little
+finger and with questioning smile, to what protruded under the navel.
+The like questions Khalid puts with the ease and freedom of a child.
+And writes full pages about them, too, in which he only succeeds in
+bamboozling himself and us. For how can we account for everything a
+child does? Even the psychologist with his reflex-action theory does
+not solve the whole problem. But Khalid would like to know--and
+perhaps not so innocently does he dwell upon this subject as upon
+others--he would like to know the significance of Najib's pointed
+finger and smile. It may be only an accident, Khalid. "But an
+accident," says he, "occurring again and again in the same manner
+under stated conditions ceases to be such." And might not the child,
+who is such an early and keen observer, have previously seen his
+mother in native buff, and was surprised to see that appendage in you,
+Khalid?
+
+Even at Al-Hayat Najib is become popular. Khalid often comes here
+carrying him on his back. And how ready is the child to salaam
+everybody, and with both hands, as he stands on the veranda steps.
+"Surely," says Khalid, "there is a deeper understanding between man
+and child than between man and man. For who but a child dare act so
+freely among these polyglots of ceremony in this little world of
+frills and frocks and feathers? Who but a child dare approach without
+an introduction any one of these solemn-looking tourists? Here then is
+the divine source of the sweetest and purest joy. Here is that one
+touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin. For the child, and
+though he be of the lowest desert tribe, standing on the veranda of a
+fashionable Hotel, can warm and sweeten with the divine flame that is
+in him, the hearts of these sour-seeming, stiff-looking tourists who
+are from all corners of the earth. Is not this a miracle? My professor
+of psychology will say, 'Nay.' But what makes the heart leap in that
+grave and portly gentleman, who might be from Finland or Iceland, for
+all I know, when Najib's hand is raised to him in salutation? What
+makes that stately and sombre-looking dame open her arms, when Najib
+plucks a flower and, after smelling it, presents it to her? What makes
+that reticent, meditative, hard-favoured ancient, who is I believe a
+psychologist, what makes him so interested in observing Najib when he
+stands near the piano pointing anxiously to the keyboard? For the
+child enjoys not every kind of music: play a march or a melody and he
+will keep time, listing joyously from side to side and waving his hand
+in an arch like a maestro; play something insipid or chaotic and he
+will stand there impassive as a statue."
+
+And "the reticent hard-favoured ancient," who turns out to be an
+American professor of some ology, explains to Khalid why lively music
+moves children, while soft and subtle tones do not. But Khalid is not
+open to argument on the subject. He prefers to believe that children,
+especially when so keenly sensitive as his prodigy, understand as
+much, if not more, about music as the average operagoer of to-day.
+But that is not saying much. The professor furthermore, while
+admitting the extreme precocity of Najib's mind, tries to simplify by
+scientific analysis what to Khalid and other laymen seemed wonderful,
+almost miraculous. Here, too, Khalid botches the arguments of the
+learned gentleman in his effort to give us a summary of them, and
+tells us in the end that never after, so long as that professor was
+there, did he ever visit Al-Hayat.
+
+He prefers to frolic and philosophise with his prodigy on the sands.
+He goes on all four around the tent, carrying Najib on his back; he
+digs a little ditch in the sand and teaches him how to lie therein.
+Following the precept of the Greek philosophers, he would show him
+even so early how to die. And Najib lies in the sand-grave, folds his
+hands on his breast and closes his eyes. Rising therefrom, Khalid
+would teach him how to dance like a dervish, and Najib whirls and
+whirls until he falls again in that grave.
+
+When Mrs. Gotfry came that day, Khalid asked the child to show her how
+to dance and die, and Najib begins to whirl like a dervish until he
+falls in the grave; thereupon he folds his arms, closes his eyes, and
+smiles a pathetic smile. This by far is the masterpiece of all his
+feats. And one evening, when he was repeating this strange and weird
+antic, which in Khalid's strange mind might be made to symbolise
+something stranger than both, he saw, as he lay in the grave, a star
+in the sky. It was the first time he saw a star; and he jumped out of
+his sand-grave exulting in the discovery he had made. He runs to his
+mother and points the star to her....
+
+And thus did Khalid spend his halcyon months in the desert. Here was
+an arcadia, perfect but brief. For his delight in infant worship, and
+in the new Love which was budding in beauty and profusion, and in
+tending his sick cousin who was recovering her health, and in the
+walks around the ruins in the desert with his dearest comrade and
+friend,--these, alas, were joys of too pure a nature to endure.
+
+
+
+
+AL-KHATIMAH
+
+"But I can not see all that you see."
+
+"Then you do not love me."
+
+"Back again to Swedenborg--I told you more than once that he is not my
+apostle."
+
+"Nor is he mine. But he has expressed a great truth, Jamilah. Now, can
+you love me in the light of that truth?"
+
+"You are always asking me that same question, Khalid. You do not
+understand me. I do not believe in marriage. I tried it once; I will
+not try it again. I am married to Buhaism. And you Khalid--remember my
+words--you will yet be an apostle--the apostle--of Buhaism. And you
+will find me with you, whether you be in Arabia, in America, or in
+Egypt. I feel this--I know it--I am positive about it. Your star and
+mine are one. We are born under the same star. We are now in the same
+orbit, approaching the same nadir. We are ruled by our stars. I
+believe this, and you don't. At least, you say you don't. But you do.
+You don't know your own mind. The trend of the current of your life is
+beyond your grasp, beyond your comprehension. I know. And you must
+listen to me. You must follow my advice. If you can not come with me
+now to the States, you will await me here. I am called on a pressing
+business. And within three months, at the most, I shall return and
+find you waiting for me right here, in this desert."
+
+"I can not understand you."
+
+"You will yet."
+
+"But why not try to understand me? Can you not find in my ideas the
+very essence of Buhaism? Can you not come up to my height and behold
+there the star that you have taken for your guide? My Truth, Jamilah,
+can you not see that? Love and Faith, free from all sectarianism and
+all earthly authority,--what is Buhaism or Mohammedanism or
+Christianity beside them? Moreover, I have a mission. And to love me
+you must believe in _me_, not in the Buha. You laugh at my dream. But
+one day it will be realised. A great Arab Empire in the border-land of
+the Orient and Occident, in this very heart of the world, this Arabia,
+this Egypt, this Field of the Cloth of Gold, so to speak, where the
+Male and Female of the Spirit shall give birth to a unifying faith, a
+unifying art, a unifying truth--"
+
+"Vagaries, chimeras," interrupted Mrs. Gotfry. "Buhaism is established,
+and it needs a great apostle. It needs you; it will have you. I will
+have you. Your destiny is interwoven with mine. You can not flee it,
+do what you may. We are ruled by our stars, Khalid. And if you do not
+realise this now, you will realise it to-morrow. Here, give me your
+hand."
+
+"I can not."
+
+"Very well, then. Good-bye--_au revoir_. In three months you will
+change your mind. In three months I will return to the East and find
+you waiting for me, even here in this desert. Think on it, and take
+care of yourself. _Au revoir._"
+
+In this strange, mysterious manner, after pacing for hours on the sand
+in the sheen of the full moon, Mrs. Gotfry says farewell to Khalid.
+
+He sits on a rock near his tent and ponders for hours. He seeks in the
+stars, as it were, a clue to the love of this woman, which he first
+thought to be unfathomable. There it is, the stars seem to say. And he
+looks into the sand-grave near him, where little Najib practises how
+to die. Yes; a fitting symbol of the life and love called modern,
+boasting of freedom. They dance their dervish dance, these people,
+even like Khalid's little Najib, and fall into their sand-graves, and
+fold their arms and smile: "We are in love--or we are out of it."
+Which is the same. No: he'll have none of this. A heart as simple as
+this desert sand, as deep in affection as this heaven, untainted by
+the uncertainties and doubts and caprices of modern life,--only in
+such a heart is the love that endures, the love divine and eternal.
+
+He goes into Najma's tent. The mother and her child are sound asleep.
+He stands between the bed and the cot contemplating the simplicity and
+innocence and truth, which are more eloquent in Najib's brow than
+aught of human speech. His little hand raised above his head seems to
+point to a star which could be seen through an opening in the canvas.
+Was it his star--the star that he saw in the sand-grave--the star that
+is calling to him?--
+
+But let us resume our narration.
+
+A fortnight after Mrs. Gotfry's departure Shakib leaves the camp to
+live in Cairo. He is now become poet-laureate to one of the big
+pashas.
+
+Khalid is left alone with Najma and Najib.
+
+And one day, when they are playing a game of "donkey,"--Khalid carried
+Najib on his back, ran on all four around the tent, and Najma was the
+donkey-driver,--the child of a sudden utters a shriek and falls on the
+sand. He is in convulsions; and after the relaxation, lo, his right
+hand is palsied, his mouth awry, and his eyes a-squint. Khalid finds a
+young doctor at Al-Hayat, and his diagnosis of the case does not
+disturb the mind. It is infantile paralysis, a disease common with
+delicate children. And the doctor, who is of a kind and demonstrative
+humour, discourses at length on the disease, speaks of many worse
+cases of its kind he cured, and assures the mother that within a month
+the child will recover. For the present he can but prescribe a
+purgative and a massage of the arm and spine. On the third visit, he
+examines the child's faeces and is happy to have discovered the seat
+and cause of the affection. The liver is not performing its function;
+and given such weak nerves as the child's, a torpid liver in certain
+cases will produce paralysis.
+
+But Khalid is not satisfied with this. He places the doctor's
+prescription in his pocket, and goes down to Cairo for a specialist.
+He comes, this one, to disturb their peace of mind with his
+indecision. It is not infantile paralysis, and he can not yet say
+what it is. Khalid meanwhile is poring over medical books on all the
+diseases that children are heir to.
+
+On the fifth day the child falls again in convulsions, and the
+left arm, too, is paralysed. They take him down to Cairo; and
+Medicine, considering the disease of his mother, guesses a third
+time--tuberculosis of the spine, it says--and guesses wrong.
+Again, considering the strabismus, the obliquity of the mouth, the
+palsy in the arms, and the convulsions, we guess closely, but
+ominously. Nay, Medicine is positive this time; for a fifth and a
+sixth Guesser confirm the others. Here we have a case of cerebral
+meningitis. That is certain; that is fatal.
+
+Najib is placed under treatment. They cut his hair, his beautiful flow
+of dark hair; rub his scalp with chloroform; keep the hot bottles
+around his feet, the ice bag on his head; and give him a spoon of
+physic every hour. "Make no noise around the room, and admit no light
+into it," further advises the doctor. Thus for two weeks the child
+languishes in his mother's arms; and resting from the convulsions and
+the coma, he would fix on Khalid the hollow, icy glance of death. No;
+the light and intelligence might never revisit those vacant eyes.
+
+Now Shakib comes to suggest a consultation. The great English
+physician of Cairo, why not call _him_? It might not be meningitis,
+after all, and the child might be helped, might be cured.
+
+The great guesswork Celebrity is called. He examines the patient and
+confirms the opinion of his confreres, rather his disciples.
+
+"But the whole tissue," he continues with glib assurance, "is not
+affected. The area is local, and to the side of the ear that is sore.
+The strabismus being to the right, the affection must be to the left.
+And the pus accumulating behind the ear, under the bone, and pressing
+on the covering of the brain, produces the inflammation. Yes, pus is
+the cause of this." And he repeats the Arabic proverb in broken
+Arabic, "A drop of pus will disable a camel." Further, "Yes, the
+child's life can be saved by trepanning. It should have been done
+already, but the time's not passed. Let the surgeon come and make a
+little opening--no; a child can stand chloroform better than an adult.
+And when the pus is out he will be well."
+
+In a private consultation the disciples beg to observe that there was
+no evidence of pus behind the ear. "It is beneath the skullbone," the
+Master asserts. And so we decide upon the operation. The Eye and Ear
+specialist is called, and after weighing the probabilities of the case
+and considering that the great Celebrity had said there was pus,
+although there be no evidence of it, he convinces Khalid that if the
+child is not benefited by the operation he cannot suffer from it more
+than he is suffering now.
+
+The surgeon comes with his assistants. Little Najib is laid on the
+table; the chloroform towel is applied; the scalpels, the cotton, the
+basins of hot water, and other accessories, are handed over by one
+doctor to another. The Cutter begins. Shakib is there watching with
+the rest; Najma is in an adjacent room weeping; and Khalid is pacing
+up and down the hall, his brows moistened with the cold sweat of
+anguish and suspense.
+
+No pus between the scalp and the bone: the little hammer and chisel
+are handed to the Cutter. One, two, three,--the child utters a faint
+cry; the chloroform towel is applied again;--four, five, six, and the
+seventh stroke of the little hammer opens the skull. The Cutter then
+penetrates with his catheter, searches thoroughly through the
+brain--here--there--above--below--and finally holds the instrument up
+to his assistants to show them that there is--no pus! "If there be
+any," says he, "it is beyond the reach of surgery." The wound,
+therefore, is quickly washed, sewn up, and dressed, while everybody is
+wondering how the great Celebrity can be wrong....
+
+Little Najib remains under the influence of anaesthetics for two
+days--for two days he is in a trance. And on the third, the fever
+mounts to the danger line and descends again--only after he had
+stretched his little arm and breathed his last!
+
+And Khalid and Najma and Shakib take him out to the desert and bury
+him in the sand, near the tent round which he used to play. There,
+where he stepped his first step, lisped his first syllable, smacked
+his first kiss, and saw for the first time a star in the heaven, he is
+laid; he is given to the Night, to the Eternity which Khalid does not
+fear. And yet, what tears, Shakib tells us, he shed over that little
+grave.
+
+But about the time the second calamity approaches, when Najma begins
+to decline and waste away from grief, when the relapse sets in and
+carries her in a fortnight downward to the grave of her child,
+Khalid's eyes are as two pieces of flint stone on a sheet of glass.
+His tears flow inwardly, as it were, through his cracked heart....
+
+Like the poet Saadi, Khalid once sought to fill his lap with celestial
+flowers for his friends and brothers; and he gathered some; but, alas,
+the fragrance of them so intoxicated him that the skirt dropt from his
+hand....
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+We are again at the Mena House, where we first met Shakib. And the
+reader will remember that the tears rushed to his eyes when we
+inquired of him about his Master and Friend. "He has disappeared some
+ten days ago," he then said, "and I know not whither." Therefore, ask
+us not, O gentle Reader, what became of him. How can _we_ know? He
+might have entered a higher spiritual circle or a lower; of a truth,
+he is not now on the outskirts of the desert: deeper to this side or
+to that he must have passed. And passing he continues to dream of
+"appearance in the disappearance; of truth in the surrender; of
+sunrises in the sunset."
+
+Now, fare _thee_ well in either case, Reader. And whether well or ill
+spent the time we have journeyed together, let us not quarrel about
+it. For our part, we repeat the farewell words of Sheikh Taleb of
+Damascus: "Judge us not severely." And if we did not study to
+entertain thee as other Scribes do, it is because we consider thee,
+dear good Reader, above such entertainment as our poor resources can
+furnish, _Wassalmu aleik_!
+
+
+           IN . FREIKE . WHICH . IS . IN . MOUNT . LEBANON
+                SYRIA . ON . THE . TWELFTH . DAY . OF
+             JANUARY . 1910 . ANNO . CHRISTI . AND . THE
+             FIRST . DAY . OF . MUHARRAM . 1328 . HEGIRAH
+              THIS . BOOK . OF . KHALID . WAS . FINISHED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below.
+    Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
+    Author's punctuation style is preserved.
+    Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Transcriber Changes:
+
+    "_Les dessons[** Was 'dessous']_"--and the Poet who intersperses
+
+    under their heavy burdens, upsetting a tray of sweetmeats[** Was
+          'sweet-meats across lines]
+
+    occasionally meets with a native who, failing as peddler[** Was
+          pedler]
+
+    nevertheless[** Was 'neverthelesss'] significant to remark that
+          the City of
+
+    that makes me sad.'"[** Added closing double-quote]
+
+    land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone[** Was
+          'curb-stone' across lines]
+
+    his _Al-Mutanabby_[** As originally printed]. In relating of
+          Khalid's waywardness
+
+    Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq,[** Added comma] generally
+
+    ""No[** Added extra opening double-quote] more voyages, I trust, O
+          thou Sindbad.' And
+
+    more than one vice to demand forgetfulness[** Was 'forgetfuless'].
+
+    keep at the Jesuits.'[** Removed closing double-quote]
+
+    can not understand them. They are like the sweetmeats[** Was
+          'sweet-meats' across lines]
+
+    each other, 'Ah, Adam, ah, Eve!'[** Added closing single-quote]
+          sighing likewise
+
+    we will ..." Khalid makes no reply.[** Changed ',' to '.']
+
+    the _zeffah_ (wedding procession)[** Removed extra ')'] of none
+          but she and
+
+    hermit."[** Added closing double-quote] (Strange coincidence!) "On
+          your way here
+
+    out, so to speak, exposing its boulders, its little windrows[**
+          Was 'wind-rows' across lines]
+
+    of the stars, I can tell thee this about them all:[** Original may
+          be ';'] they
+
+    Health; in thy temples of worship, to universal Goodwill;[** Was
+          'Good-will' across lines]
+
+    on the _gulma_ (oustraation of animals)[** Added closing ')'],
+          called forth, we
+
+    regret and sorrow.[** Changed ',' to '.'] That such a beautiful
+          face should
+
+    "I am a Christian, too."[** Added closing double-quote]
+
+    Meanwhile, she goes to her room, brings some sweetmeats[** Was
+          'sweet-meats' across lines]
+
+    as a statue."[** Added closing double-quote]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Khalid, by Ameen Rihani
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF KHALID ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29257.txt or 29257.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/5/29257/
+
+Produced by Todd Fine, Dan Horwood and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.