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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6036-8.txt b/6036-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d26a82 --- /dev/null +++ b/6036-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3090 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi +by Richard F. Burton +(#21 in our series by Richard F. Burton) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi + +Author: Richard F. Burton + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6036] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 23, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: Latin1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE KASIDAH OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI *** + + + + +This eBook was prepared by Robert Sinton from a source supplied by the +Sacred Texts Web site, http://www.sacred-texts.com, thanks to John B. Hare. + + + + + +THE KASÎDAH OF HÂJÎ ABDÛ EL-YEZDÎ + +TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY HS FRIEND AND PUPIL, F.B. + + + +TO THE READER + + +The Translator has ventured to entitle a “Lay of the Higher Law” +the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its +time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such +unpleasant forms as the “Higher Culture.” The principles which +justify the name are as follows:— + +The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided +and distributed in the world. + +He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole +and sufficient object of human life. + +He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the “divine +gift of Pity” are man’s highest enjoyments. + +He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of +“Facts, the idlest of superstitions.” + +Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially +reconstructive. + +For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious +reader is referred to the end of the volume. + +F. B. + +Vienna, Nov., 1880. + + + +THE KASÎDAH + + +I + + +The hour is nigh; the waning Queen + walks forth to rule the later night; +Crown’d with the sparkle of a Star, + and throned on orb of ashen light: + +The Wolf-tail* sweeps the paling East + to leave a deeper gloom behind, +And Dawn uprears her shining head, + sighing with semblance of a wind: + + * The false dawn. + +The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, + while purpling still the lowlands lie; +And pearly mists, the morning-pride, + soar incense-like to greet the sky. + +The horses neigh, the camels groan, + the torches gleam, the cressets flare; +The town of canvas falls, and man + with din and dint invadeth air: + +The Golden Gates swing right and left; + up springs the Sun with flamy brow; +The dew-cloud melts in gush of light; + brown Earth is bathed in morning-glow. + +Slowly they wind athwart the wild, + and while young Day his anthem swells, +Sad falls upon my yearning ear + the tinkling of the Camel-bells: + +O’er fiery wastes and frozen wold, + o’er horrid hill and gloomy glen, +The home of grisly beast and Ghoul,* + the haunts of wilder, grislier men;— + + * The Demon of the Desert. + +With the brief gladness of the Palms, + that tower and sway o’er seething plain, +Fraught with the thoughts of rustling shade, + and welling spring, and rushing rain; + +With the short solace of the ridge, + by gentle zephyrs played upon, +Whose breezy head and bosky side + front seas of cooly celadon;— + +’Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, + whose souls shall ever thrill and fill +Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb, + visions of Allah’s Holy Hill.* + + * Arafât, near Mecca. + +But we? Another shift of scene, + another pang to rack the heart; +Why meet we on the bridge of Time + to ’change one greeting and to part? + +We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, + Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? +Man’s fancy-made Omniscience knows, + who made Omniscience nought can know. + +Why must we meet, why must we part, + why must we bear this yoke of MUST, +Without our leave or askt or given, + by tyrant Fate on victim thrust? + +That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, + this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey; +Strange that life’s Registrar should write + this day a day, that day a day! + +Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,— + sad is the very core of me; +All wearies, changes, passes, ends; + alas! the Birthday’s injury! + +Friends of my youth, a last adieu! + haply some day we meet again; +Yet ne’er the self-same men shall meet; + the years shall make us other men: + +The light of morn has grown to noon, + has paled with eve, and now farewell! +Go, vanish from my Life as dies + the tinkling of the Camel’s bell. + + + +II + + +In these drear wastes of sea-born land, + these wilds where none may dwell but He, +What visionary Pasts revive, + what process of the Years we see: + +Gazing beyond the thin blue line + that rims the far horizon-ring, +Our sadden’d sight why haunt these ghosts, + whence do these spectral shadows spring? + +What endless questions vex the thought, + of Whence and Whither, When and How? +What fond and foolish strife to read + the Scripture writ on human brow; + +As stand we percht on point of Time, + betwixt the two Eternities, +Whose awful secrets gathering round + with black profound oppress our eyes. + +“This gloomy night, these grisly waves, + these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: +What reck they of our wretched plight + who Safety’s shore so lightly tread?” + +Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,* + whose dream of Heaven ne’er could rise +Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup + and Houris with the white-black eyes; + + * Hâfiz of Shirâz. + +Ah me! my race of threescore years + is short, but long enough to pall +My sense with joyless joys as these, + with Love and Houris, Wine and all. + +Another boasts he would divorce + old barren Reason from his bed, +And wed the Vine-maid in her stead;— + fools who believe a word he said!* + + * Omar-i-Kayyâm, the tent-maker poet of Persia. + +And “‘Dust thou art to dust returning.’ + ne’er was spoke of human soul” +The Soofi cries, ’tis well for him + that hath such gift to ask its goal. + +“And this is all, for this we’re born + to weep a little and to die!” +So sings the shallow bard whose life + still labours at the letter “I.” + +“Ear never heard, Eye never saw + the bliss of those who enter in +My heavenly kingdom,” Isâ said, + who wailed our sorrows and our sin: + +Too much of words or yet too few! + What to thy Godhead easier than +One little glimpse of Paradise + to ope the eyes and ears of man? + +“I am the Truth! I am the Truth!” + we hear the God-drunk gnostic cry +“The microcosm abides in ME; + Eternal Allah’s nought but I!” + +Mansûr* was wise, but wiser they + who smote him with the hurlèd stones; +And, though his blood a witness bore, + no wisdom-might could mend his bones. + + * A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy. + +“Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of life’s + not worth a fillip,” quoth the King; +Methinks the saying saith too much: + the swine would say the selfsame thing! + +Two-footed beasts that browse through life, + by Death to serve as soil design’d, +Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, + and there the proper pleasures find: + +But you of finer, nobler, stuff, + ye, whom to Higher leads the High, +What binds your hearts in common bond + with creatures of the stall and sty? + +“In certain hope of Life-to-come + I journey through this shifting scene” +The Zâhid* snarls and saunters down + his Vale of Tears with confi’dent mien. + + * The “Philister” of “respectable” belief. + +Wiser than Amrân’s Son* art thou, + who ken’st so well the world-to-be, +The Future when the Past is not, + the Present merest dreamery; + + * Moses in the Koran. + +What know’st thou, man, of Life? and yet, + forever twixt the womb, the grave, +Thou pratest of the Coming Life, + of Heav’n and Hell thou fain must rave. + +The world is old and thou art young; + the world is large and thou art small; +Cease, atom of a moment’s span, + To hold thyself an All-in-All! + + + +III. + + +Fie, fie! you visionary things, + ye motes that dance in sunny glow, +Who base and build Eternities + on briefest moment here below; + +Who pass through Life liked cagèd birds, + the captives of a despot will; +Still wond’ring How and When and Why, + and Whence and Whither, wond’ring still; + +Still wond’ring how the Marvel came + because two coupling mammals chose +To slake the thirst of fleshly love, + and thus the “Immortal Being” rose; + +Wond’ring the Babe with staring eyes, + perforce compel’d from night to day, +Gript in the giant grasp of Life + like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray; + +Who comes imbecile to the world + ’mid double danger, groans, and tears; +The toy, the sport, the waif and stray + of passions, error, wrath and fears; + +Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, + who kens not Whither bound and When, +Yet such is Allah’s choicest gift, + the blessing dreamt by foolish men; + +Who step by step perforce returns + to couthless youth, wan, white and cold, +Lisping again his broken words + till all the tale be fully told: + +Wond’ring the Babe with quenchèd orbs, + an oldster bow’d by burthening years, +How ’scaped the skiff an hundred storms; + how ’scaped the thread a thousand shears; + +How coming to the Feast unbid, + he found the gorgeous table spread +With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, + with stones that bear the shape of bread: + +How Life was nought but ray of sun + that clove the darkness thick and blind, +The ravings of the reckless storm, + the shrieking of the rav’ening wind; + +How lovely visions ’guiled his sleep, + aye fading with the break of morn, +Till every sweet became a sour, + till every rose became a thorn; + +Till dust and ashes met his eyes + wherever turned their saddened gaze; +The wrecks of joys and hopes and loves, + the rubbish of his wasted days; + +How every high heroic Thought + that longed to breathe empyrean air, +Failed of its feathers, fell to earth, + and perisht of a sheer despair; + +How, dower’d with heritage of brain, + whose might has split the solar ray, +His rest is grossest coarsest earth, + a crown of gold on brow of clay; + +This House whose frame be flesh and bone, + mortar’d with blood and faced with skin, +The home of sickness, dolours, age; + unclean without, impure within: + +Sans ray to cheer its inner gloom, + the chambers haunted by the Ghost, +Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade + stronger than all the heav’nly host. + +This tube, an enigmatic pipe, + whose end was laid before begun, +That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks; + —puzzle, machine, automaton; + +The first of Pots the Potter made + by Chrysorrhoas’ blue-green wave;* +Methinks I see him smile to see + what guerdon to the world he gave! + + * The Abana, River of Damascus. + +How Life is dim, unreal, vain, + like scenes that round the drunkard reel; +How “Being” meaneth not to be; + to see and hear, smell, taste and feel. + +A drop in Ocean’s boundless tide, + unfathom’d waste of agony; +Where millions live their horrid lives + by making other millions die. + +How with a heart that would through love + to Universal Love aspire, +Man woos infernal chance to smite, + as Min’arets draw the Thunder-fire. + +How Earth on Earth builds tow’er and wall, + to crumble at a touch of Time; +How Earth on Earth from Shînar-plain + the heights of Heaven fain would climb. + +How short this Life, how long withal; + how false its weal, how true its woes, +This fever-fit with paroxysms + to mark its opening and its close. + +Ah! gay the day with shine of sun, + and bright the breeze, and blithe the throng +Met on the River-bank to play, + when I was young, when I was young: + +Such general joy could never fade; + and yet the chilling whisper came +One face had paled, one form had failed; + had fled the bank, had swum the stream; + +Still revellers danced, and sang, and trod + the hither bank of Time’s deep tide, +Still one by one they left and fared + to the far misty thither side; + +And now the last hath slipt away + yon drear Death-desert to explore, +And now one Pilgrim worn and lorn + still lingers on the lonely shore. + +Yes, Life in youth-tide standeth still; + in manhood streameth soft and slow; +See, as it nears the ’abysmal goal + how fleet the waters flash and flow! + +And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see + drop like the leaves in windy Fall; +But ours, our own, are ruined worlds, + a globe collapst, last end of all. + +We live our lives with rogues and fools, + dead and alive, alive and dead, +We die ’twixt one who feels the pulse + and one who frets and clouds the head: + +And,—oh, the Pity!—hardly conned + the lesson comes its fatal term; +Fate bids us bundle up our books, + and bear them bod’ily to the worm: + +Hardly we learn to wield the blade + before the wrist grows stiff and old; +Hardly we learn to ply the pen + ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold. + +Hardly we find the path of love, + to sink the self, forget the “I,” +When sad suspicion grips the heart, + when Man, _the_ Man begins to die: + +Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights, + and sight the Pisgah-scene around, +And breathe the breath of heav’enly air, + and hear the Spheres’ harmonious sound; + +When swift the Camel-rider spans + the howling waste, by Kismet sped, +And of his Magic Wand a wave + hurries the quick to join the dead.* + + * Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse. + +How sore the burden, strange the strife; + how full of splendour, wonder, fear; +Life, atom of that Infinite Space + that stretcheth ’twixt the Here and There. + +How Thought is imp’otent to divine + the secret which the gods defend, +The Why of birth and life and death, + that Isis-veil no hand may rend. + +Eternal Morrows make our Day; + our _Is_ is aye _to be_ till when +Night closes in; ’tis all a dream, + and yet we die,—and then and THEN? + +And still the Weaver plies his loom, + whose warp and woof is wretched Man +Weaving th’ unpattern’d dark design, + so dark we doubt it owns a plan. + +Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, + amid the storm of tears and blood, +Man say Thy mercy made what is, + and saw the made and said ’twas good? + +The marvel is that man can smile + dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;- +Better the heedless atomy + that buzzes in the morning beam! + +O the dread pathos of our lives! + how durst thou, Allah, thus to play +With Love, Affection, Friendship, all + that shows the god in mortal clay? + +But ah! what ’vaileth man to mourn; + shall tears bring forth what smiles ne’er brought; +Shall brooding breed a thought of joy? + Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought! + +Silence thine immemorial quest, + contain thy nature’s vain complaint +None heeds, none cares for thee or thine;— + like thee how many came and went? + +Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; + enjoy thy shining hour of sun; +We dance along Death’s icy brink, + but is the dance less full of fun? + + + +IV + + +What Truths hath gleaned that Sage consumed + by many a moon that waxt and waned? +What Prophet-strain be his to sing? + What hath his old Experience gained? + +There is no God, no man-made God; + a bigger, stronger, crueller man; +Black phantom of our baby-fears, + ere Thought, the life of Life, began. + +Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old,* + “An Ishwara for one I nill, +Th’ almighty everlasting Good + who cannot ’bate th’ Eternal Ill:” + + * Buddha. + +“Your gods may be, what shows they are?” + hear China’s Perfect Sage declare;* +“And being, what to us be they + who dwell so darkly and so far?” + + * Confucius. + +“All matter hath a birth and death; + ’tis made, unmade and made anew; +“We choose to call the Maker ‘God’:— + such is the Zâhid’s owly view. + +“You changeful finite Creatures strain” + (rejoins the Drawer of the Wine)* +“The dizzy depths of Inf’inite Power + to fathom with your foot of twine”; + + * The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid. + +“Poor idols of man’s heart and head + with the Divine Idea to blend; +“To preach as ‘Nature’s Common Course’ + what any hour may shift or end.” + +“How shall the Shown pretend to ken + aught of the Showman or the Show? +“Why meanly bargain to believe, + which only means thou ne’er canst know? + +“How may the passing Now contain + the standing Now—Eternity?— +“An endless _is_ without a _was_, + the _be_ and never the _to-be?_ + +“Who made your Maker? If Self-made, + why fare so far to fare the worse +“Sufficeth not a world of worlds, + a self-made chain of universe? + +“Grant an Idea, Primal Cause, + the Causing Cause, why crave for more? +“Why strive its depth and breadth to mete, + to trace its work, its aid to ’implore? + +“Unknown, Incomprehensible, + whate’er you choose to call it, call; +“But leave it vague as airy space, + dark in its darkness mystical. + +“Your childish fears would seek a Sire, + by the non-human God defin’d, +“What your five wits may wot ye weet; + what _is_ you please to dub ‘design’d;’ + +“You bring down Heav’en to vulgar Earth; + your maker like yourselves you make, +“You quake to own a reign of Law, + you pray the Law its laws to break; + +“You pray, but hath your thought e’er weighed + how empty vain the prayer must be, +“That begs a boon already giv’en, + or craves a change of law to see? + +“Say, Man, deep learnèd in the Scheme + that orders mysteries sublime, +“How came it this was Jesus, that + was Judas from the birth of Time? + +“How I the tiger, thou the lamb; + again the Secret, prithee, show +“Who slew the slain, bowman or bolt + or Fate that drave the man, the bow? + +“Man worships self: his God is Man; + the struggling of the mortal mind +“To form its model as ’twould be, + the perfect of itself to find. + +“The God became sage, priest and scribe + where Nilus’ serpent made the vale; +“A gloomy Brahm in glowing Ind, + a neutral something cold and pale: + +“Amid the high Chaldean hills + a moulder of the heavenly spheres; +“On Guebre steppes the Timeless-God + who governs by his dual peers: + +“In Hebrew tents the Lord that led + His leprous slaves to fight and jar; +“Yahveh,* Adon or Elohîm, + the God that smites, the Man of War. + + * Jehovah. + +“The lovely Gods of lib’ertine Greece, + those fair and frail humanities +“Whose homes o’erlook’d the Middle Sea, + where all Earth’s beauty cradled lies, + +“Ne’er left its blessèd bounds, nor sought + the barb’arous climes of barb’arous gods +“Where Odin of the dreary North + o’er hog and sickly mead-cup nods: + +“And when, at length, ‘Great Pan is dead’ + uprose the loud and dol’orous cry +“A glamour wither’d on the ground, + a splendour faded in the sky. + +“Yea, Pan was dead, the Nazar’ene came + and seized his seat beneath the sun, +“The votary of the Riddle-god, + whose one is three and three is one; + +“Whose sadd’ening creed of herited Sin + spilt o’er the world its cold grey spell; +“In every vista showed a grave, + and ’neath the grave the glare of Hell; + +“Till all Life’s Po’esy sinks to prose; + romance to dull Real’ity fades; +“Earth’s flush of gladness pales in gloom + and God again to man degrades. + +“Then the lank Arab foul with sweat, + the drainer of the camel’s dug, +“Gorged with his leek-green lizard’s meat, + clad in his filthy rag and rug, + +“Bore his fierce Allah o’er his sands + and broke, like lava-burst upon +“The realms where reigned pre-Adamite Kings, + where rose the Grand Kayânian throne.* + + * Kayâni—of the race of Cyrus; old Guebre heroes. + +“Who now of ancient Kayomurs, + of Zâl or Rustam cares to sing, +“Whelmed by the tempest of the tribes + that called the Camel-driver King? + +“Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw, + the sceptre of Anûshirwân, +“The holy grail of high Jamshîd, + Afrâsiyab’s hall?—Canst tell me, man? + +“Gone, gone, where I and thou must go, + borne by the winnowing wings of Death, +“The Horror brooding over life, + and nearer brought with every breath: + +“Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes, + they rose and reigned, they fought and fell, +“As swells and swoons across the wold + the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.” + + + +V + + +There is no Good, there is no Bad; + these be the whims of mortal will: +What works me weal that call I ‘good,’ + what harms and hurts I hold as ‘ill:’ + +They change with place, they shift with race; + and, in the veriest span of Time, +Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown; + all Good was banned as Sin or Crime: + +Like ravelled skeins they cross and twine, + while this with that connects and blends; +And only Khizr* his eye shall see + where one begins, where other ends: + + * Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah. + +What mortal shall consort with Khizr, + when Musâ turned in fear to flee? +What man foresees the flow’er or fruit + whom Fate compels to plant the tree? + +For Man’s Free-will immortal Law, + Anagkê, Kismet, Des’tiny read +That was, that is, that aye shall be, + Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need. + +“Man’s nat’ural state is God’s design;” + such is the silly sage’s theme; +“Man’s primal Age was Age of Gold;” + such is the Poet’s waking dream: + +Delusion, Ign’orance! Long ere Man + drew upon Earth his earliest breath +The world was one contin’uous scene + of anguish, torture, prey and Death; + +Where hideous Theria of the wild + rended their fellows limb by limb; +Where horrid Saurians of the sea + in waves of blood were wont to swim: + +The “fair young Earth” was only fit + to spawn her frightful monster-brood; +Now fiery hot, now icy frore, + now reeking wet with steamy flood. + +Yon glorious Sun, the greater light, + the “Bridegroom” of the royal Lyre, +A flaming, boiling, bursting mine; + a grim black orb of whirling fire: + +That gentle Moon, the lesser light, + the Lover’s lamp, the Swain’s delight, +A ruined world, a globe burnt out, + a corpse upon the road of night. + +What reckt he, say, of Good or Ill + who in the hill-hole made his lair, +The blood-fed rav’ening Beast of prey, + wilder than wildest wolf or bear? + +How long in Man’s pre-Ad’amite days + to feed and swill, to sleep and breed, +Were the Brute-biped’s only life, + a perfect life sans Code or Creed? + +His choicest garb a shaggy fell, + his choicest tool a flake of stone; +His best of orn’aments tattoo’d skin + and holes to hang his bits of bone; + +Who fought for female as for food + when Mays awoke to warm desire; +And such the Lust that grew to Love + when Fancy lent a purer fire. + +Where then “Th’ Eternal nature-law + by God engraved on human heart?” +Behold his simiad sconce and own + the Thing could play no higher part. + +Yet, as long ages rolled, he learnt + from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build +Shelter for sire and dam and brood, + from blast and blaze that hurt and killed; + +And last came Fire; when scrap of stone + cast on the flame that lit his den, +Gave out the shining ore, and made + the Lord of beasts a Lord of men. + +The “moral sense,” your Zâhid-phrase, + is but the gift of latest years; +Conscience was born when man had shed + his fur, his tail, his pointed ears. + +What conscience has the murd’erous Moor, + who slays his guest with felon blow, +Save sorrow he can slay no more, + what prick of pen’itence can he know? + +You cry the “Cruelty of Things” + is myst’ery to your purblind eye, +Which fixed upon a point in space + the general project passes by: + +For see! the Mammoth went his ways, + became a mem’ory and a name; +While the half-reasoner with the hand* + survives his rank and place to claim. + + * The Elephant. + +Earthquake and plague, storm, fight and fray, + portents and curses man must deem +Since he regards his self alone, + nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme; + +The Quake that comes in eyelid’s beat + to ruin, level, ’gulf and kill, +Builds up a world for better use, + to general Good bends special Ill: + +The dreadest sound man’s ear can hear, + the war and rush of stormy Wind +Depures the stuff of human life, + breeds health and strength for humankind: + +What call ye them or Goods or Ills, + ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain, +When realms arise and falls a roof; + a world is won, a man is slain? + +And thus the race of Being runs, + till haply in the time to be +Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari*-men + another falling star shall see: + + * The Planet Jupiter. + +Shall see it fall and fade from sight, + whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,— +Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase + the tinkling of the camel-bell! + + + +VI + + +All Faith is false, all Faith is true: + Truth is the shattered mirror strown +In myriad bits; while each believes + his little bit the whole to own. + +What is the Truth? was askt of yore. + Reply all object Truth is one +As twain of halves aye makes a whole; + the moral Truth for all is none. + +Ye scantly-learned Zâhids learn + from Aflatûn and Aristû,* +While Truth is real like your good: + th’ Untrue, like ill, is real too; + + * Plato and Aristotle. + +As palace mirror’d in the stream, + as vapour mingled with the skies, +So weaves the brain of mortal man + the tangled web of Truth and Lies. + +What see we here? Forms, nothing more! + Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye, +We know not substance; ’mid the shades + shadows ourselves we live and die. + +“Faith mountains move” I hear: I see + the practice of the world unheed +The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast + that serves our vanity to feed. + +“Faith stands unmoved”; and why? Because + man’s silly fancies still remain, +And will remain till wiser man + the day-dreams of his youth disdain. + +“’Tis blessèd to believe”; you say: + The saying may be true enow +And it can add to Life a light:— + only remains to show us how. + +E’en if I could I nould believe + your tales and fables stale and trite, +Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires + the dullèd ear of drowsy wight. + +With God’s foreknowledge man’s free will! + what monster-growth of human brain, +What powers of light shall ever pierce + this puzzle dense with words inane? + +Vainly the heart on Providence calls, + such aid to seek were hardly wise +For man must own the pitiless Law + that sways the globe and sevenfold skies. + +“Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav’en, + come pay the priest that holds the key;” +So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak + the last to enter Heaven,—he. + +Are these the words for men to hear? + yet such the Church’s general tongue, +The horseleech-cry so strong so high + her heav’enward Psalms and Hymns among. + +What? Faith a merit and a claim, + when with the brain ’tis born and bred? +Go, fool, thy foolish way and dip + in holy water burièd dead! + +Yet follow not th’ unwisdom-path, + cleave not to this and that disclaim; +Believe in all that man believes; + here all and naught are both the same. + +But is it so? How may we know? + Haply this Fate, this Law may be +A word, a sound, a breath; at most + the Zâhid’s moonstruck theory. + +Yes Truth may be, but ’tis not Here; + mankind must seek and find it There, +But Where nor I nor you can tell, + nor aught earth-mother ever bare. + +Enough to think that Truth can be: + come sit we where the roses glow, +Indeed he knows not how to know + who knows not also how to ’unknow. + + + +VII + + +Man hath no Soul, a state of things, + a no-thing still, a sound, a word +Which so begets substantial thing + that eye shall see what ear hath heard. + +Where was his Soul the savage beast + which in primeval forests strayed, +What shape had it, what dwelling-place, + what part in nature’s plan it played? + +This Soul to ree a riddle made; + who wants the vain duality? +Is not myself enough for me? + what need of “I” within an “I”? + +Words, words that gender things! The soul + is a new-comer on the scene; +Sufficeth not the breath of Life + to work the matter-born machine? + +We know the Gen’esis of the Soul; + we trace the Soul to hour of birth; +We mark its growth as grew mankind + to boast himself sole Lord of Earth: + +The race of Be’ing from dawn of Life + in an unbroken course was run; +What men are pleased to call their Souls + was in the hog and dog begun: + +Life is a ladder infinite-stepped, + that hides its rungs from human eyes; +Planted its foot in chaos-gloom, + its head soars high above the skies: + +No break the chain of Being bears; + all things began in unity; +And lie the links in regular line + though haply none the sequence see. + +The Ghost, embodied natural Dread + of dreary death and foul decay, +Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade + with Hades’ pale and wan array. + +The Soul required a greater Soul, + a Soul of Souls, to rule the host; +Hence spirit-powers and hierarchies, + all gendered by the savage Ghost. + +Not yours, ye Peoples of the Book, + these fairy visions fair and fond, +Got by the gods of Khemi-land* + and faring far the seas beyond! + + * Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi. + +“Th’ immortal mind of mortal man!” + we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry; +Whose mind but means his sum of thought, + an essence of atomic “I.” + +Thought is the work of brain and nerve, + in small-skulled idiot poor and mean; +In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, + and dead when Death lets drop the scene. + +“Tush!” quoth the Zâhid, “well we ken + the teaching of the school abhorr’d +“That maketh man automaton, + mind a secretion, soul a word.” + +“Of molecules and protoplasm + you matter-mongers prompt to prate; +“Of jelly-speck development + and apes that grew to man’s estate.” + +Vain cavil! all that is hath come + either by Mir’acle or by Law;— +Why waste on this your hate and fear, + why waste on that your love and awe? + +Why heap such hatred on a word, + why “Prototype” to type assign, +Why upon matter spirit mass? + wants an appendix your design? + +Is not the highest honour his + who from the worst hath drawn the best; +May not your Maker make the world + from matter, an it suit His hest? + +Nay more, the sordider the stuff + the cunninger the workman’s hand: +Cease, then, your own Almighty Power + to bind, to bound, to understand. + +“Reason and Instinct!” How we love + to play with words that please our pride; +Our noble race’s mean descent + by false forged titles seek to hide! + +For “gift divine” I bid you read + the better work of higher brain, +From Instinct diff’ering in degree + as golden mine from leaden vein. + +Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, + the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue: +Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; + what crosses it can ne’er be true. + +“Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!” + Angels and Fools have equal claim +To do what Nature bids them do, + sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame! + + + +VIII + + +There is no Heav’en, there is no Hell; + these be the dreams of baby minds; +Tools of the wily Fetisheer, + to ’fright the fools his cunning blinds. + +Learn from the mighty Spi’rits of old + to set thy foot on Heav’en and Hell; +In Life to find thy hell and heav’en + as thou abuse or use it well. + +So deemed the doughty Jew who dared + by studied silence low to lay +Orcus and Hades, lands of shades, + the gloomy night of human day. + +Hard to the heart is final death: + fain would an Ens not end in Nil; +Love made the senti’ment kindly good: + the Priest perverted all to ill. + +While Reason sternly bids us die, + Love longs for life beyond the grave: +Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears + for Life-to-be shall ever crave. + +Hence came the despot’s darling dream, + a Church to rule and sway the State; +Hence sprang the train of countless griefs + in priestly sway and rule innate. + +For future Life who dares reply? + No witness at the bar have we; +Save what the brother Potsherd tells,— + old tales and novel jugglery. + +Who e’er return’d to teach the Truth, + the things of Heaven and Hell to limn? +And all we hear is only fit + for grandam-talk and nursery-hymn. + +“Have mercy, man!” the Zâhid cries, + “of our best visions rob us not! +“Mankind a future life must have + to balance life’s unequal lot.” + +“Nay,” quoth the Magian, “’tis not so; + I draw my wine for one and all, +“A cup for this, a score for that, + e’en as his measure’s great or small: + +“Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; + to poorest passion he was born; +“Who drains the score must e’er expect + to rue the headache of the morn.” + +Safely he jogs along the way + which ‘Golden Mean’ the sages call; +Who scales the brow of frowning Alp + must face full many a slip and fall. + +Here èxtremes meet, anointed Kings + whose crownèd heads uneasy lie, +Whose cup of joy contains no more + than tramps that on the dunghill die. + +To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred + for dangling from the gallows-tree; +To Saint who spends his holy days + in rapt’urous hope his God to see; + +To all that breathe our upper air + the hands of Dest’iny ever deal, +In fixed and equal parts, their shares + of joy and sorrow, woe and weal. + +“How comes it, then, our span of days + in hunting wealth and fame we spend +“Why strive we (and all humans strive) + for vain and visionary end?” + +Reply: mankind obeys a law + that bids him labour, struggle, strain; +The Sage well knowing its unworth, + the Fool a-dreaming foolish gain. + +And who, ’mid e’en the Fools, but feels + that half the joy is in the race +For wealth and fame and place, nor sighs + when comes success to crown the chase? + +Again: in Hind, Chîn, Franguestân + that accident of birth befell, +Without our choice, our will, our voice: + Faith is an accident as well. + +What to the Hindu saith the Frank: + “Denier of the Laws divine! +“However godly-good thy Life, + Hell is the home for thee and thine.” + +“Go strain the draught before ’tis drunk, + and learn that breathing every breath, +“With every step, with every gest, + something of life thou do’est to death.” + +Replies the Hindu: “Wend thy way + for foul and foolish Mlenchhas fit; +“Your Pariah-par’adise woo and win; + at such dog-Heav’en I laugh and spit.” + +“Cannibals of the Holy Cow! + who make your rav’ening maws the grave +“Of Things with self-same right to live;— + what Fiend the filthy license gave?” + +What to the Moslem cries the Frank? + “A polygamic Theist thou! +“From an imposter-Prophet turn; + Thy stubborn head to Jesus bow.” + +Rejoins the Moslem: “Allah’s one + tho’ with four Moslemahs I wive, +“One-wife-men ye and (damnèd race!) + you split your God to Three and Five.” + +The Buddhist to Confucians thus: + “Like dogs ye live, like dogs ye die; +“Content ye rest with wretched earth; + God, Judgment, Hell ye fain defy.” + +Retorts the Tartar: “Shall I lend + mine only ready-money ‘now,’ +“For vain usurious ‘Then’ like thine, + avaunt, a triple idiot Thou!” + +“With this poor life, with this mean world + I fain complete what in me lies; +“I strive to perfect this my me; + my sole ambition’s to be wise.” + +When doctors differ who decides + amid the milliard-headed throng? +Who save the madman dares to cry: + “’Tis I am right, you all are wrong?” + +“You all are right, you all are wrong,” + we hear the careless Soofi say, +“For each believes his glimm’ering lamp + to be the gorgeous light of day.” + +“Thy faith why false, my faith why true? + ’tis all the work of Thine and Mine, +“The fond and foolish love of self + that makes the Mine excel the Thine.” + +Cease then to mumble rotten bones; + and strive to clothe with flesh and blood +The skel’eton; and to shape a Form + that all shall hail as fair and good. + +“For gen’erous youth,” an Arab saith, + “Jahim’s* the only genial state; +“Give us the fire but not the shame + with the sad, sorry blest to mate.” + + * Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell. + +And if your Heav’en and Hell be true, + and Fate that forced me to be born +Force me to Heav’en or Hell—I go, + and hold Fate’s insolence in scorn. + +I want not this, I want not that, + already sick of Me and Thee; +And if we’re both transform’d and changed, + what then becomes of Thee and Me? + +Enough to think such things may be: + to say they are not or they are +Were folly: leave them all to Fate, + nor wage on shadows useless war. + +Do what thy manhood bids thee do, + from none but self expect applause; +He noblest lives and noblest dies + who makes and keeps his self-made laws. + +All other Life is living Death, + a world where none but Phantoms dwell, +A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, + a tinkling of the camel-bell. + + + +IX + + +How then shall man so order life + that when his tale of years is told, +Like sated guest he wend his way; + how shall his even tenour hold? + +Despite the Writ that stores the skull; + despite the Table and the Pen;* +Maugre the Fate that plays us down, + her board the world, her pieces men? + + * Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny. + +How when the light and glow of life + wax dim in thickly gath’ering gloom, +Shall mortal scoff at sting of Death, + shall scorn the victory of the Tomb? + +One way, two paths, one end the grave. + This runs athwart the flow’ery plain, +That breasts the bush, the steep, the crag, + in sun and wind and snow and rain: + +Who treads the first must look adown, + must deem his life an all in all; +Must see no heights where man may rise, + must sight no depths where man may fall. + +Allah in Adam form must view; + adore the Maker in the made. +Content to bask in Mâyâ’s smile,* + in joys of pain, in lights of shade. + + * Illusion. + +He breaks the Law, he burns the Book, + he sends the Moolah back to school; +Laughs at the beards of Saintly men; + and dubs the Prophet dolt and fool, + +Embraces Cypress’ taper-waist; + cools feet on wavy breast of rill; +Smiles in the Nargis’ love-lorn eyes, + and ’joys the dance of Daffodil; + +Melts in the saffron light of Dawn + to hear the moaning of the Dove; +Delights in Sundown’s purpling hues + when Bulbul woos the Rose’s love. + +Finds mirth and joy in Jamshid-bowl; + toys with the Daughter of the vine; +And bids the beauteous cup-boy say, + “Master I bring thee ruby wine!”* + + * That all the senses, even the ear, may enjoy. + +Sips from the maiden’s lips the dew; + brushes the bloom from virgin brow:— +Such is his fleshly bliss that strives + the Maker through the Made to know. + +I’ve tried them all, I find them all + so same and tame, so drear, so dry; +My gorge ariseth at the thought; + I commune with myself and cry:— + +Better the myriad toils and pains + that make the man to manhood true, +This be the rule that guideth life; + these be the laws for me and you: + +With Ignor’ance wage eternal war, + to know thy self forever strain, +Thine ignorance of thine ignorance is + thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane; + +That blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste; + that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes; +Creates the thing that never was, + the Thing that ever is defies. + +The finite Atom infinite + that forms thy circle’s centre-dot, +So full-sufficient for itself, + for other selves existing not, + +Finds the world mighty as ’tis small; + yet must be fought the unequal fray; +A myriad giants here; and there + a pinch of dust, a clod of clay. + +Yes! maugre all thy dreams of peace + still must the fight unfair be fought; +Where thou mayst learn the noblest lore, + to know that all we know is nought. + +True to thy Nature, to Thy self, + Fame and Disfame nor hope nor fear: +Enough to thee the small still voice + aye thund’ering in thine inner ear. + +From self-approval seek applause: + What ken not men thou kennest, thou! +Spurn ev’ry idol others raise: + Before thine own Ideal bow: + +Be thine own Deus: Make self free, + liberal as the circling air: +Thy Thought to thee an Empire be; + break every prison’ing lock and bar: + +Do thou the Ought to self aye owed; + here all the duties meet and blend, +In widest sense, withouten care + of what began, for what shall end. + +Thus, as thou view the Phantom-forms + which in the misty Past were thine, +To be again the thing thou wast + with honest pride thou may’st decline; + +And, glancing down the range of years, + fear not thy future self to see; +Resign’d to life, to death resign’d, + as though the choice were nought to thee. + +On Thought itself feed not thy thought; + nor turn from Sun and Light to gaze, +At darkling cloisters paved with tombs, + where rot the bones of bygone days: + +“Eat not thy heart,” the Sages said; + “nor mourn the Past, the buried Past;” +Do what thou dost, be strong, be brave; + and, like the Star, nor rest nor haste. + +Pluck the old woman from thy breast: + Be stout in woe, be stark in weal; +Do good for Good is good to do: + Spurn bribe of Heav’en and threat of Hell. + +To seek the True, to glad the heart, + such is of life the HIGHER LAW, +Whose differ’ence is the Man’s degree, + the Man of gold, the Man of straw. + +See not that something in Mankind + that rouses hate or scorn or strife, +Better the worm of Izrâil* + than Death that walks in form of life. + + * The Angel of Death. + +Survey thy kind as One whose wants + in the great Human Whole unite;* +The Homo rising high from earth + to seek the Heav’ens of Life-in-Light; + + * The “Great Man” of the Enochites and the Mormons. + +And hold Humanity one man, + whose universal agony +Still strains and strives to gain the goal, + where agonies shall cease to be. + +Believe in all things; none believe; + judge not nor warp by “Facts” the thought; +See clear, hear clear, tho’ life may seem + Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught. + +Abjure the Why and seek the How: + the God and gods enthroned on high, +Are silent all, are silent still; + nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply. + +The Now, that indivis’ible point + which studs the length of inf’inite line +Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, + the puny all thou callest thine. + +Perchance the law some Giver hath: + Let be! let be! what canst thou know? +A myriad races came and went; + this Sphinx hath seen them come and go. + +Haply the Law that rules the world + allows to man the widest range; +And haply Fate’s a Theist-word, + subject to human chance and change. + +This “I” may find a future Life, + a nobler copy of our own, +Where every riddle shall be ree’d, + where every knowledge shall be known; + +Where ’twill be man’s to see the whole + of what on Earth he sees in part; +Where change shall ne’er surcharge the thought; + nor hope defer’d shall hurt the heart. + +But!—faded flow’er and fallen leaf + no more shall deck the parent tree; +And man once dropt by Tree of Life + what hope of other life has he? + +The shatter’d bowl shall know repair; + the riven lute shall sound once more; +But who shall mend the clay of man, + the stolen breath to man restore? + +The shiver’d clock again shall strike; + the broken reed shall pipe again: +But we, we die, and Death is one, + the doom of brutes, the doom of men. + +Then, if Nirwânâ* round our life + with nothingness, ’tis haply best; +Thy toils and troubles, want and woe + at length have won their guerdon—Rest. + + * Comparative annihilation. + +Cease, Abdû, cease! Thy song is sung, + nor think the gain the singer’s prize; +Till men hold Ignor’ance deadly sin, + till man deserves his title “Wise:”* + + * “Homo sapiens.” + +In Days to come, Days slow to dawn, + when Wisdom deigns to dwell with men, +These echoes of a voice long stilled + haply shall wake responsive strain: + +Wend now thy way with brow serene, + fear not thy humble tale to tell:— +The whispers of the Desert-wind; + the tinkling of the camel’s bell. + +{Hebrew: ShLM} + + + +NOTES + + +NOTE I + + +HÂJÎ ABDÛ, THE MAN + +Hâjî Abdû has been known to me for more years than I care to +record. A native, it is believed, of Darâbghird in the Yezd +Province, he always preferred to style himself El-Hichmakâni, a +facetious “lackab” or surname, meaning “Of No-hall, Nowhere.” He +had travelled far and wide with his eyes open; as appears by his +“couplets.” To a natural facility, a knack of language learning, +he added a store of desultory various reading; scraps of Chinese +and old Egyptian; of Hebrew and Syriac; of Sanskrit and Prakrit; +of Slav, especially Lithuanian; of Latin and Greek, including +Romaic; of Berber, the Nubian dialect, and of Zend and Akkadian, +besides Persian, his mother-tongue, and Arabic, the classic of +the schools. Nor was he ignorant of “the -ologies” and the +triumphs of modern scientific discovery. Briefly, his memory was +well-stored; and he had every talent save that of using his +talents. + +But no one thought that he “woo’d the Muse,” to speak in the +style of the last century. Even his intimates were ignorant of +the fact that he had a skeleton in his cupboard, his Kasîdah or +distichs. He confided to me his secret when we last met in +Western India—I am purposely vague in specifying the place. When +so doing he held in hand the long and hoary honours of his chin +with the points toward me, as if to say with the Island-King: + + There is a touch of Winter in my beard, + A sign the Gods will guard me from imprudence. + +And yet the piercing eye, clear as an onyx, seemed to protest +against the plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest “Shikastah” or +running-hand; and, as I carried it off, the writer declined to +take the trouble of copying out his cacograph. + +We, his old friends, had long addressed Hâjî Abdû by the +sobriquet of _Nabbianâ_ (“our Prophet”); and the reader will see +that the Pilgrim has, or believes he has, a message to deliver. +He evidently aspires to preach a faith of his own; an Eastern +Version of Humanitarianism blended with the sceptical or, as we +now say, the scientific habit of mind. The religion, of which +Fetishism, Hinduism and Heathendom; Judæism, Christianity and +Islamism are mere fractions, may, methinks, be accepted by the +Philosopher: it worships with single-minded devotion the Holy +Cause of Truth, of Truth for its own sake, not for the goods it +may bring; and this belief is equally acceptable to honest +ignorance, and to the highest attainments in nature-study. + +With Confucius, the Hâjî cultivates what Strauss has called the +“stern common-sense of mankind”; while the reign of order is a +paragraph of his “Higher Law.” He traces from its rudest +beginnings the all but absolute universality of some perception +by man, called “Faith”; that _sensus Numinis_ which, by +inheritance or communication, is now universal except in those +who force themselves to oppose it. And he evidently holds this +general consent of mankind to be so far divine that it primarily +discovered for itself, if it did not create, a divinity. He does +not cry with the Christ of Novalis, “Children, you have no +father”; and perhaps he would join Renan in exclaiming, _Un monde +sans Dieu est horrible!_ + +But he recognises the incompatibility of the Infinite with the +Definite; of a Being who loves, who thinks, who hates; of an +_Actus purus_ who is called jealous, wrathful and revengeful, +with an “Eternal that makes for righteousness.” In the presence +of the endless contradictions, which spring from the idea of a +Personal Deity, with the Synthesis, the _Begriff_ of Providence, +our Agnostic takes refuge in the sentiment of an unknown and an +unknowable. He objects to the countless variety of forms assumed +by the perception of a _Causa Causans_ (a misnomer), and to that +intellectual adoption of general propositions, capable of +distinct statement but incapable of proofs, which we term Belief. + +He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, +maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of +equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the +world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own +opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to +be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and +virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed +matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that +many of these jarring families, especially those of the same +blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and +reflection; that in the business of the visible working world +they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas +in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and +sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and +immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong. + +Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all +right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; +will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will +anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted +development; this, too, by a process, not negative and +distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and +constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of +judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt +succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not +limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive +as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal. Meanwhile he +satisfies himself,—the main point. + +Students of metaphysics have of late years defined the abuse of +their science as “the morphology of common opinion.” Contemporary +investigators, they say, have been too much occupied with +introspection; their labors have become merely +physiologico-biographical, and they have greatly neglected the +study of averages. For, says La Rochefoucauld, _Il est plus aisé +de connoître l’homme en général que de connoître un homme en +particulier_; and on so wide a subject all views must be +one-sided. + +But this is not the fashion of Easterns. They have still to treat +great questions _ex analogiâ universi_, instead of _ex analogiâ +hominis_. They must learn the basis of sociology, the philosophic +conviction that mankind should be studied, not as a congeries of +individuals, but as an organic whole. Hence the _Zeitgeist_, or +historical evolution of the collective consciousness of the age, +despises the obsolete opinion that Society, the State, is bound +by the same moral duties as the simple citizen. Hence, too, it +holds that the “spirit of man, being of equal and uniform +substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater +equality and uniformity than is in Truth.” + +Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last +eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in +proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth +of the human race. Hâjî Abdû would account for the tardy and +unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call “pure +truths,” by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a +reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; +rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. +Thus they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined +egotism; and their demoralizing effects become clearer to every +progressive age. + +Hâjî Abdû seeks Truth only, truth as far as man, in the present +phase of his development, is able to comprehend it. He disdains +to associate utility, like Bacon (Nov. Org. I. Aph. 124), the +High Priest of the English Creed, _le gros bon sens_, with the +_lumen siccum ac purum notionum verarum_. He seems to see the +injury inflicted upon the sum of thought by the _â posteriori_ +superstition, the worship of “facts,” and the deification of +synthesis. Lastly, came the reckless way in which Locke “freed +philosophy from the incubus of innate ideas.” Like Luther and the +leaders of the great French Revolution, he broke with the Past; +and he threw overboard the whole cargo of human tradition. The +result has been an immense movement of the mind which we love to +call Progress, when it has often been retrograde; together with a +mighty development of egotism resulting from the pampered +sentiment of personality. + +The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible +future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a day +dream, whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The +condition may appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the +fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual dram-drinking, which, like the +physical, is the pursuit of an ideal happiness. But he is too +wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For +life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind, no +Catholic opinion held _semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus_. The +intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon +the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. +Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may +believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, +therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under +the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals,—the +development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a +system. + +Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which +represent his history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire, +following the pre-historic, to begin with B. C. 5000, and to end +with B. C. 3249. It was the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the +New, and the Low: it contained the Dynasties from I. to X., and +it was the age of the Pyramids, at once simple, solid, and grand. +When the praiser of the Past contends that modern civilization +has improved in nothing upon Homer and Herodotus, he is apt to +forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of learning compared +with the Cave-man and the palæolithic race. And, as the Past has +been, so shall the Future be. + +The Pilgrim’s view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual +dash of Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence, +so often sung by the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the +practical European mind. Even the light Frenchman murmurs,— + + Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête + Je passe—et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, + Je m’en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, + Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux. + +But our Hâjî is not Nihilistic in the “no-nothing” sense of +Hood’s poem, or, as the American phrases it, “There is nothing +new, nothing true, and it don’t signify.” His is a healthy wail +over the shortness, and the miseries of life, because he finds +all created things— + + Measure the world, with “Me” immense. + +He reminds us of St. Augustine (Med. c. 21). “Vita hæc, vita +misera, vita caduca, vita incerta, vita laboriosa, vita immunda, +vita domina malorum, regina superborum, plena miseriis et +erroribus . . . Quam humores tumidant, escæ inflant, jejunia +macerant, joci dissolvunt, tristitiæ consumunt; sollicitudo +coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ inflant et jactant. +Paupertas dejicit, juventus extollit, senectus incurvat, +importunitas frangit, mæror deprimit. Et his malis omnibus mors +furibunda succedit.” But for _furibunda_ the Pilgrim would +perhaps read _benedicta_. + +With Cardinal Newman, one of the glories of our age, Hâjî Abdû +finds “the Light of the world nothing else than the Prophet’s +scroll, full of lamentations and mourning and woe.” I cannot +refrain from quoting all this fine passage, if it be only for the +sake of its lame and shallow deduction. “To consider the world in +its length and breadth, its various history and the many races of +men, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their +conflicts, and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of +worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random +achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of +long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a +superintending design, the blind evolution (!) of what turn out +to be great powers or truths, the progress of things as if from +unreasoning elements, not towards final causes; the greatness and +littleness of man, his far-reaching aims and short duration. the +curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the +defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental +anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading +idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that +condition of the whole race so fearfully yet exactly described in +the Apostle’s words, ‘having no hope and without God in the +world’—_all this is a vision to dizzy and appall, and inflicts +upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely +without human solution_.” Hence that admirable writer postulates +some “terrible original calamity”; and thus the hateful doctrine, +theologically called “original sin,” becomes to him almost as +certain as that “the world exists, and as the existence of God.” +Similarly the “Schedule of Doctrines” of the most liberal +Christian Church insists upon the human depravity, and the +“absolute need of the Holy Spirit’s agency in man’s regeneration +and sanctification.” + +But what have we here? The “original calamity” was either caused +by God or arose without leave of God, in either case degrading +God to man. It is the old dilemma whose horns are the +irreconcilable attributes of goodness and omniscience in the +supposed Creator of sin and suffering. If the one quality be +predicable, the other cannot be predicable of the same subject. +Far better and wiser is the essayist’s poetical explanation now +apparently despised because it was the fashionable doctrine of +the sage bard’s day:— + + All nature is but art . . . + All discord harmony not understood; + All partial evil universal good.—(Essay 289–292.) + +The Pilgrim holds with St. Augustine Absolute Evil is impossible +because it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory +of a beneficent or maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, +contradicted by human reason and the aspect of the world. Evil is +often the active form of good; as F. W. Newman says, “so likewise +is Evil the revelation of Good.” With him all existences are +equal: so long as they possess the Hindu Agasa, Life-fluid or +vital force, it matters not they be,— + + Fungus or oak or worm or man. + +War, he says, brings about countless individual miseries, but it +forwards general progress by raising the stronger upon the ruins +of the weaker races. Earthquakes and cyclones ravage small areas; +but the former builds up earth for man’s habitation, and the +latter renders the atmosphere fit for him to breathe. Hence he +echoes: + + —The universal Cause + Acts not by partial but by general laws. + +Ancillary to the churchman’s immoral view of “original sin” is +the unscientific theory that evil came into the world with Adam +and his seed. Let us ask what was the state of our globe in the +pre-Adamite days, when the tyrants of the Earth, the huge +Saurians and other monsters, lived in perpetual strife, in a +destructiveness of which we have now only the feeblest examples? +What is the actual state of the world of waters, where the only +object of life is death, where the Law of murder is the Law of +Development? + +Some will charge the Hâjî with irreverence, and hold him a +“lieutenant of Satan who sits in the chair of pestilence.” But he +is not intentionally irreverent. Like men of far higher strain, +who deny divinely the divine, he speaks the things that others +think and hide. With the author of “Supernatural Religion,” he +holds that we “gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning +belief in the reality of revelation”; and he looks forward to the +day when “the old tyranny shall have been broken, and when the +anarchy of transition shall have passed away.” But he is an +Eastern. When he repeats the Greek’s “Remember not to believe,” +he means Strive to learn, to know, for right ideas lead to right +actions. Among the couplets not translated for this eclogue is:— + + Of all the safest ways of Life + the safest way is still to doubt, + Men win the future world with Faith, + the present world they win without. + +This is the Spaniard’s:— + + De las cosas mas seguras, mas seguro es duvidar; + +a typically modern sentiment of the Brazen Age of Science +following the Golden Age of Sentiment. But the Pilgrim +continues:— + + The sages say: I tell thee no! + with equal faith all Faiths receive; + None more, none less, for Doubt is Death: + they live the most who most believe. + +Here, again, is an oriental subtlety; a man who believes in +everything equally and generally may be said to believe in +nothing. It is not a simple European view which makes honest +Doubt worth a dozen of the Creeds. And it is in direct opposition +to the noted writer who holds that the man of simple faith is +worth ninety-nine of those who hold only to the egotistic +interests of their own individuality. This dark saying means (if +it mean anything), that the so-called moral faculties of man, +fancy and ideality, must lord it over the perceptive and +reflective powers,—a simple absurdity! It produced a +Turricremata, alias Torquemada, who, shedding floods of honest +tears, caused his victims to be burnt alive; and an Anchieta, the +Thaumaturgist of Brazil, who beheaded a converted heretic lest +the latter by lapse from grace lose his immortal soul. + +But this vein of speculation, which bigots brand as “Doubt, +Denial, and Destruction;” this earnest religious scepticism; this +curious inquiry, “Has the universal tradition any base of fact?”; +this craving after the secrets and mysteries of the future, the +unseen, the unknown, is common to all races and to every age. +Even amongst the Romans, whose model man in Augustus’ day was +Horace, the philosophic, the epicurean, we find Propertius +asking:— + + An ficta in miseras descendit fabula gentes + Et timor haud ultra quam rogus esse potest? + +To return: the Pilgrim’s doctrines upon the subject of conscience +and repentance will startle those who do not follow his train of +thought:— + + Never repent because thy will + with will of Fate be not at one: + Think, an thou please, before thou dost, + but never rue the deed when done. + +This again is his modified fatalism. He would not accept the +boisterous mode of cutting the Gordian-knot proposed by the noble +British Philister—“we know we’re free and there’s an end on it!” +He prefers Lamarck’s, “The will is, in truth, never free.” He +believes man to be a co-ordinate term of Nature’s great +progression; a result of the interaction of organism and +environment, working through cosmic sections of time. He views +the human machine, the pipe of flesh, as depending upon the +physical theory of life. Every corporeal fact and phenomenon +which, like the tree, grows from within or without, is a mere +product of organization; living bodies being subject to the +natural law governing the lifeless and the inorganic. Whilst the +religionist assures us that man is not a mere toy of fate, but a +free agent responsible to himself, with work to do and duties to +perform, the Hâjî, with many modern schools, holds Mind to be a +word describing a special operation of matter; the faculties +generally to be manifestations of movements in the central +nervous system; and every idea, even of the Deity, to be a +certain little pulsation of a certain little mass of animal +pap,—the brain. Thus he would not object to relationship with a +tailless catarrhine anthropoid ape, descended from a monad or a +primal ascidian. + +Hence he virtually says, “I came into the world without having +applied for or having obtained permission; nay, more, without my +leave being asked or given. Here I find myself hand-tied by +conditions, and fettered by laws and circumstances, in making +which my voice had no part. While in the womb I was an automaton; +and death will find me a mere machine. Therefore not I, but the +Law, or if, you please, the Lawgiver, is answerable for all my +actions.” Let me here observe that to the Western mind “Law” +postulates a Lawgiver; not so to the Eastern, and especially to +the Soofi, who holds these ideas to be human, unjustifiably +extended to interpreting the non-human, which men call the +Divine. + +Further he would say, “I am an individual (_qui nil habet +dividui_), a circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at +certain points, but nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending. +Physically I am not identical in all points with other men. +Morally I differ from them: in nothing do the approaches of +knowledge, my five organs of sense (with their Shelleyan +“interpretation”), exactly resemble those of any other being. +_Ergo_, the effect of the world, of life, of natural objects, +will not in my case be the same as with the beings most +resembling me. Thus I claim the right of creating or modifying +for my own and private use the system which most imports me; and +if the reasonable leave be refused to me, I take it without +leave. + +“But my individuality, however all-sufficient for myself, is an +infinitesimal point, an atom subject in all things to the Law of +Storms called Life. I feel, I know that Fate _is_. But I cannot +know what is or what is not fated to befall me. Therefore in the +pursuit of perfection as an individual lies my highest, and +indeed my only duty, the ‘I’ being duly blended with the ‘We.’ I +object to be a ‘selfless man,’ which to me denotes an inverted +moral sense. I am bound to take careful thought concerning the +consequences of every word and deed. When, however, the Future +has become the Past, it would be the merest vanity for me to +grieve or to repent over that which was decreed by universal +Law.” + +The usual objection is that of man’s practice. It says, “This is +well in theory; but how carry it out? For instance, why would you +kill, or give over to be killed, the man compelled by Fate to +kill your father?” Hâjî Abdû replies, “I do as others do, not +because the murder was done by him, but because the murderer +should not be allowed another chance of murdering. He is a tiger +who has tasted blood and who should be shot. I am convinced that +he was a tool in the hands of Fate, but that will not prevent my +taking measures, whether predestined or not, in order to prevent +his being similarly used again.” + +As with repentance so with conscience. Conscience may be a “fear +which is the shadow of justice”; even as pity is the shadow of +love. Though simply a geographical and chronological accident, +which changes with every age of the world, it may deter men from +seeking and securing the prize of successful villainy. But this +incentive to beneficence must be applied to actions that will be +done, not to deeds that have been done. + +The Hâjî, moreover, carefully distinguishes between the working +of fate under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the +former case the contradiction between the foreknowledge of a +Creator, and the free-will of a Creature, is direct, palpable, +absolute. We might as well talk of black-whiteness and of +white-blackness. A hundred generations of divines have never been +able to ree the riddle; a million will fail. The difficulty is +insurmountable to the Theist whose Almighty is perforce +Omniscient, and as Omniscient, Prescient. But it disappears when +we convert the Person into Law, or a settled order of events; +subject, moreover, to certain exceptions fixed and immutable, but +at present unknown to man. The difference is essential as that +between the penal code with its narrow forbiddal, and the broad +commandment which is a guide rather than a task-master. + +Thus, too, the belief in fixed Law, versus arbitrary will, +modifies the Hâjî’s opinions concerning the pursuit of happiness. +Mankind, _das rastlose Ursachenthier_, is born to be on the whole +equally happy and miserable. The highest organisms, the fine +porcelain of our family, enjoy the most and suffer the most: they +have a capacity for rising to the empyrean of pleasure and for +plunging deep into the swift-flowing river of woe and pain. Thus +Dante (Inf. vi. 106):— + + —tua scienza + Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta + Più senta ’l bene, e cosi la doglienza. + +So Buddhism declares that existence in itself implies effort, +pain and sorrow; and, the higher the creature, the more it +suffers. The common clay enjoys little and suffers little. Sum up +the whole and distribute the mass: the result will be an average; +and the beggar is, on the whole, happy as the prince. Why, then, +asks the objector, does man ever strive and struggle to change, +to rise; a struggle which involves the idea of improving his +condition? The Hâjî answers, “Because such is the Law under which +man is born: it may be fierce as famine, cruel as the grave, but +man must obey it with blind obedience.” He does not enter into +the question whether life is worth living, whether man should +elect to be born. Yet his Eastern pessimism, which contrasts so +sharply with the optimism of the West, re-echoes the lines: + + —a life, + With large results so little rife, + Though bearable seems hardly worth + This pomp of words, this pain of birth. + +Life, whatever may be its consequence, is built upon a basis of +sorrow. Literature, the voice of humanity, and the verdict of +mankind proclaim that all existence is a state of sadness. The +“physicians of the Soul” would save her melancholy from +degenerating into despair by doses of steadfast belief in the +presence of God, in the assurance of Immortality, and in visions +of the final victory of good. Were Hâjî Abdû a mere Theologist, +he would add that Sin, not the possibility of revolt, but the +revolt itself against conscience, is the primary form of evil, +because it produces error, moral and intellectual. This man, who +omits to read the Conscience-law, however it may differ from the +Society-law, is guilty of negligence. That man, who obscures the +light of Nature with sophistries, becomes incapable of discerning +his own truths. In both cases error, deliberately adopted, is +succeeded by suffering which, we are told, comes in justice and +benevolence as a warning, a remedy, and a chastisement. + +But the Pilgrim is dissatisfied with the idea that evil +originates in the individual actions of free agents, ourselves +and others. This doctrine fails to account for its +characteristics,—essentiality and universality. That creatures +endowed with the mere possibility of liberty should not always +choose the Good appears natural. But that of the milliards of +human beings who have inhabited the Earth, not one should have +been found invariably to choose Good, proves how insufficient is +the solution. Hence no one believes in the existence of the +complete man under the present state of things. The Hâjî rejects +all popular and mythical explanation by the Fall of “Adam,” the +innate depravity of human nature, and the absolute perfection of +certain Incarnations, which argues their divinity. He can only +wail over the prevalence of evil, assume its foundation to be +error, and purpose to abate it by unrooting that Ignorance which +bears and feeds it. + +His “eschatology,” like that of the Soofis generally, is vague +and shadowy. He may lean towards the doctrine of Marc Aurelius, +“The unripe grape, the ripe and the dried: all things are changes +not into nothing, but into that which is not at present.” This is +one of the _monstruosa opinionum portenta_ mentioned by the XIXth +General Council, alias the First Council of the Vatican. But he +only accepts it with a limitation. He cleaves to the ethical, not +to the intellectual, worship of “Nature,” which moderns define to +be an “unscientific and imaginary synonym for the sum total of +observed phenomena.” Consequently he holds to the “dark and +degrading doctrines of the Materialist,” the “Hylotheist”; in +opposition to the spiritualist, a distinction far more marked in +the West than in the East. Europe draws a hard, dry line between +Spirit and Matter: Asia does not. + +Among us the Idealist objects to the Materialists that the latter +cannot agree upon fundamental points; that they cannot define +what is an atom; that they cannot account for the transformation +of physical action and molecular motion into consciousness; and +_vice versâ_, that they cannot say what matter is; and, lastly, +that Berkeley and his school have proved the existence of spirit +while denying that of matter. + +The Materialists reply that the want of agreement shows only a +study insufficiently advanced; that man cannot describe an atom, +because he is still an infant in science, yet there is no reason +why his mature manhood should not pass through error and +incapacity to truth and knowledge; that consciousness becomes a +property of matter when certain conditions are present; that Hyle +({Greek: hylae}) or Matter may be provisionally defined as +“phenomena with a substructure of their own, transcendental and +eternal, subject to the action, direct or indirect, of the five +senses, whilst its properties present themselves in three states, +the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous.” To casuistical Berkeley +they prefer the common sense of mankind. They ask the idealist +and the spiritualist why they cannot find names for themselves +without borrowing from a “dark and degraded” school; why the +former must call himself after his eye (_idein_); the latter +after his breath (_spiritus_)? Thus the Hâjî twits them with +affixing their own limitations to their own Almighty Power, and, +as Socrates said, with bringing down Heaven to the market-place. + +Modern thought tends more and more to reject crude idealism and +to support the monistic theory, the double aspect, the +transfigured realism. It discusses the Nature of Things in +Themselves. To the question, is there anything outside of us +which corresponds with our sensations? that is to say, is the +whole world simply “I,” they reply that obviously there is a +something else; and that this something else produces the +brain-disturbance which is called sensation. Instinct orders us +to do something; Reason (the balance of faculties) directs; and +the strongest motive controls. Modern Science, by the discovery +of Radiant Matter, a fourth condition, seems to conciliate the +two schools. “La découverte d’un quatrième état de la matière,” +says a Reviewer, “c’est la porte ouverte à l’infini de ses +transformations; c’est l’homme invisible et impalpable de même +possible sans cesser d’être substantiel; c’est le monde des +esprits entrant sans absurdité dans la domaine des hypothèses +scientifiques; c’est la possibilité pour le matérialiste de +croire à la vie d’outre tombe, sans renoncer au substratum +matériel qu’il croit nécessaire au maintien de l’individualité.” + +With Hâjî Abdû the soul is not material, for that would be a +contradiction of terms. He regards it, with many moderns, as a +state of things, not a thing; a convenient word denoting the +sense of personality, of individual identity. In its ghostly +signification he discovers an artificial dogma which could hardly +belong to the brutal savages of the Stone Age. He finds it in the +funereal books of ancient Egypt, whence probably it passed to the +Zendavesta and the Vedas. In the Hebrew Pentateuch, of which part +is still attributed to Moses, it is unknown, or, rather, it is +deliberately ignored by the author or authors. The early +Christians could not agree upon the subject; Origen advocated the +pre-existence of men’s souls, supposing them to have been all +created at one time and successively embodied. Others make Spirit +born with the hour of birth: and so forth. + +But the brain-action or, if you so phrase it, the mind, is not +confined to the reasoning faculties; nor can we afford to ignore +the sentiments, the affections which are, perhaps, the most +potent realities of life. Their loud affirmative voice contrasts +strongly with the titubant accents of the intellect. They seem to +demand a future life, even, a state of rewards and punishments +from the Maker of the world, the _Ortolano Eterno_,[1] the Potter +of the East, the Watchmaker of the West. They protest against the +idea of annihilation. They revolt at the notion of eternal +parting from parents, kinsmen and friends. Yet the dogma of a +future life is by no means catholic and universal. The +Anglo-European race apparently cannot exist without it, and we +have lately heard of the “Aryan Soul-land.” On the other hand +many of the Buddhist and even the Brahman Schools preach Nirwâna +(comparative non-existence) and Parinirwâna (absolute +nothingness). Moreover, the great Turanian family, actually +occupying all Eastern Asia, has ever ignored it; and the +200,000,000 of Chinese Confucians, the mass of the nation, +protest emphatically against the mainstay of the western creeds, +because it “unfits men for the business and duty of life by +fixing their speculations on an unknown world.” And even its +votaries, in all ages, races and faiths, cannot deny that the +next world is a copy, more or less idealized, of the present; and +that it lacks a single particular savouring of originality. It is +in fact a mere continuation; and the continuation is “not +proven.” + + It is most hard to be a man; + +and the Pilgrim’s sole consolation is in self-cultivation, and in +the pleasures of the affections. This sympathy may be an indirect +self-love, a reflection of the light of egotism: still it is so +transferred as to imply a different system of convictions. It +requires a different name: to call benevolence “self-love” is to +make the fruit or flower not only depend upon a root for +development (which is true), but the very root itself (which is +false). And, finally, his ideal is of the highest: his praise is +reserved for: + + —Lives + Lived in obedience to the inner law + Which cannot alter. + + + +[1] The Eternal Gardener: so the old inscription saying:— + + locatus est in +Homo damnatus est in horto + humatus est in + renatus est in + + + +NOTE II + + +A few words concerning the Kasîdah itself. Our Hâjî begins with a +_mise-en-scène_; and takes leave of the Caravan setting out for +Mecca. He sees the “Wolf’s tail” (_Dum-i-gurg_), the {Greek: +lykaugés}, or wolf-gleam, the Diluculum, the Zodiacal dawn-light, +the first faint brushes of white radiating from below the Eastern +horizon. It is accompanied by the morning-breath (_Dam-i-Subh_), +the current of air, almost imperceptible except by the increase +of cold, which Moslem physiologists suppose to be the early +prayer offered by Nature to the First Cause. The Ghoul-i-Biyâbân +(Desert-Demon) is evidently the personification of man’s fears +and of the dangers that surround travelling in the wilds. The +“wold-where-none-save-He (Allah)-can-dwell” is a great and +terrible wilderness (_Dasht-i-lâ-siwâ Hu_); and Allah’s Holy Hill +is Arafât, near Mecca, which the Caravan reaches after passing +through Medina. The first section ends with a sore lament that +the “meetings of this world take place upon the highway of +Separation”; and the original also has:— + + The chill of sorrow numbs my thought: + methinks I hear the passing knell; + As dies across yon thin blue line + the tinkling of the Camel-bell. + +The next section quotes the various aspects under which Life +appeared to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First +comes Hafiz, whose well-known lines are quoted beginning with +Shab-i-târîk o bîm-i-mauj, etc. Hûr is the plural of Ahwar, in +full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are intensely white where +they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our silly +“Houries.” Follows Umar-i-Khayyâm, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or +Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics) spiritualized Moslem +Puritanism. The verses alluded to are:— + + You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse + I made a second marriage in my house, + Divorced old barren Reason from my bed + And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse. + (St. 60, Mr. Fitzgerald’s translation.) + +Here “Wine” is used in its mystic sense of entranced Love for the +Soul of Souls. Umar was hated and feared because he spoke boldly +when his brethren the Soofis dealt in innuendoes. A third +quotation has been trained into a likeness of the “Hymn of Life,” +despite the commonplace and the _navrante vulgarité_ which +characterize the pseudo-Schiller-Anglo-American School. The same +has been done to the words of Isâ (Jesus); for the author, who is +well-read in the Ingîl (Evangel), evidently intended the +allusion. Mansur el-Hallâj (the Cotton-Cleaner) was stoned for +crudely uttering the Pantheistic dogma _Ana ’l Hakk_ (I am the +Truth, _i.e._, God), _wa laysa fi-jubbatî il’ Allah_ (and within +my coat is nought but God). His blood traced on the ground the +first-quoted sentence. Lastly, there is a quotation from +“Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes,” etc.: here {Greek: paîze} +may mean sport; but the context determines the kind of sport +intended. The Zâhid is the literal believer in the letter of the +Law, opposed to the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the +former is called a Zâhiri (outsider), and the latter a Bâtini, an +insider. Moses is quoted because he ignored future rewards and +punishments. As regards the “two Eternities,” Persian and Arab +metaphysicians split Eternity, _i.e._, the negation of Time, into +two halves, _Azal_ (beginninglessness) and _Abad_ (endlessness); +both being mere words, gatherings of letters with a subjective +significance. In English we use “Eternal” (_Æviternus_, age-long, +life-long) as loosely, by applying it to three distinct ideas; +(1) the habitual, in popular parlance; (2) the exempt from +duration; and (3) the everlasting, which embraces all duration. +“Omniscience-Maker” is the old Roman sceptic’s _Homo fecit Deos_. + +The next section is one long wail over the contradictions, the +mysteries, the dark end, the infinite sorrowfulness of all +existence, and the arcanum of grief which, Luther said, underlies +all life. As with Euripides “to live is to die, to die is to +live.” Hâjî Abdû borrows the Hindu idea of the human body. “It is +a mansion,” says Menu, “with bones for its beams and rafters; +with nerves and tendons for cords; with muscles and blood for +cement; with skin for its outer covering; filled with no sweet +perfume, but loaded with impurities; a mansion infested by age +and sorrow; the seat of malady; harassed with pains; haunted with +the quality of darkness (Tama-guna), and incapable of standing.” +The Pot and Potter began with the ancient Egyptians. “Sitting as +a potter at the wheel, Cneph (at Philæ) moulds clay, and gives +the spirit of life to the nostrils of Osiris.” Hence the +Genesitic “breath.” Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being “by +whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is +fabricated.” We find him next in Jeremiah’s “Arise and go down +unto the Potter’s house,” etc. (xviii. 2), and lastly in Romans +(ix. 20), “Hath not the potter power over the clay?” No wonder +that the first Hand who moulded the man-mud is a _lieu commun_ in +Eastern thought. The “waste of agony” is Buddhism, or +Schopenhauerism pure and simple, I have moulded “Earth on Earth” +upon “Seint Ysidre”’s well-known rhymes (A.D. 1440):— + + Erthe out of Erthe is wondirli wrouzt, + Erthe out of Erthe hath gete a dignity of nouzt, + Erthe upon Erthe hath sett all his thouzt + How that Erthe upon Erthe may be his brouzt, etc. + +The “Camel-rider,” suggests Ossian, “yet a few years and the +blast of the desert comes.” The dromedary was chosen as Death’s +vehicle by the Arabs, probably because it bears the Bedouin’s +corpse to the distant burial-ground, where he will lie among his +kith and kin. The end of this section reminds us of:— + + How poor, how rich; how abject, how august, + How complicate, how wonderful is Man! + +The Hâjî now passes to the results of his long and anxious +thoughts: I have purposely twisted his exordium into an echo of +Milton:— + + Till old experience doth attain + To something of prophetic strain. + +He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his +Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:—“En général les +croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes,” (says J. J. +Rousseau, “Confessions,” I. 6): “les bons le font bon: les +méchants le font méchant: les dévots haineux et bilieux, ne +voient que l’enfer, parce qu’ils voudraient damner tout le monde; +les âmes aimantes et douces n’y croient guère; et l’un des +étonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fénélon en +parler dans son Télémaque comme s’il y croyoit tout de bon: mais +j’espère qu’il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque véridique qu’on +soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est évêque.” “Man +depicts himself in his gods,” says Schiller. Hence the +_Naturgott_, the deity of all ancient peoples, and with which +every system began, allowed and approved of actions distinctly +immoral, often diabolical. Belief became moralized only when the +conscience of the community, and with it of the individual items, +began aspiring to its golden age,—Perfection. “Dieu est le +superlatif, dont le positif est l’homme,” says Carl Vogt; +meaning, that the popular idea of a _numen_ is that of a +magnified and non-natural man. + +He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church +converted to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the +deity), on account of the mystery of the “cruelty of things.” +Schopenhauer, Miss Cobbe’s model pessimist, who at the humblest +distance represents Buddha in the world of Western thought, found +the vision of man’s unhappiness, irrespective of his actions, so +overpowering that he concluded the Supreme Will to be malevolent, +“heartless, cowardly, and arrogant.” Confucius, the “Throneless +king, more powerful than all kings,” denied a personal deity. The +Epicurean idea rules the China of the present day. “God is great, +but he lives too far off,” say the Turanian Santâls in Aryan +India; and this is the general language of man in the Turanian +East. + +Hâjî Abdû evidently holds that idolatry begins with a personal +deity. And let us note that the latter is deliberately denied by +the “Thirty-nine Articles.” With them God is “a Being without +Parts (personality) or Passions.” He professes a vague +Agnosticism, and attributes popular faith to the fact that Timor +fecit Deos; “every religion being, without exception, the child +of fear and ignorance” (Carl Vogt). He now speaks as the “Drawer +of the Wine,” the “Ancient Taverner,” the “Old Magus,” the +“Patron of the Mughân or Magians”; all titles applied to the +Soofi as opposed to the Zâhid. His “idols” are the eidola +(illusions) of Bacon, “having their foundations in the very +constitution of man,” and therefore appropriately called +_fabulæ_. That “Nature’s Common Course” is subject to various +interpretation, may be easily proved. Aristotle was as great a +subverter as Alexander; but the quasi-prophetical Stagyrite of +the Dark Ages, who ruled the world till the end of the thirteenth +century, became the “twice execrable” of Martin Luther; and was +finally abolished by Galileo and Newton. Here I have excised two +stanzas. The first is:— + + Theories for truths, fable for fact; + system for science vex the thought + Life’s one great lesson you despise— + to know that all we know is nought. + +This is in fact:— + + Well didst thou say, Athena’s noblest son, + The most we know is nothing can be known. + +The next is:— + + Essence and substance, sequence, cause, + beginning, ending, space and time, + These be the toys of manhood’s mind, + at once ridiculous and sublime. + +He is not the only one who so regards “bothering Time and Space.” +A late definition of the “infinitely great,” viz., that the idea +arises from denying form to any figure; of the “infinitely +small,” from refusing magnitude to any figure, is a fair specimen +of the “dismal science”—metaphysics. + +Another omitted stanza reads:— + + How canst thou, Phenomen! pretend + the Noumenon to mete and span? + Say which were easier probed and proved, + Absolute Being or mortal man? + +One would think that he had read Kant on the “Knowable and the +Unknowable,” or had heard of the Yankee lady, who could +“differentiate between the Finite and the Infinite.” It is a +common-place of the age, in the West as well as the East, that +Science is confined to phenomena, and cannot reach the Noumena, +the things themselves. This is the scholastic realism, the +“residuum of a bad metaphysic,” which deforms the system of +Comte. With all its pretensions, it simply means that there are, +or can be conceived, things in themselves (_i.e._, unrelated to +thought); that we know them to exist; and, at the same time, that +we cannot know what they are. But who dares say “cannot”? Who can +measure man’s work when he shall be as superior to our present +selves as we are to the Cave-man of past time? + +The “Chain of Universe” alludes to the Jain idea that the whole, +consisting of intellectual as well as of natural principles, +existed from all eternity; and that it has been subject to +endless revolutions, whose causes are the inherent powers of +nature, intellectual as well as physical, without the +intervention of a deity. But the Poet ridicules the “non-human,” +_i.e._, the not-ourselves, the negation of ourselves and +consequently a non-existence. Most Easterns confuse the +contradictories, in which one term stands for something, and the +other for nothing (_e.g._, ourselves and not-ourselves), with the +contraries (_e.g._, rich and not-rich = poor), in which both +terms express a something. So the positive-negative “infinite” is +not the complement of “finite,” but its negation. The Western man +derides the process by making “not-horse” the complementary +entity of “horse.” The Pilgrim ends with the favourite Soofi +tenet that the five (six?) senses are the doors of all human +knowledge, and that no form of man, incarnation of the deity, +prophet, apostle or sage, has ever produced an idea not conceived +within his brain by the sole operation of these vulgar material +agents. Evidently he is neither spiritualist nor idealist. + +He then proceeds to show that man depicts himself in his God, and +that “God is the racial expression”; a pedagogue on the Nile, an +abstraction in India, and an astrologer in Chaldæa; where +Abraham, says Berosus (Josephus, Ant. I. 7, § 2, and II. 9, § 2) +was “skilful in the celestial science.” He notices the +Akârana-Zamân (endless Time) of the Guebres, and the working +dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands the God of the Hebrews with +pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of the beautiful creations of +Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral nature to the deity, +included Theology in Physics; and which, like Professor Tyndall, +seemed to consider all matter everywhere alive. We have adopted a +very different Unitarianism; Theology, with its one Creator; +Pantheism with its “one Spirit’s plastic stress”; and Science +with its one Energy. He is hard upon Christianity and its “trinal +God”: I have not softened his expression ({Arabic} = a riddle), +although it may offend readers. There is nothing more enigmatical +to the Moslem mind than Christian Trinitarianism: all other +objections they can get over, not this. Nor is he any lover of +Islamism, which, like Christianity, has its ascetic Hebraism and +its Hellenic hedonism; with the world of thought moving between +these two extremes. The former, defined as predominant or +exclusive care for the practice of right, is represented by +Semitic and Arab influence, Korânic and Hadîsic. The latter, the +religion of humanity, a passion for life and light, for culture +and intelligence; for art, poetry and science, is represented in +Islamism by the fondly and impiously-cherished memory of the old +Guebre kings and heroes, beauties, bards and sages. Hence the +mention of Zâl and his son Rostam; of Cyrus and of the +Jâm-i-Jamshîd, which may be translated either grail (cup) or +mirror: it showed the whole world within its rim; and hence it +was called Jâm-i-Jehân-numâ (universe-exposing). The contemptuous +expressions about the diet of camel’s milk and the meat of the +Susmâr, or green lizard, are evidently quoted from Firdausi’s +famous lines beginning:— + + Arab-râ be-jâî rasîd’est kâr. + +The Hâjî is severe upon those who make of the Deity a +Khwân-i-yaghmâ (or tray of plunder) as the Persians phrase it. He +looks upon the shepherds as men, + + —Who rob the sheep themselves to clothe. + +So Schopenhauer (Leben, etc., by Wilhelm Gewinner) furiously +shows how the “English nation ought to treat that set of +hypocrites, imposters and money-graspers, the clergy, that +annually devours £3,500,000.” + +The Hâjî broadly asserts that there is no Good and no Evil in the +absolute sense as man has made them. Here he is one with Pope:— + + And spite of pride, in erring nature’s spite + One truth is clear—whatever is, is right. + +Unfortunately the converse is just as true:—whatever is, is +wrong. Khizr is the Elijah who puzzled Milman. He represents the +Soofi, the Bâtini, while Musâ (Moses) is the Zâhid, the Zâhiri; +and the strange adventures of the twain, invented by the Jews, +have been appropriated by the Moslems. He derides the Freewill of +man; and, like Diderot, he detects “pantaloon in a prelate, a +satyr in a president, a pig in a priest, an ostrich in a +minister, and a goose in a chief clerk.” He holds to Fortune, the +{Greek: Túxae} of Alcman, which is, {Greek: Eunomías te kaì +Peithoûs adelphà kaì Promatheías thugátaer},—Chance, the sister +of Order and Trust, and the daughter of Forethought. The +Scandinavian Spinners of Fate were Urd (the Was, the Past), +Verdandi (the Becoming, or Present), and Skuld (the To-be, or +Future). He alludes to Plato, who made the Demiourgos create the +worlds by the Logos (the Hebrew Dabar) or Creative Word, through +the Æons. These {Greek: Aìwnes} of the Mystics were spiritual +emanations from {Greek: Aìwn}, lit. a wave of influx, an age, +period, or day; hence the Latin _ævum_, and the Welsh Awen, the +stream of inspiration falling upon a bard. Basilides, the +Egypto-Christian, made the Creator evolve seven Æons or Pteromata +(fulnesses); from two of whom, Wisdom and Power, proceeded the +365 degrees of Angels. All were subject to a Prince of Heaven, +called Abraxas, who was himself under guidance of the chief Æon, +Wisdom. Others represent the first Cause to have produced an Æon +or Pure Intelligence; the first a second, and so forth till the +tenth. This was material enough to affect Hyle, which thereby +assumed a spiritual form. Thus the two incompatibles combined in +the Scheme of Creation. + +He denies the three ages of the Buddhists: the wholly happy; the +happy mixed with misery, and the miserable tinged with +happiness,—the present. The Zoroastrians had four, each of 3,000 +years. In the first, Hormuzd, the good-god, ruled alone; then +Ahriman, the bad-god, began to rule subserviently: in the third +both ruled equally; and in the last, now current, Ahriman has +gained the day. + +Against the popular idea that man has caused the misery of this +world, he cites the ages, when the Old Red Sandstone bred +gigantic cannibal fishes; when the Oolites produced the mighty +reptile tyrants of air, earth, and sea; and when the monsters of +the Eocene and Miocene periods shook the ground with their +ponderous tread. And the world of waters is still a hideous scene +of cruelty, carnage, and destruction. + +He declares Conscience to be a geographical and chronological +accident. Thus he answers the modern philosopher whose soul was +overwhelmed by the marvel and the awe of two things, “the starry +heaven above and the moral law within.” He makes the latter sense +a development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so +travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in +mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other +negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab +with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hâthî (an +elephant), the animal with the Hâth (hand, or trunk). Finally he +alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is +merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle to +be seen from Mushtari, or the planet Jupiter. + +The Hâjî again asks the old, old question, What is Truth? And he +answers himself, after the fashion of the wise Emperor of China, +“Truth hath not an unchanging name.” A modern English writer +says: “I have long been convinced by the experience of my life, +as a pioneer of various heterodoxies, which are rapidly becoming +orthodoxies, that nearly all truth is temperamental to us, or +given in the affections and intuitions; and that discussion and +inquiry do little more than feed temperament.” Our poet seems to +mean that the Perceptions, when they perceive truly, convey +objective truth, which is universal; whereas the Reflectives and +the Sentiments, the working of the moral region, or the middle +lobe of the phrenologists, supplies only subjective truth, +personal and individual. Thus to one man the axiom, _Opes +irritamenta malorum_, represents a distinct fact; while another +holds wealth to be an incentive for good. Evidently both are +right, according to their lights. + +Hâjî Abdû cites Plato and Aristotle, as usual with Eastern +songsters, who delight in Mantik (logic). Here he appears to mean +that a false proposition is as real a proposition as one that is +true. “Faith moves mountains” and “Manet immota fides” are +evidently quotations. He derides the teaching of the “First +Council of the Vatican” (cap. v.), “all the faithful are little +children listening to the voice of Saint Peter,” who is the +“Prince of the Apostles.” He glances at the fancy of certain +modern physicists, “devotion is a definite molecular change in +the convolution of grey pulp.” He notices with contumely the +riddle of which Milton speaks so glibly, where the Dialoguists, + + —reasoned high + Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, + Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute. + +In opposition to the orthodox Mohammedan tenets which make Man’s +soul his percipient Ego, an entity, a unity, the Soofi considers +it a fancy, opposed to body, which is a fact; at most a state of +things, not a thing; a consensus of faculties whereof our frames +are but the phenomena. This is not contrary to Genesitic legend. +The Hebrew Ruach and Arabic Ruh, now perverted to mean soul or +spirit, simply signify wind or breath, the outward and visible +sign of life. Their later schools are even more explicit. “For +that which befalls man befalls beasts; as the one dies, so does +the other; they have all one death; all go unto one place” +(Eccles. iii. 19). But the modern soul, a nothing, a string of +negations, a negative in chief, is thus described in the +Mahâbhârat: “It is indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible: it +is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable: it is invisible and +unalterable.” Hence the modern spiritualism which, rejecting +materialism, can use only material language. + +These, says the Hâjî, are mere sounds. He would not assert “Verba +gignunt verba,” but “Verba gignunt res,” a step further. The idea +is Bacon’s “idola fori, omnium molestissima,” the twofold +illusions of language; either the names of things that have no +existence in fact, or the names of things whose idea is confused +and ill-defined. + +He derives the Soul-idea from the “savage ghost” which Dr. +Johnson defined to be a “kind of shadowy being.” He justly +remarks that it arose (perhaps) in Egypt; and was not invented by +the “People of the Book.” By this term Moslems denote Jews and +Christians who have a recognized revelation, while their +ignorance refuses it to Guebres, Hindus, and Confucians. + +He evidently holds to the doctrine of progress. With him +protoplasm is the Yliastron, the Prima Materies. Our word matter +is derived from the Sanskrit {Sanskrit} (mâtrâ), which, however, +signifies properly the invisible type of visible matter; in +modern language, the substance distinct from the sum of its +physical and chemical properties. Thus, Mâtrâ exists only in +thought, and is not recognizable by the action of the five +senses. His “Chain of Being” reminds us of Prof. Huxley’s +Pedigree of the Horse, Orohippus, Mesohippus, Meiohippus, +Protohippus, Pleiohippus, and Equus. He has evidently heard of +modern biology, or Hylozoism, which holds its quarter-million +species of living beings, animal and vegetable, to be progressive +modifications of one great fundamental unity, an unity of +so-called “mental faculties” as well as of bodily structure. And +this is the jelly-speck. He scoffs at the popular idea that man +is the great central figure round which all things gyrate like +marionettes; in fact, the anthropocentric era of Draper, which, +strange to say, lives by the side of the telescope and the +microscope. As man is of recent origin, and may end at an early +epoch of the macrocosm, so before his birth all things revolved +round nothing, and may continue to do so after his death. + +The Hâjî, who elsewhere denounces “compound ignorance,” holds +that all evil comes from error; and that all knowledge has been +developed by overthrowing error, the ordinary channel of human +thought. He ends this section with a great truth. There are +things which human Reason or Instinct matured, in its undeveloped +state, cannot master; but Reason is a Law to itself. Therefore we +are not bound to believe, or to attempt belief in, any thing +which is contrary or contradictory to Reason. Here he is +diametrically opposed to Rome, who says, “Do not appeal to +History; that is private judgment. Do not appeal to Holy Writ; +that is heresy. Do not appeal to Reason; that is Rationalism.” + +He holds with the Patriarchs of Hebrew Holy Writ, that the +present life is all-sufficient for an intellectual (not a +sentimental) being; and, therefore, that there is no want of a +Heaven or a Hell. With far more contradiction the Western poet +sings:— + + Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed + In one self-place; but when we are in hell, + And where hell is there must we ever be, + And, to be short, when all this world dissolves, + And every creature shall be purified, + All places shall be hell which are not heaven. + +For what want is there of a Hell when all are pure? He enlarges +upon the ancient Buddhist theory, that Happiness and Misery are +equally distributed among men and beasts; some enjoy much and +suffer much; others the reverse. Hence Diderot declares, “Sober +passions produce only the commonplace . . . the man of moderate +passion lives and dies like a brute.” And again we have the half +truth:— + + That the mark of rank in nature + Is capacity for pain. + +The latter implies an equal capacity for pleasure, and thus the +balance is kept. + +Hâjî Abdû then proceeds to show that Faith is an accident of +birth. One of his omitted distichs says:— + + Race makes religion; true! but aye + upon the Maker acts the made, + A finite God, and infinite sin, + in lieu of raising man, degrade. + +In a manner of dialogue he introduces the various races each +fighting to establish its own belief. The Frank (Christian) +abuses the Hindu, who retorts that he is of Mlenchha, mixed or +impure, blood, a term applied to all non-Hindus. The same is done +by Nazarene and Mohammedan; by the Confucian, who believes in +nothing, and by the Soofi, who naturally has the last word. The +association of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph with the Trinity, +in the Roman and Greek Churches, makes many Moslems conclude that +Christians believe not in three but in five Persons. So an +Englishman writes of the early Fathers, “They not only said that +3 = 1, and that 1 = 3: they professed to explain how that curious +arithmetical combination had been brought about. The Indivisible +had been divided, and yet was not divided: it was divisible, and +yet it was indivisible; black was white and white was black; and +yet there were not two colours but one colour; and whoever did +not believe it would be damned.” The Arab quotation runs in the +original:— + + _Ahsanu ’l-Makâni l’ il-Fatâ ’l-Jehannamu_ + The best of places for (the generous) youth is Gehenna. + +Gehenna, alias Jahim, being the fiery place of eternal +punishment. And the second saying, _Al- nâr wa lâ ’l-’Ar_—“Fire +(of Hell) rather than Shame,”—is equally condemned by the +Koranist. The Gustâkhi (insolence) of Fate is the expression of +Umar-i-Khayyam (St. xxx):— + + What, without asking hither hurried _whence?_ + And, without asking _whither_ hurried hence! + Oh many a cup of this forbidden wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence. + +Soofistically, the word means “the coquetry of the beloved one,” +the divinæ particula auræ. And the section ends with Pope’s:— + + He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right. + + + +CONCLUSION + + +Here the Hâjî ends his practical study of mankind. The image of +Destiny playing with men as pieces is a view common amongst +Easterns. His idea of wisdom is once more Pope’s:— + + And all our knowledge is ourselves to know. + (Essay IV. 398.) + +Regret, _i.e._, repentance, was one of the forty-two deadly sins +of the Ancient Egyptians. “Thou shalt not consume thy heart,” +says the Ritual of the Dead, the negative justification of the +soul or ghost (Lepsius “Alteste Texte des Todtenbuchs”). We have +borrowed competitive examination from the Chinese; and, in these +morbid days of weak introspection and retrospection, we might +learn wisdom from the sturdy old Khemites. When he sings “Abjure +the Why and seek the How,” he refers to the old Scholastic +difference of the _Demonstratio propter quid_ (why is a thing?), +as opposed to _Demonstratio quia_ (_i.e._ that a thing is). The +“great Man” shall end with becoming deathless, as Shakespeare +says in his noble sonnet:— + + And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then! + +Like the great Pagans, the Hâjî holds that man was born good, +while the Christian, “tormented by the things divine,” cleaves to +the comforting doctrine of innate sinfulness. Hence the universal +tenet, that man should do good in order to gain by it here or +hereafter; the “enlightened selfishness,” that says, Act well and +get compound interest in a future state. The allusion to the +“Theist-word” apparently means that the votaries of a personal +Deity must believe in the absolute foreknowledge of the +Omniscient in particulars as in generals. The Rule of Law +emancipates man; and its exceptions are the gaps left by his +ignorance. The wail over the fallen flower, etc., reminds us of +the Pulambal (Lamentations) of the Anti-Brahminical writer, +“Pathira-Giriyâr.” The allusion to Mâyâ is from Dâs Kabîr:— + + Mâyâ mare, na man mare, mar mar gayâ, sarîr. + Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone + the flesh. + +Nirwâna, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in +the Supreme, not to be confounded with Pari-nirwâna or absolute +annihilation. In the former also, dying gives birth to a new +being, the embodiment of _karma_ (deeds), good and evil, done in +the countless ages of transmigration. + +Here ends my share of the work. On the whole it has been +considerable. I have omitted, as has been seen, sundry stanzas, +and I have changed the order of others. The text has nowhere been +translated verbatim; in fact, a familiar European turn has been +given to many sentiments which were judged too Oriental. As the +metre adopted by Hâjî Abdû was the Bahr Tawîl (long verse), I +thought it advisable to preserve that peculiarity, and to fringe +it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the original. + +Vive, valeque! + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE KASIDAH OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI *** + +This file should be named 6036-8.txt or 6036-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/6036-8.zip b/6036-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..09651c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/6036-8.zip diff --git a/6036-h.zip b/6036-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf85d1f --- /dev/null +++ b/6036-h.zip diff --git a/6036-h/6036-h.htm b/6036-h/6036-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a208d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/6036-h/6036-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3254 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" /> + <title> + The KasÎdah of HÂjÎ Abdû El-yezdÎ, by Richard Burton + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} + .x-small {font-size: 75%;} + .small {font-size: 85%;} + .large {font-size: 115%;} + .x-large {font-size: 130%;} + .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} + .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} + .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} + .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} + .indent25 { margin-left: 25%;} + .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} + .indent35 { margin-left: 35%;} + .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; + font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; + text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; + border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} + .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} + span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } + pre { font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;} +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi +by Richard F. Burton +(#21 in our series by Richard F. Burton) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi + +Author: Richard F. Burton + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6036] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 23, 2002] +Last Updated: December 18, 2018 + + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: Latin1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE KASIDAH OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI *** + + + + +This eBook was prepared by Robert Sinton from a source supplied by the +Sacred Texts Web site, http://www.sacred-texts.com, thanks to John B. Hare. + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE KASÎDAH OF HÂJÎ ABDÛ EL-YEZDÎ + </h1> + <h2> + By Richard Burton + </h2> + <h3> + Translated And Annotated By Hs Friend And Pupil, F.B. + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> TO THE READER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE KASÎDAH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_NOTE"> NOTES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> NOTE I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> NOTE II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_CONC"> CONCLUSION </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TO THE READER + </h2> + <p> + The Translator has ventured to entitle a “Lay of the Higher Law” the + following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he + has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the + “Higher Culture.” The principles which justify the name are as follows:— + </p> + <p> + The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and + distributed in the world. + </p> + <p> + He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and + sufficient object of human life. + </p> + <p> + He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the “divine gift of + Pity” are man’s highest enjoyments. + </p> + <p> + He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of “Facts, + the idlest of superstitions.” + </p> + <p> + Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially + reconstructive. + </p> + <p> + For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader is + referred to the end of the volume. + </p> + <h3> + F. B. + </h3> + <p> + Vienna, Nov., 1880. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE KASÎDAH + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The hour is nigh; the waning Queen + walks forth to rule the later night; + Crown’d with the sparkle of a Star, + and throned on orb of ashen light: + + The Wolf-tail* sweeps the paling East + to leave a deeper gloom behind, + And Dawn uprears her shining head, + sighing with semblance of a wind: + + * The false dawn. + + The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, + while purpling still the lowlands lie; + And pearly mists, the morning-pride, + soar incense-like to greet the sky. + + The horses neigh, the camels groan, + the torches gleam, the cressets flare; + The town of canvas falls, and man + with din and dint invadeth air: + + The Golden Gates swing right and left; + up springs the Sun with flamy brow; + The dew-cloud melts in gush of light; + brown Earth is bathed in morning-glow. + + Slowly they wind athwart the wild, + and while young Day his anthem swells, + Sad falls upon my yearning ear + the tinkling of the Camel-bells: + + O’er fiery wastes and frozen wold, + o’er horrid hill and gloomy glen, + The home of grisly beast and Ghoul,* + the haunts of wilder, grislier men;— + + * The Demon of the Desert. + + With the brief gladness of the Palms, + that tower and sway o’er seething plain, + Fraught with the thoughts of rustling shade, + and welling spring, and rushing rain; + + With the short solace of the ridge, + by gentle zephyrs played upon, + Whose breezy head and bosky side + front seas of cooly celadon;— + + ’Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, + whose souls shall ever thrill and fill + Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb, + visions of Allah’s Holy Hill.* + + * Arafât, near Mecca. + + But we? Another shift of scene, + another pang to rack the heart; + Why meet we on the bridge of Time + to ’change one greeting and to part? + + We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, + Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? + Man’s fancy-made Omniscience knows, + who made Omniscience nought can know. + + Why must we meet, why must we part, + why must we bear this yoke of MUST, + Without our leave or askt or given, + by tyrant Fate on victim thrust? + + That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, + this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey; + Strange that life’s Registrar should write + this day a day, that day a day! + + Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,— + sad is the very core of me; + All wearies, changes, passes, ends; + alas! the Birthday’s injury! + + Friends of my youth, a last adieu! + haply some day we meet again; + Yet ne’er the self-same men shall meet; + the years shall make us other men: + + The light of morn has grown to noon, + has paled with eve, and now farewell! + Go, vanish from my Life as dies + the tinkling of the Camel’s bell. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In these drear wastes of sea-born land, + these wilds where none may dwell but He, + What visionary Pasts revive, + what process of the Years we see: + + Gazing beyond the thin blue line + that rims the far horizon-ring, + Our sadden’d sight why haunt these ghosts, + whence do these spectral shadows spring? + + What endless questions vex the thought, + of Whence and Whither, When and How? + What fond and foolish strife to read + the Scripture writ on human brow; + + As stand we percht on point of Time, + betwixt the two Eternities, + Whose awful secrets gathering round + with black profound oppress our eyes. + + “This gloomy night, these grisly waves, + these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: + What reck they of our wretched plight + who Safety’s shore so lightly tread?” + + Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,* + whose dream of Heaven ne’er could rise + Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup + and Houris with the white-black eyes; + + * Hâfiz of Shirâz. + + Ah me! my race of threescore years + is short, but long enough to pall + My sense with joyless joys as these, + with Love and Houris, Wine and all. + + Another boasts he would divorce + old barren Reason from his bed, + And wed the Vine-maid in her stead;— + fools who believe a word he said!* + + * Omar-i-Kayyâm, the tent-maker poet of Persia. + + And “‘Dust thou art to dust returning.’ + ne’er was spoke of human soul” + The Soofi cries, ’tis well for him + that hath such gift to ask its goal. + + “And this is all, for this we’re born + to weep a little and to die!” + So sings the shallow bard whose life + still labours at the letter “I.” + + “Ear never heard, Eye never saw + the bliss of those who enter in + My heavenly kingdom,” Isâ said, + who wailed our sorrows and our sin: + + Too much of words or yet too few! + What to thy Godhead easier than + One little glimpse of Paradise + to ope the eyes and ears of man? + + “I am the Truth! I am the Truth!” + we hear the God-drunk gnostic cry + “The microcosm abides in ME; + Eternal Allah’s nought but I!” + + Mansûr* was wise, but wiser they + who smote him with the hurlèd stones; + And, though his blood a witness bore, + no wisdom-might could mend his bones. + + * A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy. + + “Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of life’s + not worth a fillip,” quoth the King; + Methinks the saying saith too much: + the swine would say the selfsame thing! + + Two-footed beasts that browse through life, + by Death to serve as soil design’d, + Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, + and there the proper pleasures find: + + But you of finer, nobler, stuff, + ye, whom to Higher leads the High, + What binds your hearts in common bond + with creatures of the stall and sty? + + “In certain hope of Life-to-come + I journey through this shifting scene” + The Zâhid* snarls and saunters down + his Vale of Tears with confi’dent mien. + + * The “Philister” of “respectable” belief. + + Wiser than Amrân’s Son* art thou, + who ken’st so well the world-to-be, + The Future when the Past is not, + the Present merest dreamery; + + * Moses in the Koran. + + What know’st thou, man, of Life? and yet, + forever twixt the womb, the grave, + Thou pratest of the Coming Life, + of Heav’n and Hell thou fain must rave. + + The world is old and thou art young; + the world is large and thou art small; + Cease, atom of a moment’s span, + To hold thyself an All-in-All! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + III. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Fie, fie! you visionary things, + ye motes that dance in sunny glow, + Who base and build Eternities + on briefest moment here below; + + Who pass through Life liked cagèd birds, + the captives of a despot will; + Still wond’ring How and When and Why, + and Whence and Whither, wond’ring still; + + Still wond’ring how the Marvel came + because two coupling mammals chose + To slake the thirst of fleshly love, + and thus the “Immortal Being” rose; + + Wond’ring the Babe with staring eyes, + perforce compel’d from night to day, + Gript in the giant grasp of Life + like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray; + + Who comes imbecile to the world + ’mid double danger, groans, and tears; + The toy, the sport, the waif and stray + of passions, error, wrath and fears; + + Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, + who kens not Whither bound and When, + Yet such is Allah’s choicest gift, + the blessing dreamt by foolish men; + + Who step by step perforce returns + to couthless youth, wan, white and cold, + Lisping again his broken words + till all the tale be fully told: + + Wond’ring the Babe with quenchèd orbs, + an oldster bow’d by burthening years, + How ’scaped the skiff an hundred storms; + how ’scaped the thread a thousand shears; + + How coming to the Feast unbid, + he found the gorgeous table spread + With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, + with stones that bear the shape of bread: + + How Life was nought but ray of sun + that clove the darkness thick and blind, + The ravings of the reckless storm, + the shrieking of the rav’ening wind; + + How lovely visions ’guiled his sleep, + aye fading with the break of morn, + Till every sweet became a sour, + till every rose became a thorn; + + Till dust and ashes met his eyes + wherever turned their saddened gaze; + The wrecks of joys and hopes and loves, + the rubbish of his wasted days; + + How every high heroic Thought + that longed to breathe empyrean air, + Failed of its feathers, fell to earth, + and perisht of a sheer despair; + + How, dower’d with heritage of brain, + whose might has split the solar ray, + His rest is grossest coarsest earth, + a crown of gold on brow of clay; + + This House whose frame be flesh and bone, + mortar’d with blood and faced with skin, + The home of sickness, dolours, age; + unclean without, impure within: + + Sans ray to cheer its inner gloom, + the chambers haunted by the Ghost, + Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade + stronger than all the heav’nly host. + + This tube, an enigmatic pipe, + whose end was laid before begun, + That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks; + —puzzle, machine, automaton; + + The first of Pots the Potter made + by Chrysorrhoas’ blue-green wave;* + Methinks I see him smile to see + what guerdon to the world he gave! + + * The Abana, River of Damascus. + + How Life is dim, unreal, vain, + like scenes that round the drunkard reel; + How “Being” meaneth not to be; + to see and hear, smell, taste and feel. + + A drop in Ocean’s boundless tide, + unfathom’d waste of agony; + Where millions live their horrid lives + by making other millions die. + + How with a heart that would through love + to Universal Love aspire, + Man woos infernal chance to smite, + as Min’arets draw the Thunder-fire. + + How Earth on Earth builds tow’er and wall, + to crumble at a touch of Time; + How Earth on Earth from Shînar-plain + the heights of Heaven fain would climb. + + How short this Life, how long withal; + how false its weal, how true its woes, + This fever-fit with paroxysms + to mark its opening and its close. + + Ah! gay the day with shine of sun, + and bright the breeze, and blithe the throng + Met on the River-bank to play, + when I was young, when I was young: + + Such general joy could never fade; + and yet the chilling whisper came + One face had paled, one form had failed; + had fled the bank, had swum the stream; + + Still revellers danced, and sang, and trod + the hither bank of Time’s deep tide, + Still one by one they left and fared + to the far misty thither side; + + And now the last hath slipt away + yon drear Death-desert to explore, + And now one Pilgrim worn and lorn + still lingers on the lonely shore. + + Yes, Life in youth-tide standeth still; + in manhood streameth soft and slow; + See, as it nears the ’abysmal goal + how fleet the waters flash and flow! + + And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see + drop like the leaves in windy Fall; + But ours, our own, are ruined worlds, + a globe collapst, last end of all. + + We live our lives with rogues and fools, + dead and alive, alive and dead, + We die ’twixt one who feels the pulse + and one who frets and clouds the head: + + And,—oh, the Pity!—hardly conned + the lesson comes its fatal term; + Fate bids us bundle up our books, + and bear them bod’ily to the worm: + + Hardly we learn to wield the blade + before the wrist grows stiff and old; + Hardly we learn to ply the pen + ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold. + + Hardly we find the path of love, + to sink the self, forget the “I,” + When sad suspicion grips the heart, + when Man, <i>the</i> Man begins to die: + + Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights, + and sight the Pisgah-scene around, + And breathe the breath of heav’enly air, + and hear the Spheres’ harmonious sound; + + When swift the Camel-rider spans + the howling waste, by Kismet sped, + And of his Magic Wand a wave + hurries the quick to join the dead.* + + * Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse. + + How sore the burden, strange the strife; + how full of splendour, wonder, fear; + Life, atom of that Infinite Space + that stretcheth ’twixt the Here and There. + + How Thought is imp’otent to divine + the secret which the gods defend, + The Why of birth and life and death, + that Isis-veil no hand may rend. + + Eternal Morrows make our Day; + our <i>Is</i> is aye <i>to be</i> till when + Night closes in; ’tis all a dream, + and yet we die,—and then and THEN? + + And still the Weaver plies his loom, + whose warp and woof is wretched Man + Weaving th’ unpattern’d dark design, + so dark we doubt it owns a plan. + + Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, + amid the storm of tears and blood, + Man say Thy mercy made what is, + and saw the made and said ’twas good? + + The marvel is that man can smile + dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;- + Better the heedless atomy + that buzzes in the morning beam! + + O the dread pathos of our lives! + how durst thou, Allah, thus to play + With Love, Affection, Friendship, all + that shows the god in mortal clay? + + But ah! what ’vaileth man to mourn; + shall tears bring forth what smiles ne’er brought; + Shall brooding breed a thought of joy? + Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought! + + Silence thine immemorial quest, + contain thy nature’s vain complaint + None heeds, none cares for thee or thine;— + like thee how many came and went? + + Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; + enjoy thy shining hour of sun; + We dance along Death’s icy brink, + but is the dance less full of fun? +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + IV +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + What Truths hath gleaned that Sage consumed + by many a moon that waxt and waned? + What Prophet-strain be his to sing? + What hath his old Experience gained? + + There is no God, no man-made God; + a bigger, stronger, crueller man; + Black phantom of our baby-fears, + ere Thought, the life of Life, began. + + Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old,* + “An Ishwara for one I nill, + Th’ almighty everlasting Good + who cannot ’bate th’ Eternal Ill:” + + * Buddha. + + “Your gods may be, what shows they are?” + hear China’s Perfect Sage declare;* + “And being, what to us be they + who dwell so darkly and so far?” + + * Confucius. + + “All matter hath a birth and death; + ’tis made, unmade and made anew; + “We choose to call the Maker ‘God’:— + such is the Zâhid’s owly view. + + “You changeful finite Creatures strain” + (rejoins the Drawer of the Wine)* + “The dizzy depths of Inf’inite Power + to fathom with your foot of twine”; + + * The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid. + + “Poor idols of man’s heart and head + with the Divine Idea to blend; + “To preach as ‘Nature’s Common Course’ + what any hour may shift or end.” + + “How shall the Shown pretend to ken + aught of the Showman or the Show? + “Why meanly bargain to believe, + which only means thou ne’er canst know? + + “How may the passing Now contain + the standing Now—Eternity?— + “An endless <i>is</i> without a <i>was</i>, + the <i>be</i> and never the <i>to-be?</i> + + “Who made your Maker? If Self-made, + why fare so far to fare the worse + “Sufficeth not a world of worlds, + a self-made chain of universe? + + “Grant an Idea, Primal Cause, + the Causing Cause, why crave for more? + “Why strive its depth and breadth to mete, + to trace its work, its aid to ’implore? + + “Unknown, Incomprehensible, + whate’er you choose to call it, call; + “But leave it vague as airy space, + dark in its darkness mystical. + + “Your childish fears would seek a Sire, + by the non-human God defin’d, + “What your five wits may wot ye weet; + what <i>is</i> you please to dub ‘design’d;’ + + “You bring down Heav’en to vulgar Earth; + your maker like yourselves you make, + “You quake to own a reign of Law, + you pray the Law its laws to break; + + “You pray, but hath your thought e’er weighed + how empty vain the prayer must be, + “That begs a boon already giv’en, + or craves a change of law to see? + + “Say, Man, deep learnèd in the Scheme + that orders mysteries sublime, + “How came it this was Jesus, that + was Judas from the birth of Time? + + “How I the tiger, thou the lamb; + again the Secret, prithee, show + “Who slew the slain, bowman or bolt + or Fate that drave the man, the bow? + + “Man worships self: his God is Man; + the struggling of the mortal mind + “To form its model as ’twould be, + the perfect of itself to find. + + “The God became sage, priest and scribe + where Nilus’ serpent made the vale; + “A gloomy Brahm in glowing Ind, + a neutral something cold and pale: + + “Amid the high Chaldean hills + a moulder of the heavenly spheres; + “On Guebre steppes the Timeless-God + who governs by his dual peers: + + “In Hebrew tents the Lord that led + His leprous slaves to fight and jar; + “Yahveh,* Adon or Elohîm, + the God that smites, the Man of War. + + * Jehovah. + + “The lovely Gods of lib’ertine Greece, + those fair and frail humanities + “Whose homes o’erlook’d the Middle Sea, + where all Earth’s beauty cradled lies, + + “Ne’er left its blessèd bounds, nor sought + the barb’arous climes of barb’arous gods + “Where Odin of the dreary North + o’er hog and sickly mead-cup nods: + + “And when, at length, ‘Great Pan is dead’ + uprose the loud and dol’orous cry + “A glamour wither’d on the ground, + a splendour faded in the sky. + + “Yea, Pan was dead, the Nazar’ene came + and seized his seat beneath the sun, + “The votary of the Riddle-god, + whose one is three and three is one; + + “Whose sadd’ening creed of herited Sin + spilt o’er the world its cold grey spell; + “In every vista showed a grave, + and ’neath the grave the glare of Hell; + + “Till all Life’s Po’esy sinks to prose; + romance to dull Real’ity fades; + “Earth’s flush of gladness pales in gloom + and God again to man degrades. + + “Then the lank Arab foul with sweat, + the drainer of the camel’s dug, + “Gorged with his leek-green lizard’s meat, + clad in his filthy rag and rug, + + “Bore his fierce Allah o’er his sands + and broke, like lava-burst upon + “The realms where reigned pre-Adamite Kings, + where rose the Grand Kayânian throne.* + + * Kayâni—of the race of Cyrus; old Guebre heroes. + + “Who now of ancient Kayomurs, + of Zâl or Rustam cares to sing, + “Whelmed by the tempest of the tribes + that called the Camel-driver King? + + “Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw, + the sceptre of Anûshirwân, + “The holy grail of high Jamshîd, + Afrâsiyab’s hall?—Canst tell me, man? + + “Gone, gone, where I and thou must go, + borne by the winnowing wings of Death, + “The Horror brooding over life, + and nearer brought with every breath: + + “Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes, + they rose and reigned, they fought and fell, + “As swells and swoons across the wold + the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.” +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + V +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There is no Good, there is no Bad; + these be the whims of mortal will: + What works me weal that call I ‘good,’ + what harms and hurts I hold as ‘ill:’ + + They change with place, they shift with race; + and, in the veriest span of Time, + Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown; + all Good was banned as Sin or Crime: + + Like ravelled skeins they cross and twine, + while this with that connects and blends; + And only Khizr* his eye shall see + where one begins, where other ends: + + * Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah. + + What mortal shall consort with Khizr, + when Musâ turned in fear to flee? + What man foresees the flow’er or fruit + whom Fate compels to plant the tree? + + For Man’s Free-will immortal Law, + Anagkê, Kismet, Des’tiny read + That was, that is, that aye shall be, + Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need. + + “Man’s nat’ural state is God’s design;” + such is the silly sage’s theme; + “Man’s primal Age was Age of Gold;” + such is the Poet’s waking dream: + + Delusion, Ign’orance! Long ere Man + drew upon Earth his earliest breath + The world was one contin’uous scene + of anguish, torture, prey and Death; + + Where hideous Theria of the wild + rended their fellows limb by limb; + Where horrid Saurians of the sea + in waves of blood were wont to swim: + + The “fair young Earth” was only fit + to spawn her frightful monster-brood; + Now fiery hot, now icy frore, + now reeking wet with steamy flood. + + Yon glorious Sun, the greater light, + the “Bridegroom” of the royal Lyre, + A flaming, boiling, bursting mine; + a grim black orb of whirling fire: + + That gentle Moon, the lesser light, + the Lover’s lamp, the Swain’s delight, + A ruined world, a globe burnt out, + a corpse upon the road of night. + + What reckt he, say, of Good or Ill + who in the hill-hole made his lair, + The blood-fed rav’ening Beast of prey, + wilder than wildest wolf or bear? + + How long in Man’s pre-Ad’amite days + to feed and swill, to sleep and breed, + Were the Brute-biped’s only life, + a perfect life sans Code or Creed? + + His choicest garb a shaggy fell, + his choicest tool a flake of stone; + His best of orn’aments tattoo’d skin + and holes to hang his bits of bone; + + Who fought for female as for food + when Mays awoke to warm desire; + And such the Lust that grew to Love + when Fancy lent a purer fire. + + Where then “Th’ Eternal nature-law + by God engraved on human heart?” + Behold his simiad sconce and own + the Thing could play no higher part. + + Yet, as long ages rolled, he learnt + from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build + Shelter for sire and dam and brood, + from blast and blaze that hurt and killed; + + And last came Fire; when scrap of stone + cast on the flame that lit his den, + Gave out the shining ore, and made + the Lord of beasts a Lord of men. + + The “moral sense,” your Zâhid-phrase, + is but the gift of latest years; + Conscience was born when man had shed + his fur, his tail, his pointed ears. + + What conscience has the murd’erous Moor, + who slays his guest with felon blow, + Save sorrow he can slay no more, + what prick of pen’itence can he know? + + You cry the “Cruelty of Things” + is myst’ery to your purblind eye, + Which fixed upon a point in space + the general project passes by: + + For see! the Mammoth went his ways, + became a mem’ory and a name; + While the half-reasoner with the hand* + survives his rank and place to claim. + + * The Elephant. + + Earthquake and plague, storm, fight and fray, + portents and curses man must deem + Since he regards his self alone, + nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme; + + The Quake that comes in eyelid’s beat + to ruin, level, ’gulf and kill, + Builds up a world for better use, + to general Good bends special Ill: + + The dreadest sound man’s ear can hear, + the war and rush of stormy Wind + Depures the stuff of human life, + breeds health and strength for humankind: + + What call ye them or Goods or Ills, + ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain, + When realms arise and falls a roof; + a world is won, a man is slain? + + And thus the race of Being runs, + till haply in the time to be + Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari*-men + another falling star shall see: + + * The Planet Jupiter. + + Shall see it fall and fade from sight, + whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,— + Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase + the tinkling of the camel-bell! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VI +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + All Faith is false, all Faith is true: + Truth is the shattered mirror strown + In myriad bits; while each believes + his little bit the whole to own. + + What is the Truth? was askt of yore. + Reply all object Truth is one + As twain of halves aye makes a whole; + the moral Truth for all is none. + + Ye scantly-learned Zâhids learn + from Aflatûn and Aristû,* + While Truth is real like your good: + th’ Untrue, like ill, is real too; + + * Plato and Aristotle. + + As palace mirror’d in the stream, + as vapour mingled with the skies, + So weaves the brain of mortal man + the tangled web of Truth and Lies. + + What see we here? Forms, nothing more! + Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye, + We know not substance; ’mid the shades + shadows ourselves we live and die. + + “Faith mountains move” I hear: I see + the practice of the world unheed + The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast + that serves our vanity to feed. + + “Faith stands unmoved”; and why? Because + man’s silly fancies still remain, + And will remain till wiser man + the day-dreams of his youth disdain. + + “’Tis blessèd to believe”; you say: + The saying may be true enow + And it can add to Life a light:— + only remains to show us how. + + E’en if I could I nould believe + your tales and fables stale and trite, + Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires + the dullèd ear of drowsy wight. + + With God’s foreknowledge man’s free will! + what monster-growth of human brain, + What powers of light shall ever pierce + this puzzle dense with words inane? + + Vainly the heart on Providence calls, + such aid to seek were hardly wise + For man must own the pitiless Law + that sways the globe and sevenfold skies. + + “Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav’en, + come pay the priest that holds the key;” + So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak + the last to enter Heaven,—he. + + Are these the words for men to hear? + yet such the Church’s general tongue, + The horseleech-cry so strong so high + her heav’enward Psalms and Hymns among. + + What? Faith a merit and a claim, + when with the brain ’tis born and bred? + Go, fool, thy foolish way and dip + in holy water burièd dead! + + Yet follow not th’ unwisdom-path, + cleave not to this and that disclaim; + Believe in all that man believes; + here all and naught are both the same. + + But is it so? How may we know? + Haply this Fate, this Law may be + A word, a sound, a breath; at most + the Zâhid’s moonstruck theory. + + Yes Truth may be, but ’tis not Here; + mankind must seek and find it There, + But Where nor I nor you can tell, + nor aught earth-mother ever bare. + + Enough to think that Truth can be: + come sit we where the roses glow, + Indeed he knows not how to know + who knows not also how to ’unknow. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VII +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Man hath no Soul, a state of things, + a no-thing still, a sound, a word + Which so begets substantial thing + that eye shall see what ear hath heard. + + Where was his Soul the savage beast + which in primeval forests strayed, + What shape had it, what dwelling-place, + what part in nature’s plan it played? + + This Soul to ree a riddle made; + who wants the vain duality? + Is not myself enough for me? + what need of “I” within an “I”? + + Words, words that gender things! The soul + is a new-comer on the scene; + Sufficeth not the breath of Life + to work the matter-born machine? + + We know the Gen’esis of the Soul; + we trace the Soul to hour of birth; + We mark its growth as grew mankind + to boast himself sole Lord of Earth: + + The race of Be’ing from dawn of Life + in an unbroken course was run; + What men are pleased to call their Souls + was in the hog and dog begun: + + Life is a ladder infinite-stepped, + that hides its rungs from human eyes; + Planted its foot in chaos-gloom, + its head soars high above the skies: + + No break the chain of Being bears; + all things began in unity; + And lie the links in regular line + though haply none the sequence see. + + The Ghost, embodied natural Dread + of dreary death and foul decay, + Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade + with Hades’ pale and wan array. + + The Soul required a greater Soul, + a Soul of Souls, to rule the host; + Hence spirit-powers and hierarchies, + all gendered by the savage Ghost. + + Not yours, ye Peoples of the Book, + these fairy visions fair and fond, + Got by the gods of Khemi-land* + and faring far the seas beyond! + + * Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi. + + “Th’ immortal mind of mortal man!” + we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry; + Whose mind but means his sum of thought, + an essence of atomic “I.” + + Thought is the work of brain and nerve, + in small-skulled idiot poor and mean; + In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, + and dead when Death lets drop the scene. + + “Tush!” quoth the Zâhid, “well we ken + the teaching of the school abhorr’d + “That maketh man automaton, + mind a secretion, soul a word.” + + “Of molecules and protoplasm + you matter-mongers prompt to prate; + “Of jelly-speck development + and apes that grew to man’s estate.” + + Vain cavil! all that is hath come + either by Mir’acle or by Law;— + Why waste on this your hate and fear, + why waste on that your love and awe? + + Why heap such hatred on a word, + why “Prototype” to type assign, + Why upon matter spirit mass? + wants an appendix your design? + + Is not the highest honour his + who from the worst hath drawn the best; + May not your Maker make the world + from matter, an it suit His hest? + + Nay more, the sordider the stuff + the cunninger the workman’s hand: + Cease, then, your own Almighty Power + to bind, to bound, to understand. + + “Reason and Instinct!” How we love + to play with words that please our pride; + Our noble race’s mean descent + by false forged titles seek to hide! + + For “gift divine” I bid you read + the better work of higher brain, + From Instinct diff’ering in degree + as golden mine from leaden vein. + + Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, + the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue: + Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; + what crosses it can ne’er be true. + + “Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!” + Angels and Fools have equal claim + To do what Nature bids them do, + sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VIII +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There is no Heav’en, there is no Hell; + these be the dreams of baby minds; + Tools of the wily Fetisheer, + to ’fright the fools his cunning blinds. + + Learn from the mighty Spi’rits of old + to set thy foot on Heav’en and Hell; + In Life to find thy hell and heav’en + as thou abuse or use it well. + + So deemed the doughty Jew who dared + by studied silence low to lay + Orcus and Hades, lands of shades, + the gloomy night of human day. + + Hard to the heart is final death: + fain would an Ens not end in Nil; + Love made the senti’ment kindly good: + the Priest perverted all to ill. + + While Reason sternly bids us die, + Love longs for life beyond the grave: + Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears + for Life-to-be shall ever crave. + + Hence came the despot’s darling dream, + a Church to rule and sway the State; + Hence sprang the train of countless griefs + in priestly sway and rule innate. + + For future Life who dares reply? + No witness at the bar have we; + Save what the brother Potsherd tells,— + old tales and novel jugglery. + + Who e’er return’d to teach the Truth, + the things of Heaven and Hell to limn? + And all we hear is only fit + for grandam-talk and nursery-hymn. + + “Have mercy, man!” the Zâhid cries, + “of our best visions rob us not! + “Mankind a future life must have + to balance life’s unequal lot.” + + “Nay,” quoth the Magian, “’tis not so; + I draw my wine for one and all, + “A cup for this, a score for that, + e’en as his measure’s great or small: + + “Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; + to poorest passion he was born; + “Who drains the score must e’er expect + to rue the headache of the morn.” + + Safely he jogs along the way + which ‘Golden Mean’ the sages call; + Who scales the brow of frowning Alp + must face full many a slip and fall. + + Here èxtremes meet, anointed Kings + whose crownèd heads uneasy lie, + Whose cup of joy contains no more + than tramps that on the dunghill die. + + To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred + for dangling from the gallows-tree; + To Saint who spends his holy days + in rapt’urous hope his God to see; + + To all that breathe our upper air + the hands of Dest’iny ever deal, + In fixed and equal parts, their shares + of joy and sorrow, woe and weal. + + “How comes it, then, our span of days + in hunting wealth and fame we spend + “Why strive we (and all humans strive) + for vain and visionary end?” + + Reply: mankind obeys a law + that bids him labour, struggle, strain; + The Sage well knowing its unworth, + the Fool a-dreaming foolish gain. + + And who, ’mid e’en the Fools, but feels + that half the joy is in the race + For wealth and fame and place, nor sighs + when comes success to crown the chase? + + Again: in Hind, Chîn, Franguestân + that accident of birth befell, + Without our choice, our will, our voice: + Faith is an accident as well. + + What to the Hindu saith the Frank: + “Denier of the Laws divine! + “However godly-good thy Life, + Hell is the home for thee and thine.” + + “Go strain the draught before ’tis drunk, + and learn that breathing every breath, + “With every step, with every gest, + something of life thou do’est to death.” + + Replies the Hindu: “Wend thy way + for foul and foolish Mlenchhas fit; + “Your Pariah-par’adise woo and win; + at such dog-Heav’en I laugh and spit.” + + “Cannibals of the Holy Cow! + who make your rav’ening maws the grave + “Of Things with self-same right to live;— + what Fiend the filthy license gave?” + + What to the Moslem cries the Frank? + “A polygamic Theist thou! + “From an imposter-Prophet turn; + Thy stubborn head to Jesus bow.” + + Rejoins the Moslem: “Allah’s one + tho’ with four Moslemahs I wive, + “One-wife-men ye and (damnèd race!) + you split your God to Three and Five.” + + The Buddhist to Confucians thus: + “Like dogs ye live, like dogs ye die; + “Content ye rest with wretched earth; + God, Judgment, Hell ye fain defy.” + + Retorts the Tartar: “Shall I lend + mine only ready-money ‘now,’ + “For vain usurious ‘Then’ like thine, + avaunt, a triple idiot Thou!” + + “With this poor life, with this mean world + I fain complete what in me lies; + “I strive to perfect this my me; + my sole ambition’s to be wise.” + + When doctors differ who decides + amid the milliard-headed throng? + Who save the madman dares to cry: + “’Tis I am right, you all are wrong?” + + “You all are right, you all are wrong,” + we hear the careless Soofi say, + “For each believes his glimm’ering lamp + to be the gorgeous light of day.” + + “Thy faith why false, my faith why true? + ’tis all the work of Thine and Mine, + “The fond and foolish love of self + that makes the Mine excel the Thine.” + + Cease then to mumble rotten bones; + and strive to clothe with flesh and blood + The skel’eton; and to shape a Form + that all shall hail as fair and good. + + “For gen’erous youth,” an Arab saith, + “Jahim’s* the only genial state; + “Give us the fire but not the shame + with the sad, sorry blest to mate.” + + * Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell. + + And if your Heav’en and Hell be true, + and Fate that forced me to be born + Force me to Heav’en or Hell—I go, + and hold Fate’s insolence in scorn. + + I want not this, I want not that, + already sick of Me and Thee; + And if we’re both transform’d and changed, + what then becomes of Thee and Me? + + Enough to think such things may be: + to say they are not or they are + Were folly: leave them all to Fate, + nor wage on shadows useless war. + + Do what thy manhood bids thee do, + from none but self expect applause; + He noblest lives and noblest dies + who makes and keeps his self-made laws. + + All other Life is living Death, + a world where none but Phantoms dwell, + A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, + a tinkling of the camel-bell. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + IX +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How then shall man so order life + that when his tale of years is told, + Like sated guest he wend his way; + how shall his even tenour hold? + + Despite the Writ that stores the skull; + despite the Table and the Pen;* + Maugre the Fate that plays us down, + her board the world, her pieces men? + + * Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny. + + How when the light and glow of life + wax dim in thickly gath’ering gloom, + Shall mortal scoff at sting of Death, + shall scorn the victory of the Tomb? + + One way, two paths, one end the grave. + This runs athwart the flow’ery plain, + That breasts the bush, the steep, the crag, + in sun and wind and snow and rain: + + Who treads the first must look adown, + must deem his life an all in all; + Must see no heights where man may rise, + must sight no depths where man may fall. + + Allah in Adam form must view; + adore the Maker in the made. + Content to bask in Mâyâ’s smile,* + in joys of pain, in lights of shade. + + * Illusion. + + He breaks the Law, he burns the Book, + he sends the Moolah back to school; + Laughs at the beards of Saintly men; + and dubs the Prophet dolt and fool, + + Embraces Cypress’ taper-waist; + cools feet on wavy breast of rill; + Smiles in the Nargis’ love-lorn eyes, + and ’joys the dance of Daffodil; + + Melts in the saffron light of Dawn + to hear the moaning of the Dove; + Delights in Sundown’s purpling hues + when Bulbul woos the Rose’s love. + + Finds mirth and joy in Jamshid-bowl; + toys with the Daughter of the vine; + And bids the beauteous cup-boy say, + “Master I bring thee ruby wine!”* + + * That all the senses, even the ear, may enjoy. + + Sips from the maiden’s lips the dew; + brushes the bloom from virgin brow:— + Such is his fleshly bliss that strives + the Maker through the Made to know. + + I’ve tried them all, I find them all + so same and tame, so drear, so dry; + My gorge ariseth at the thought; + I commune with myself and cry:— + + Better the myriad toils and pains + that make the man to manhood true, + This be the rule that guideth life; + these be the laws for me and you: + + With Ignor’ance wage eternal war, + to know thy self forever strain, + Thine ignorance of thine ignorance is + thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane; + + That blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste; + that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes; + Creates the thing that never was, + the Thing that ever is defies. + + The finite Atom infinite + that forms thy circle’s centre-dot, + So full-sufficient for itself, + for other selves existing not, + + Finds the world mighty as ’tis small; + yet must be fought the unequal fray; + A myriad giants here; and there + a pinch of dust, a clod of clay. + + Yes! maugre all thy dreams of peace + still must the fight unfair be fought; + Where thou mayst learn the noblest lore, + to know that all we know is nought. + + True to thy Nature, to Thy self, + Fame and Disfame nor hope nor fear: + Enough to thee the small still voice + aye thund’ering in thine inner ear. + + From self-approval seek applause: + What ken not men thou kennest, thou! + Spurn ev’ry idol others raise: + Before thine own Ideal bow: + + Be thine own Deus: Make self free, + liberal as the circling air: + Thy Thought to thee an Empire be; + break every prison’ing lock and bar: + + Do thou the Ought to self aye owed; + here all the duties meet and blend, + In widest sense, withouten care + of what began, for what shall end. + + Thus, as thou view the Phantom-forms + which in the misty Past were thine, + To be again the thing thou wast + with honest pride thou may’st decline; + + And, glancing down the range of years, + fear not thy future self to see; + Resign’d to life, to death resign’d, + as though the choice were nought to thee. + + On Thought itself feed not thy thought; + nor turn from Sun and Light to gaze, + At darkling cloisters paved with tombs, + where rot the bones of bygone days: + + “Eat not thy heart,” the Sages said; + “nor mourn the Past, the buried Past;” + Do what thou dost, be strong, be brave; + and, like the Star, nor rest nor haste. + + Pluck the old woman from thy breast: + Be stout in woe, be stark in weal; + Do good for Good is good to do: + Spurn bribe of Heav’en and threat of Hell. + + To seek the True, to glad the heart, + such is of life the HIGHER LAW, + Whose differ’ence is the Man’s degree, + the Man of gold, the Man of straw. + + See not that something in Mankind + that rouses hate or scorn or strife, + Better the worm of Izrâil* + than Death that walks in form of life. + + * The Angel of Death. + + Survey thy kind as One whose wants + in the great Human Whole unite;* + The Homo rising high from earth + to seek the Heav’ens of Life-in-Light; + + * The “Great Man” of the Enochites and the Mormons. + + And hold Humanity one man, + whose universal agony + Still strains and strives to gain the goal, + where agonies shall cease to be. + + Believe in all things; none believe; + judge not nor warp by “Facts” the thought; + See clear, hear clear, tho’ life may seem + Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught. + + Abjure the Why and seek the How: + the God and gods enthroned on high, + Are silent all, are silent still; + nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply. + + The Now, that indivis’ible point + which studs the length of inf’inite line + Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, + the puny all thou callest thine. + + Perchance the law some Giver hath: + Let be! let be! what canst thou know? + A myriad races came and went; + this Sphinx hath seen them come and go. + + Haply the Law that rules the world + allows to man the widest range; + And haply Fate’s a Theist-word, + subject to human chance and change. + + This “I” may find a future Life, + a nobler copy of our own, + Where every riddle shall be ree’d, + where every knowledge shall be known; + + Where ’twill be man’s to see the whole + of what on Earth he sees in part; + Where change shall ne’er surcharge the thought; + nor hope defer’d shall hurt the heart. + + But!—faded flow’er and fallen leaf + no more shall deck the parent tree; + And man once dropt by Tree of Life + what hope of other life has he? + + The shatter’d bowl shall know repair; + the riven lute shall sound once more; + But who shall mend the clay of man, + the stolen breath to man restore? + + The shiver’d clock again shall strike; + the broken reed shall pipe again: + But we, we die, and Death is one, + the doom of brutes, the doom of men. + + Then, if Nirwânâ* round our life + with nothingness, ’tis haply best; + Thy toils and troubles, want and woe + at length have won their guerdon—Rest. + + * Comparative annihilation. + + Cease, Abdû, cease! Thy song is sung, + nor think the gain the singer’s prize; + Till men hold Ignor’ance deadly sin, + till man deserves his title “Wise:”* + + * “Homo sapiens.” + + In Days to come, Days slow to dawn, + when Wisdom deigns to dwell with men, + These echoes of a voice long stilled + haply shall wake responsive strain: + + Wend now thy way with brow serene, + fear not thy humble tale to tell:— + The whispers of the Desert-wind; + the tinkling of the camel’s bell. + + {Hebrew: ShLM} +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NOTES + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NOTE I + </h2> + <h3> + HÂJÎ ABDÛ, THE MAN + </h3> + <p> + Hâjî Abdû has been known to me for more years than I care to record. A + native, it is believed, of Darâbghird in the Yezd Province, he always + preferred to style himself El-Hichmakâni, a facetious “lackab” or surname, + meaning “Of No-hall, Nowhere.” He had travelled far and wide with his eyes + open; as appears by his “couplets.” To a natural facility, a knack of + language learning, he added a store of desultory various reading; scraps + of Chinese and old Egyptian; of Hebrew and Syriac; of Sanskrit and + Prakrit; of Slav, especially Lithuanian; of Latin and Greek, including + Romaic; of Berber, the Nubian dialect, and of Zend and Akkadian, besides + Persian, his mother-tongue, and Arabic, the classic of the schools. Nor + was he ignorant of “the -ologies” and the triumphs of modern scientific + discovery. Briefly, his memory was well-stored; and he had every talent + save that of using his talents. + </p> + <p> + But no one thought that he “woo’d the Muse,” to speak in the style of the + last century. Even his intimates were ignorant of the fact that he had a + skeleton in his cupboard, his Kasîdah or distichs. He confided to me his + secret when we last met in Western India—I am purposely vague in + specifying the place. When so doing he held in hand the long and hoary + honours of his chin with the points toward me, as if to say with the + Island-King: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There is a touch of Winter in my beard, + A sign the Gods will guard me from imprudence. +</pre> + <p> + And yet the piercing eye, clear as an onyx, seemed to protest against the + plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest “Shikastah” or running-hand; and, + as I carried it off, the writer declined to take the trouble of copying + out his cacograph. + </p> + <p> + We, his old friends, had long addressed Hâjî Abdû by the sobriquet of <i>Nabbianâ</i> + (“our Prophet”); and the reader will see that the Pilgrim has, or believes + he has, a message to deliver. He evidently aspires to preach a faith of + his own; an Eastern Version of Humanitarianism blended with the sceptical + or, as we now say, the scientific habit of mind. The religion, of which + Fetishism, Hinduism and Heathendom; Judæism, Christianity and Islamism are + mere fractions, may, methinks, be accepted by the Philosopher: it worships + with single-minded devotion the Holy Cause of Truth, of Truth for its own + sake, not for the goods it may bring; and this belief is equally + acceptable to honest ignorance, and to the highest attainments in + nature-study. + </p> + <p> + With Confucius, the Hâjî cultivates what Strauss has called the “stern + common-sense of mankind”; while the reign of order is a paragraph of his + “Higher Law.” He traces from its rudest beginnings the all but absolute + universality of some perception by man, called “Faith”; that <i>sensus + Numinis</i> which, by inheritance or communication, is now universal + except in those who force themselves to oppose it. And he evidently holds + this general consent of mankind to be so far divine that it primarily + discovered for itself, if it did not create, a divinity. He does not cry + with the Christ of Novalis, “Children, you have no father”; and perhaps he + would join Renan in exclaiming, <i>Un monde sans Dieu est horrible!</i> + </p> + <p> + But he recognises the incompatibility of the Infinite with the Definite; + of a Being who loves, who thinks, who hates; of an <i>Actus purus</i> who + is called jealous, wrathful and revengeful, with an “Eternal that makes + for righteousness.” In the presence of the endless contradictions, which + spring from the idea of a Personal Deity, with the Synthesis, the <i>Begriff</i> + of Providence, our Agnostic takes refuge in the sentiment of an unknown + and an unknowable. He objects to the countless variety of forms assumed by + the perception of a <i>Causa Causans</i> (a misnomer), and to that + intellectual adoption of general propositions, capable of distinct + statement but incapable of proofs, which we term Belief. + </p> + <p> + He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, + maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal + ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of + finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly + of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose + violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of + the disputed matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him + that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, + are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that + in the business of the visible working world they are confessedly by no + means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, + not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to + be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong. + </p> + <p> + Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and + all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds; + will account for the present, and will anticipate the future with a + continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too, by a process, not + negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and + constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of judgment; but I + may say that it would be singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system + would be all-comprehensive, because not limited by space, time, or race; + its principle would be extensive as Matter itself, and, consequently, + eternal. Meanwhile he satisfies himself,—the main point. + </p> + <p> + Students of metaphysics have of late years defined the abuse of their + science as “the morphology of common opinion.” Contemporary investigators, + they say, have been too much occupied with introspection; their labors + have become merely physiologico-biographical, and they have greatly + neglected the study of averages. For, says La Rochefoucauld, <i>Il est + plus aisé de connoître l’homme en général que de connoître un homme en + particulier</i>; and on so wide a subject all views must be one-sided. + </p> + <p> + But this is not the fashion of Easterns. They have still to treat great + questions <i>ex analogiâ universi</i>, instead of <i>ex analogiâ hominis</i>. + They must learn the basis of sociology, the philosophic conviction that + mankind should be studied, not as a congeries of individuals, but as an + organic whole. Hence the <i>Zeitgeist</i>, or historical evolution of the + collective consciousness of the age, despises the obsolete opinion that + Society, the State, is bound by the same moral duties as the simple + citizen. Hence, too, it holds that the “spirit of man, being of equal and + uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater + equality and uniformity than is in Truth.” + </p> + <p> + Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen + and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they + embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. Hâjî Abdû + would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their + votaries call “pure truths,” by the innate imperfections of the same. Both + propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; + rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. Thus + they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined egotism; and + their demoralizing effects become clearer to every progressive age. + </p> + <p> + Hâjî Abdû seeks Truth only, truth as far as man, in the present phase of + his development, is able to comprehend it. He disdains to associate + utility, like Bacon (Nov. Org. I. Aph. 124), the High Priest of the + English Creed, <i>le gros bon sens</i>, with the <i>lumen siccum ac purum + notionum verarum</i>. He seems to see the injury inflicted upon the sum of + thought by the <i>â posteriori</i> superstition, the worship of “facts,” + and the deification of synthesis. Lastly, came the reckless way in which + Locke “freed philosophy from the incubus of innate ideas.” Like Luther and + the leaders of the great French Revolution, he broke with the Past; and he + threw overboard the whole cargo of human tradition. The result has been an + immense movement of the mind which we love to call Progress, when it has + often been retrograde; together with a mighty development of egotism + resulting from the pampered sentiment of personality. + </p> + <p> + The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible future + state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a day dream, whose + revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may appear + humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual + dram-drinking, which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an ideal + happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of + another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind, + no Catholic opinion held <i>semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus</i>. The + intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon the + subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. Even the + instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are + taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive + mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events, leads to the + highest of goals,—the development of Humanity. With him suspension of + judgment is a system. + </p> + <p> + Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which represent his + history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire, following the + pre-historic, to begin with B. C. 5000, and to end with B. C. 3249. It was + the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the New, and the Low: it contained the + Dynasties from I. to X., and it was the age of the Pyramids, at once + simple, solid, and grand. When the praiser of the Past contends that + modern civilization has improved in nothing upon Homer and Herodotus, he + is apt to forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of learning compared + with the Cave-man and the palæolithic race. And, as the Past has been, so + shall the Future be. + </p> + <p> + The Pilgrim’s view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual dash of + Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence, so often sung by + the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the practical European mind. + Even the light Frenchman murmurs,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête + Je passe—et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, + Je m’en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, + Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux. +</pre> + <p> + But our Hâjî is not Nihilistic in the “no-nothing” sense of Hood’s poem, + or, as the American phrases it, “There is nothing new, nothing true, and + it don’t signify.” His is a healthy wail over the shortness, and the + miseries of life, because he finds all created things— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Measure the world, with “Me” immense. +</pre> + <p> + He reminds us of St. Augustine (Med. c. 21). “Vita hæc, vita misera, vita + caduca, vita incerta, vita laboriosa, vita immunda, vita domina malorum, + regina superborum, plena miseriis et erroribus . . . Quam humores + tumidant, escæ inflant, jejunia macerant, joci dissolvunt, tristitiæ + consumunt; sollicitudo coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ inflant et + jactant. Paupertas dejicit, juventus extollit, senectus incurvat, + importunitas frangit, mæror deprimit. Et his malis omnibus mors furibunda + succedit.” But for <i>furibunda</i> the Pilgrim would perhaps read <i>benedicta</i>. + </p> + <p> + With Cardinal Newman, one of the glories of our age, Hâjî Abdû finds “the + Light of the world nothing else than the Prophet’s scroll, full of + lamentations and mourning and woe.” I cannot refrain from quoting all this + fine passage, if it be only for the sake of its lame and shallow + deduction. “To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various + history and the many races of men, their starts, their fortunes, their + mutual alienation, their conflicts, and then their ways, habits, + governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, + their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of + long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending + design, the blind evolution (!) of what turn out to be great powers or + truths, the progress of things as if from unreasoning elements, not + towards final causes; the greatness and littleness of man, his + far-reaching aims and short duration. the curtain hung over his futurity, + the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, + physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the + pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, + that condition of the whole race so fearfully yet exactly described in the + Apostle’s words, ‘having no hope and without God in the world’—<i>all this + is a vision to dizzy and appall, and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a + profound mystery which is absolutely without human solution</i>.” Hence + that admirable writer postulates some “terrible original calamity”; and + thus the hateful doctrine, theologically called “original sin,” becomes to + him almost as certain as that “the world exists, and as the existence of + God.” Similarly the “Schedule of Doctrines” of the most liberal Christian + Church insists upon the human depravity, and the “absolute need of the + Holy Spirit’s agency in man’s regeneration and sanctification.” + </p> + <p> + But what have we here? The “original calamity” was either caused by God or + arose without leave of God, in either case degrading God to man. It is the + old dilemma whose horns are the irreconcilable attributes of goodness and + omniscience in the supposed Creator of sin and suffering. If the one + quality be predicable, the other cannot be predicable of the same subject. + Far better and wiser is the essayist’s poetical explanation now apparently + despised because it was the fashionable doctrine of the sage bard’s day:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + All nature is but art . . . + All discord harmony not understood; + All partial evil universal good.—(Essay 289–292.) +</pre> + <p> + The Pilgrim holds with St. Augustine Absolute Evil is impossible because + it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory of a beneficent + or maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, contradicted by human + reason and the aspect of the world. Evil is often the active form of good; + as F. W. Newman says, “so likewise is Evil the revelation of Good.” With + him all existences are equal: so long as they possess the Hindu Agasa, + Life-fluid or vital force, it matters not they be,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Fungus or oak or worm or man. +</pre> + <p> + War, he says, brings about countless individual miseries, but it forwards + general progress by raising the stronger upon the ruins of the weaker + races. Earthquakes and cyclones ravage small areas; but the former builds + up earth for man’s habitation, and the latter renders the atmosphere fit + for him to breathe. Hence he echoes: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —The universal Cause + Acts not by partial but by general laws. +</pre> + <p> + Ancillary to the churchman’s immoral view of “original sin” is the + unscientific theory that evil came into the world with Adam and his seed. + Let us ask what was the state of our globe in the pre-Adamite days, when + the tyrants of the Earth, the huge Saurians and other monsters, lived in + perpetual strife, in a destructiveness of which we have now only the + feeblest examples? What is the actual state of the world of waters, where + the only object of life is death, where the Law of murder is the Law of + Development? + </p> + <p> + Some will charge the Hâjî with irreverence, and hold him a “lieutenant of + Satan who sits in the chair of pestilence.” But he is not intentionally + irreverent. Like men of far higher strain, who deny divinely the divine, + he speaks the things that others think and hide. With the author of + “Supernatural Religion,” he holds that we “gain infinitely more than we + lose in abandoning belief in the reality of revelation”; and he looks + forward to the day when “the old tyranny shall have been broken, and when + the anarchy of transition shall have passed away.” But he is an Eastern. + When he repeats the Greek’s “Remember not to believe,” he means Strive to + learn, to know, for right ideas lead to right actions. Among the couplets + not translated for this eclogue is:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Of all the safest ways of Life + the safest way is still to doubt, + Men win the future world with Faith, + the present world they win without. +</pre> + <p> + This is the Spaniard’s:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + De las cosas mas seguras, mas seguro es duvidar; +</pre> + <p> + a typically modern sentiment of the Brazen Age of Science following the + Golden Age of Sentiment. But the Pilgrim continues:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The sages say: I tell thee no! + with equal faith all Faiths receive; + None more, none less, for Doubt is Death: + they live the most who most believe. +</pre> + <p> + Here, again, is an oriental subtlety; a man who believes in everything + equally and generally may be said to believe in nothing. It is not a + simple European view which makes honest Doubt worth a dozen of the Creeds. + And it is in direct opposition to the noted writer who holds that the man + of simple faith is worth ninety-nine of those who hold only to the + egotistic interests of their own individuality. This dark saying means (if + it mean anything), that the so-called moral faculties of man, fancy and + ideality, must lord it over the perceptive and reflective powers,—a simple + absurdity! It produced a Turricremata, alias Torquemada, who, shedding + floods of honest tears, caused his victims to be burnt alive; and an + Anchieta, the Thaumaturgist of Brazil, who beheaded a converted heretic + lest the latter by lapse from grace lose his immortal soul. + </p> + <p> + But this vein of speculation, which bigots brand as “Doubt, Denial, and + Destruction;” this earnest religious scepticism; this curious inquiry, + “Has the universal tradition any base of fact?”; this craving after the + secrets and mysteries of the future, the unseen, the unknown, is common to + all races and to every age. Even amongst the Romans, whose model man in + Augustus’ day was Horace, the philosophic, the epicurean, we find + Propertius asking:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + An ficta in miseras descendit fabula gentes + Et timor haud ultra quam rogus esse potest? +</pre> + <p> + To return: the Pilgrim’s doctrines upon the subject of conscience and + repentance will startle those who do not follow his train of thought:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Never repent because thy will + with will of Fate be not at one: + Think, an thou please, before thou dost, + but never rue the deed when done. +</pre> + <p> + This again is his modified fatalism. He would not accept the boisterous + mode of cutting the Gordian-knot proposed by the noble British + Philister—“we know we’re free and there’s an end on it!” He prefers + Lamarck’s, “The will is, in truth, never free.” He believes man to be a + co-ordinate term of Nature’s great progression; a result of the + interaction of organism and environment, working through cosmic sections + of time. He views the human machine, the pipe of flesh, as depending upon + the physical theory of life. Every corporeal fact and phenomenon which, + like the tree, grows from within or without, is a mere product of + organization; living bodies being subject to the natural law governing the + lifeless and the inorganic. Whilst the religionist assures us that man is + not a mere toy of fate, but a free agent responsible to himself, with work + to do and duties to perform, the Hâjî, with many modern schools, holds + Mind to be a word describing a special operation of matter; the faculties + generally to be manifestations of movements in the central nervous system; + and every idea, even of the Deity, to be a certain little pulsation of a + certain little mass of animal pap,—the brain. Thus he would not object to + relationship with a tailless catarrhine anthropoid ape, descended from a + monad or a primal ascidian. + </p> + <p> + Hence he virtually says, “I came into the world without having applied for + or having obtained permission; nay, more, without my leave being asked or + given. Here I find myself hand-tied by conditions, and fettered by laws + and circumstances, in making which my voice had no part. While in the womb + I was an automaton; and death will find me a mere machine. Therefore not + I, but the Law, or if, you please, the Lawgiver, is answerable for all my + actions.” Let me here observe that to the Western mind “Law” postulates a + Lawgiver; not so to the Eastern, and especially to the Soofi, who holds + these ideas to be human, unjustifiably extended to interpreting the + non-human, which men call the Divine. + </p> + <p> + Further he would say, “I am an individual (<i>qui nil habet dividui</i>), + a circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at certain points, but + nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending. Physically I am not identical in + all points with other men. Morally I differ from them: in nothing do the + approaches of knowledge, my five organs of sense (with their Shelleyan + “interpretation”), exactly resemble those of any other being. <i>Ergo</i>, + the effect of the world, of life, of natural objects, will not in my case + be the same as with the beings most resembling me. Thus I claim the right + of creating or modifying for my own and private use the system which most + imports me; and if the reasonable leave be refused to me, I take it + without leave. + </p> + <p> + “But my individuality, however all-sufficient for myself, is an + infinitesimal point, an atom subject in all things to the Law of Storms + called Life. I feel, I know that Fate <i>is</i>. But I cannot know what is + or what is not fated to befall me. Therefore in the pursuit of perfection + as an individual lies my highest, and indeed my only duty, the ‘I’ being + duly blended with the ‘We.’ I object to be a ‘selfless man,’ which to me + denotes an inverted moral sense. I am bound to take careful thought + concerning the consequences of every word and deed. When, however, the + Future has become the Past, it would be the merest vanity for me to grieve + or to repent over that which was decreed by universal Law.” + </p> + <p> + The usual objection is that of man’s practice. It says, “This is well in + theory; but how carry it out? For instance, why would you kill, or give + over to be killed, the man compelled by Fate to kill your father?” Hâjî + Abdû replies, “I do as others do, not because the murder was done by him, + but because the murderer should not be allowed another chance of + murdering. He is a tiger who has tasted blood and who should be shot. I am + convinced that he was a tool in the hands of Fate, but that will not + prevent my taking measures, whether predestined or not, in order to + prevent his being similarly used again.” + </p> + <p> + As with repentance so with conscience. Conscience may be a “fear which is + the shadow of justice”; even as pity is the shadow of love. Though simply + a geographical and chronological accident, which changes with every age of + the world, it may deter men from seeking and securing the prize of + successful villainy. But this incentive to beneficence must be applied to + actions that will be done, not to deeds that have been done. + </p> + <p> + The Hâjî, moreover, carefully distinguishes between the working of fate + under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the former case the + contradiction between the foreknowledge of a Creator, and the free-will of + a Creature, is direct, palpable, absolute. We might as well talk of + black-whiteness and of white-blackness. A hundred generations of divines + have never been able to ree the riddle; a million will fail. The + difficulty is insurmountable to the Theist whose Almighty is perforce + Omniscient, and as Omniscient, Prescient. But it disappears when we + convert the Person into Law, or a settled order of events; subject, + moreover, to certain exceptions fixed and immutable, but at present + unknown to man. The difference is essential as that between the penal code + with its narrow forbiddal, and the broad commandment which is a guide + rather than a task-master. + </p> + <p> + Thus, too, the belief in fixed Law, versus arbitrary will, modifies the + Hâjî’s opinions concerning the pursuit of happiness. Mankind, <i>das + rastlose Ursachenthier</i>, is born to be on the whole equally happy and + miserable. The highest organisms, the fine porcelain of our family, enjoy + the most and suffer the most: they have a capacity for rising to the + empyrean of pleasure and for plunging deep into the swift-flowing river of + woe and pain. Thus Dante (Inf. vi. 106):— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —tua scienza + Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta + Più senta ’l bene, e cosi la doglienza. +</pre> + <p> + So Buddhism declares that existence in itself implies effort, pain and + sorrow; and, the higher the creature, the more it suffers. The common clay + enjoys little and suffers little. Sum up the whole and distribute the + mass: the result will be an average; and the beggar is, on the whole, + happy as the prince. Why, then, asks the objector, does man ever strive + and struggle to change, to rise; a struggle which involves the idea of + improving his condition? The Hâjî answers, “Because such is the Law under + which man is born: it may be fierce as famine, cruel as the grave, but man + must obey it with blind obedience.” He does not enter into the question + whether life is worth living, whether man should elect to be born. Yet his + Eastern pessimism, which contrasts so sharply with the optimism of the + West, re-echoes the lines: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —a life, + With large results so little rife, + Though bearable seems hardly worth + This pomp of words, this pain of birth. +</pre> + <p> + Life, whatever may be its consequence, is built upon a basis of sorrow. + Literature, the voice of humanity, and the verdict of mankind proclaim + that all existence is a state of sadness. The “physicians of the Soul” + would save her melancholy from degenerating into despair by doses of + steadfast belief in the presence of God, in the assurance of Immortality, + and in visions of the final victory of good. Were Hâjî Abdû a mere + Theologist, he would add that Sin, not the possibility of revolt, but the + revolt itself against conscience, is the primary form of evil, because it + produces error, moral and intellectual. This man, who omits to read the + Conscience-law, however it may differ from the Society-law, is guilty of + negligence. That man, who obscures the light of Nature with sophistries, + becomes incapable of discerning his own truths. In both cases error, + deliberately adopted, is succeeded by suffering which, we are told, comes + in justice and benevolence as a warning, a remedy, and a chastisement. + </p> + <p> + But the Pilgrim is dissatisfied with the idea that evil originates in the + individual actions of free agents, ourselves and others. This doctrine + fails to account for its characteristics,—essentiality and universality. + That creatures endowed with the mere possibility of liberty should not + always choose the Good appears natural. But that of the milliards of human + beings who have inhabited the Earth, not one should have been found + invariably to choose Good, proves how insufficient is the solution. Hence + no one believes in the existence of the complete man under the present + state of things. The Hâjî rejects all popular and mythical explanation by + the Fall of “Adam,” the innate depravity of human nature, and the absolute + perfection of certain Incarnations, which argues their divinity. He can + only wail over the prevalence of evil, assume its foundation to be error, + and purpose to abate it by unrooting that Ignorance which bears and feeds + it. + </p> + <p> + His “eschatology,” like that of the Soofis generally, is vague and + shadowy. He may lean towards the doctrine of Marc Aurelius, “The unripe + grape, the ripe and the dried: all things are changes not into nothing, + but into that which is not at present.” This is one of the <i>monstruosa + opinionum portenta</i> mentioned by the XIXth General Council, alias the + First Council of the Vatican. But he only accepts it with a limitation. He + cleaves to the ethical, not to the intellectual, worship of “Nature,” + which moderns define to be an “unscientific and imaginary synonym for the + sum total of observed phenomena.” Consequently he holds to the “dark and + degrading doctrines of the Materialist,” the “Hylotheist”; in opposition + to the spiritualist, a distinction far more marked in the West than in the + East. Europe draws a hard, dry line between Spirit and Matter: Asia does + not. + </p> + <p> + Among us the Idealist objects to the Materialists that the latter cannot + agree upon fundamental points; that they cannot define what is an atom; + that they cannot account for the transformation of physical action and + molecular motion into consciousness; and <i>vice versâ</i>, that they + cannot say what matter is; and, lastly, that Berkeley and his school have + proved the existence of spirit while denying that of matter. + </p> + <p> + The Materialists reply that the want of agreement shows only a study + insufficiently advanced; that man cannot describe an atom, because he is + still an infant in science, yet there is no reason why his mature manhood + should not pass through error and incapacity to truth and knowledge; that + consciousness becomes a property of matter when certain conditions are + present; that Hyle ({Greek: hylae}) or Matter may be provisionally defined + as “phenomena with a substructure of their own, transcendental and + eternal, subject to the action, direct or indirect, of the five senses, + whilst its properties present themselves in three states, the solid, the + liquid, and the gaseous.” To casuistical Berkeley they prefer the common + sense of mankind. They ask the idealist and the spiritualist why they + cannot find names for themselves without borrowing from a “dark and + degraded” school; why the former must call himself after his eye (<i>idein</i>); + the latter after his breath (<i>spiritus</i>)? Thus the Hâjî twits them + with affixing their own limitations to their own Almighty Power, and, as + Socrates said, with bringing down Heaven to the market-place. + </p> + <p> + Modern thought tends more and more to reject crude idealism and to support + the monistic theory, the double aspect, the transfigured realism. It + discusses the Nature of Things in Themselves. To the question, is there + anything outside of us which corresponds with our sensations? that is to + say, is the whole world simply “I,” they reply that obviously there is a + something else; and that this something else produces the + brain-disturbance which is called sensation. Instinct orders us to do + something; Reason (the balance of faculties) directs; and the strongest + motive controls. Modern Science, by the discovery of Radiant Matter, a + fourth condition, seems to conciliate the two schools. “La découverte d’un + quatrième état de la matière,” says a Reviewer, “c’est la porte ouverte à + l’infini de ses transformations; c’est l’homme invisible et impalpable de + même possible sans cesser d’être substantiel; c’est le monde des esprits + entrant sans absurdité dans la domaine des hypothèses scientifiques; c’est + la possibilité pour le matérialiste de croire à la vie d’outre tombe, sans + renoncer au substratum matériel qu’il croit nécessaire au maintien de + l’individualité.” + </p> + <p> + With Hâjî Abdû the soul is not material, for that would be a contradiction + of terms. He regards it, with many moderns, as a state of things, not a + thing; a convenient word denoting the sense of personality, of individual + identity. In its ghostly signification he discovers an artificial dogma + which could hardly belong to the brutal savages of the Stone Age. He finds + it in the funereal books of ancient Egypt, whence probably it passed to + the Zendavesta and the Vedas. In the Hebrew Pentateuch, of which part is + still attributed to Moses, it is unknown, or, rather, it is deliberately + ignored by the author or authors. The early Christians could not agree + upon the subject; Origen advocated the pre-existence of men’s souls, + supposing them to have been all created at one time and successively + embodied. Others make Spirit born with the hour of birth: and so forth. + </p> + <p> + But the brain-action or, if you so phrase it, the mind, is not confined to + the reasoning faculties; nor can we afford to ignore the sentiments, the + affections which are, perhaps, the most potent realities of life. Their + loud affirmative voice contrasts strongly with the titubant accents of the + intellect. They seem to demand a future life, even, a state of rewards and + punishments from the Maker of the world, the <i>Ortolano Eterno</i>, + the Potter of the East, the Watchmaker of the West. They protest against + the idea of annihilation. They revolt at the notion of eternal parting + from parents, kinsmen and friends. Yet the dogma of a future life is by no + means catholic and universal. The Anglo-European race apparently cannot + exist without it, and we have lately heard of the “Aryan Soul-land.” On + the other hand many of the Buddhist and even the Brahman Schools preach + Nirwâna (comparative non-existence) and Parinirwâna (absolute + nothingness). Moreover, the great Turanian family, actually occupying all + Eastern Asia, has ever ignored it; and the 200,000,000 of Chinese + Confucians, the mass of the nation, protest emphatically against the + mainstay of the western creeds, because it “unfits men for the business + and duty of life by fixing their speculations on an unknown world.” And + even its votaries, in all ages, races and faiths, cannot deny that the + next world is a copy, more or less idealized, of the present; and that it + lacks a single particular savouring of originality. It is in fact a mere + continuation; and the continuation is “not proven.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + It is most hard to be a man; +</pre> + <p> + and the Pilgrim’s sole consolation is in self-cultivation, and in the + pleasures of the affections. This sympathy may be an indirect self-love, a + reflection of the light of egotism: still it is so transferred as to imply + a different system of convictions. It requires a different name: to call + benevolence “self-love” is to make the fruit or flower not only depend + upon a root for development (which is true), but the very root itself + (which is false). And, finally, his ideal is of the highest: his praise is + reserved for: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —Lives + Lived in obedience to the inner law + Which cannot alter. +</pre> + <p> + The Eternal Gardener: so the old inscription saying:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + locatus est in +Homo damnatus est in horto + humatus est in + renatus est in +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NOTE II + </h2> + <p> + A few words concerning the Kasîdah itself. Our Hâjî begins with a <i>mise-en-scène</i>; + and takes leave of the Caravan setting out for Mecca. He sees the “Wolf’s + tail” (<i>Dum-i-gurg</i>), the {Greek: lykaugés}, or wolf-gleam, the + Diluculum, the Zodiacal dawn-light, the first faint brushes of white + radiating from below the Eastern horizon. It is accompanied by the + morning-breath (<i>Dam-i-Subh</i>), the current of air, almost + imperceptible except by the increase of cold, which Moslem physiologists + suppose to be the early prayer offered by Nature to the First Cause. The + Ghoul-i-Biyâbân (Desert-Demon) is evidently the personification of man’s + fears and of the dangers that surround travelling in the wilds. The + “wold-where-none-save-He (Allah)-can-dwell” is a great and terrible + wilderness (<i>Dasht-i-lâ-siwâ Hu</i>); and Allah’s Holy Hill is Arafât, + near Mecca, which the Caravan reaches after passing through Medina. The + first section ends with a sore lament that the “meetings of this world + take place upon the highway of Separation”; and the original also has:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The chill of sorrow numbs my thought: + methinks I hear the passing knell; + As dies across yon thin blue line + the tinkling of the Camel-bell. +</pre> + <p> + The next section quotes the various aspects under which Life appeared to + the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose + well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-târîk o bîm-i-mauj, etc. + Hûr is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are + intensely white where they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our + silly “Houries.” Follows Umar-i-Khayyâm, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or + Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics) spiritualized Moslem Puritanism. + The verses alluded to are:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse + I made a second marriage in my house, + Divorced old barren Reason from my bed + And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse. + (St. 60, Mr. Fitzgerald’s translation.) +</pre> + <p> + Here “Wine” is used in its mystic sense of entranced Love for the Soul of + Souls. Umar was hated and feared because he spoke boldly when his brethren + the Soofis dealt in innuendoes. A third quotation has been trained into a + likeness of the “Hymn of Life,” despite the commonplace and the <i>navrante + vulgarité</i> which characterize the pseudo-Schiller-Anglo-American + School. The same has been done to the words of Isâ (Jesus); for the + author, who is well-read in the Ingîl (Evangel), evidently intended the + allusion. Mansur el-Hallâj (the Cotton-Cleaner) was stoned for crudely + uttering the Pantheistic dogma <i>Ana ’l Hakk</i> (I am the Truth, <i>i.e.</i>, + God), <i>wa laysa fi-jubbatî il’ Allah</i> (and within my coat is nought + but God). His blood traced on the ground the first-quoted sentence. + Lastly, there is a quotation from “Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes,” + etc.: here {Greek: paîze} may mean sport; but the context determines the + kind of sport intended. The Zâhid is the literal believer in the letter of + the Law, opposed to the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the + former is called a Zâhiri (outsider), and the latter a Bâtini, an insider. + Moses is quoted because he ignored future rewards and punishments. As + regards the “two Eternities,” Persian and Arab metaphysicians split + Eternity, <i>i.e.</i>, the negation of Time, into two halves, <i>Azal</i> + (beginninglessness) and <i>Abad</i> (endlessness); both being mere words, + gatherings of letters with a subjective significance. In English we use + “Eternal” (<i>Æviternus</i>, age-long, life-long) as loosely, by applying + it to three distinct ideas; (1) the habitual, in popular parlance; (2) the + exempt from duration; and (3) the everlasting, which embraces all + duration. “Omniscience-Maker” is the old Roman sceptic’s <i>Homo fecit + Deos</i>. + </p> + <p> + The next section is one long wail over the contradictions, the mysteries, + the dark end, the infinite sorrowfulness of all existence, and the arcanum + of grief which, Luther said, underlies all life. As with Euripides “to + live is to die, to die is to live.” Hâjî Abdû borrows the Hindu idea of + the human body. “It is a mansion,” says Menu, “with bones for its beams + and rafters; with nerves and tendons for cords; with muscles and blood for + cement; with skin for its outer covering; filled with no sweet perfume, + but loaded with impurities; a mansion infested by age and sorrow; the seat + of malady; harassed with pains; haunted with the quality of darkness + (Tama-guna), and incapable of standing.” The Pot and Potter began with the + ancient Egyptians. “Sitting as a potter at the wheel, Cneph (at Philæ) + moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life to the nostrils of Osiris.” + Hence the Genesitic “breath.” Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being “by + whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated.” + We find him next in Jeremiah’s “Arise and go down unto the Potter’s + house,” etc. (xviii. 2), and lastly in Romans (ix. 20), “Hath not the + potter power over the clay?” No wonder that the first Hand who moulded the + man-mud is a <i>lieu commun</i> in Eastern thought. The “waste of agony” + is Buddhism, or Schopenhauerism pure and simple, I have moulded “Earth on + Earth” upon “Seint Ysidre”’s well-known rhymes (A.D. 1440):— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Erthe out of Erthe is wondirli wrouzt, + Erthe out of Erthe hath gete a dignity of nouzt, + Erthe upon Erthe hath sett all his thouzt + How that Erthe upon Erthe may be his brouzt, etc. +</pre> + <p> + The “Camel-rider,” suggests Ossian, “yet a few years and the blast of the + desert comes.” The dromedary was chosen as Death’s vehicle by the Arabs, + probably because it bears the Bedouin’s corpse to the distant + burial-ground, where he will lie among his kith and kin. The end of this + section reminds us of:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How poor, how rich; how abject, how august, + How complicate, how wonderful is Man! +</pre> + <p> + The Hâjî now passes to the results of his long and anxious thoughts: I + have purposely twisted his exordium into an echo of Milton:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Till old experience doth attain + To something of prophetic strain. +</pre> + <p> + He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his Creator. + Here he is at one with modern thought:—“En général les croyants font le + Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes,” (says J. J. Rousseau, “Confessions,” I. + 6): “les bons le font bon: les méchants le font méchant: les dévots + haineux et bilieux, ne voient que l’enfer, parce qu’ils voudraient damner + tout le monde; les âmes aimantes et douces n’y croient guère; et l’un des + étonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fénélon en parler + dans son Télémaque comme s’il y croyoit tout de bon: mais j’espère qu’il + mentoit alors; car enfin quelque véridique qu’on soit, il faut bien mentir + quelquefois quand on est évêque.” “Man depicts himself in his gods,” says + Schiller. Hence the <i>Naturgott</i>, the deity of all ancient peoples, + and with which every system began, allowed and approved of actions + distinctly immoral, often diabolical. Belief became moralized only when + the conscience of the community, and with it of the individual items, + began aspiring to its golden age,—Perfection. “Dieu est le superlatif, + dont le positif est l’homme,” says Carl Vogt; meaning, that the popular + idea of a <i>numen</i> is that of a magnified and non-natural man. + </p> + <p> + He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church converted + to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the deity), on account of + the mystery of the “cruelty of things.” Schopenhauer, Miss Cobbe’s model + pessimist, who at the humblest distance represents Buddha in the world of + Western thought, found the vision of man’s unhappiness, irrespective of + his actions, so overpowering that he concluded the Supreme Will to be + malevolent, “heartless, cowardly, and arrogant.” Confucius, the + “Throneless king, more powerful than all kings,” denied a personal deity. + The Epicurean idea rules the China of the present day. “God is great, but + he lives too far off,” say the Turanian Santâls in Aryan India; and this + is the general language of man in the Turanian East. + </p> + <p> + Hâjî Abdû evidently holds that idolatry begins with a personal deity. And + let us note that the latter is deliberately denied by the “Thirty-nine + Articles.” With them God is “a Being without Parts (personality) or + Passions.” He professes a vague Agnosticism, and attributes popular faith + to the fact that Timor fecit Deos; “every religion being, without + exception, the child of fear and ignorance” (Carl Vogt). He now speaks as + the “Drawer of the Wine,” the “Ancient Taverner,” the “Old Magus,” the + “Patron of the Mughân or Magians”; all titles applied to the Soofi as + opposed to the Zâhid. His “idols” are the eidola (illusions) of Bacon, + “having their foundations in the very constitution of man,” and therefore + appropriately called <i>fabulæ</i>. That “Nature’s Common Course” is + subject to various interpretation, may be easily proved. Aristotle was as + great a subverter as Alexander; but the quasi-prophetical Stagyrite of the + Dark Ages, who ruled the world till the end of the thirteenth century, + became the “twice execrable” of Martin Luther; and was finally abolished + by Galileo and Newton. Here I have excised two stanzas. The first is:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Theories for truths, fable for fact; + system for science vex the thought + Life’s one great lesson you despise— + to know that all we know is nought. +</pre> + <p> + This is in fact:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Well didst thou say, Athena’s noblest son, + The most we know is nothing can be known. +</pre> + <p> + The next is:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Essence and substance, sequence, cause, + beginning, ending, space and time, + These be the toys of manhood’s mind, + at once ridiculous and sublime. +</pre> + <p> + He is not the only one who so regards “bothering Time and Space.” A late + definition of the “infinitely great,” viz., that the idea arises from + denying form to any figure; of the “infinitely small,” from refusing + magnitude to any figure, is a fair specimen of the “dismal + science”—metaphysics. + </p> + <p> + Another omitted stanza reads:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How canst thou, Phenomen! pretend + the Noumenon to mete and span? + Say which were easier probed and proved, + Absolute Being or mortal man? +</pre> + <p> + One would think that he had read Kant on the “Knowable and the + Unknowable,” or had heard of the Yankee lady, who could “differentiate + between the Finite and the Infinite.” It is a common-place of the age, in + the West as well as the East, that Science is confined to phenomena, and + cannot reach the Noumena, the things themselves. This is the scholastic + realism, the “residuum of a bad metaphysic,” which deforms the system of + Comte. With all its pretensions, it simply means that there are, or can be + conceived, things in themselves (<i>i.e.</i>, unrelated to thought); that + we know them to exist; and, at the same time, that we cannot know what + they are. But who dares say “cannot”? Who can measure man’s work when he + shall be as superior to our present selves as we are to the Cave-man of + past time? + </p> + <p> + The “Chain of Universe” alludes to the Jain idea that the whole, + consisting of intellectual as well as of natural principles, existed from + all eternity; and that it has been subject to endless revolutions, whose + causes are the inherent powers of nature, intellectual as well as + physical, without the intervention of a deity. But the Poet ridicules the + “non-human,” <i>i.e.</i>, the not-ourselves, the negation of ourselves and + consequently a non-existence. Most Easterns confuse the contradictories, + in which one term stands for something, and the other for nothing (<i>e.g.</i>, + ourselves and not-ourselves), with the contraries (<i>e.g.</i>, rich and + not-rich = poor), in which both terms express a something. So the + positive-negative “infinite” is not the complement of “finite,” but its + negation. The Western man derides the process by making “not-horse” the + complementary entity of “horse.” The Pilgrim ends with the favourite Soofi + tenet that the five (six?) senses are the doors of all human knowledge, + and that no form of man, incarnation of the deity, prophet, apostle or + sage, has ever produced an idea not conceived within his brain by the sole + operation of these vulgar material agents. Evidently he is neither + spiritualist nor idealist. + </p> + <p> + He then proceeds to show that man depicts himself in his God, and that + “God is the racial expression”; a pedagogue on the Nile, an abstraction in + India, and an astrologer in Chaldæa; where Abraham, says Berosus + (Josephus, Ant. I. 7, § 2, and II. 9, § 2) was “skilful in the celestial + science.” He notices the Akârana-Zamân (endless Time) of the Guebres, and + the working dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands the God of the Hebrews + with pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of the beautiful creations of + Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral nature to the deity, included + Theology in Physics; and which, like Professor Tyndall, seemed to consider + all matter everywhere alive. We have adopted a very different + Unitarianism; Theology, with its one Creator; Pantheism with its “one + Spirit’s plastic stress”; and Science with its one Energy. He is hard upon + Christianity and its “trinal God”: I have not softened his expression + ({Arabic} = a riddle), although it may offend readers. There is nothing + more enigmatical to the Moslem mind than Christian Trinitarianism: all + other objections they can get over, not this. Nor is he any lover of + Islamism, which, like Christianity, has its ascetic Hebraism and its + Hellenic hedonism; with the world of thought moving between these two + extremes. The former, defined as predominant or exclusive care for the + practice of right, is represented by Semitic and Arab influence, Korânic + and Hadîsic. The latter, the religion of humanity, a passion for life and + light, for culture and intelligence; for art, poetry and science, is + represented in Islamism by the fondly and impiously-cherished memory of + the old Guebre kings and heroes, beauties, bards and sages. Hence the + mention of Zâl and his son Rostam; of Cyrus and of the Jâm-i-Jamshîd, + which may be translated either grail (cup) or mirror: it showed the whole + world within its rim; and hence it was called Jâm-i-Jehân-numâ + (universe-exposing). The contemptuous expressions about the diet of + camel’s milk and the meat of the Susmâr, or green lizard, are evidently + quoted from Firdausi’s famous lines beginning:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Arab-râ be-jâî rasîd’est kâr. +</pre> + <p> + The Hâjî is severe upon those who make of the Deity a Khwân-i-yaghmâ (or + tray of plunder) as the Persians phrase it. He looks upon the shepherds as + men, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —Who rob the sheep themselves to clothe. +</pre> + <p> + So Schopenhauer (Leben, etc., by Wilhelm Gewinner) furiously shows how the + “English nation ought to treat that set of hypocrites, imposters and + money-graspers, the clergy, that annually devours £3,500,000.” + </p> + <p> + The Hâjî broadly asserts that there is no Good and no Evil in the absolute + sense as man has made them. Here he is one with Pope:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And spite of pride, in erring nature’s spite + One truth is clear—whatever is, is right. +</pre> + <p> + Unfortunately the converse is just as true:—whatever is, is wrong. Khizr + is the Elijah who puzzled Milman. He represents the Soofi, the Bâtini, + while Musâ (Moses) is the Zâhid, the Zâhiri; and the strange adventures of + the twain, invented by the Jews, have been appropriated by the Moslems. He + derides the Freewill of man; and, like Diderot, he detects “pantaloon in a + prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in a priest, an ostrich in a + minister, and a goose in a chief clerk.” He holds to Fortune, the {Greek: + Túxae} of Alcman, which is, {Greek: Eunomías te kaì Peithoûs adelphà kaì + Promatheías thugátaer},—Chance, the sister of Order and Trust, and the + daughter of Forethought. The Scandinavian Spinners of Fate were Urd (the + Was, the Past), Verdandi (the Becoming, or Present), and Skuld (the To-be, + or Future). He alludes to Plato, who made the Demiourgos create the worlds + by the Logos (the Hebrew Dabar) or Creative Word, through the Æons. These + {Greek: Aìwnes} of the Mystics were spiritual emanations from {Greek: + Aìwn}, lit. a wave of influx, an age, period, or day; hence the Latin <i>ævum</i>, + and the Welsh Awen, the stream of inspiration falling upon a bard. + Basilides, the Egypto-Christian, made the Creator evolve seven Æons or + Pteromata (fulnesses); from two of whom, Wisdom and Power, proceeded the + 365 degrees of Angels. All were subject to a Prince of Heaven, called + Abraxas, who was himself under guidance of the chief Æon, Wisdom. Others + represent the first Cause to have produced an Æon or Pure Intelligence; + the first a second, and so forth till the tenth. This was material enough + to affect Hyle, which thereby assumed a spiritual form. Thus the two + incompatibles combined in the Scheme of Creation. + </p> + <p> + He denies the three ages of the Buddhists: the wholly happy; the happy + mixed with misery, and the miserable tinged with happiness,—the present. + The Zoroastrians had four, each of 3,000 years. In the first, Hormuzd, the + good-god, ruled alone; then Ahriman, the bad-god, began to rule + subserviently: in the third both ruled equally; and in the last, now + current, Ahriman has gained the day. + </p> + <p> + Against the popular idea that man has caused the misery of this world, he + cites the ages, when the Old Red Sandstone bred gigantic cannibal fishes; + when the Oolites produced the mighty reptile tyrants of air, earth, and + sea; and when the monsters of the Eocene and Miocene periods shook the + ground with their ponderous tread. And the world of waters is still a + hideous scene of cruelty, carnage, and destruction. + </p> + <p> + He declares Conscience to be a geographical and chronological accident. + Thus he answers the modern philosopher whose soul was overwhelmed by the + marvel and the awe of two things, “the starry heaven above and the moral + law within.” He makes the latter sense a development of the gregarious and + social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the + last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other + negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the + other. He translates literally the Indian word Hâthî (an elephant), the + animal with the Hâth (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of + active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of + the Pole, and the spectacle to be seen from Mushtari, or the planet + Jupiter. + </p> + <p> + The Hâjî again asks the old, old question, What is Truth? And he answers + himself, after the fashion of the wise Emperor of China, “Truth hath not + an unchanging name.” A modern English writer says: “I have long been + convinced by the experience of my life, as a pioneer of various + heterodoxies, which are rapidly becoming orthodoxies, that nearly all + truth is temperamental to us, or given in the affections and intuitions; + and that discussion and inquiry do little more than feed temperament.” Our + poet seems to mean that the Perceptions, when they perceive truly, convey + objective truth, which is universal; whereas the Reflectives and the + Sentiments, the working of the moral region, or the middle lobe of the + phrenologists, supplies only subjective truth, personal and individual. + Thus to one man the axiom, <i>Opes irritamenta malorum</i>, represents a + distinct fact; while another holds wealth to be an incentive for good. + Evidently both are right, according to their lights. + </p> + <p> + Hâjî Abdû cites Plato and Aristotle, as usual with Eastern songsters, who + delight in Mantik (logic). Here he appears to mean that a false + proposition is as real a proposition as one that is true. “Faith moves + mountains” and “Manet immota fides” are evidently quotations. He derides + the teaching of the “First Council of the Vatican” (cap. v.), “all the + faithful are little children listening to the voice of Saint Peter,” who + is the “Prince of the Apostles.” He glances at the fancy of certain modern + physicists, “devotion is a definite molecular change in the convolution of + grey pulp.” He notices with contumely the riddle of which Milton speaks so + glibly, where the Dialoguists, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —reasoned high + Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, + Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute. +</pre> + <p> + In opposition to the orthodox Mohammedan tenets which make Man’s soul his + percipient Ego, an entity, a unity, the Soofi considers it a fancy, + opposed to body, which is a fact; at most a state of things, not a thing; + a consensus of faculties whereof our frames are but the phenomena. This is + not contrary to Genesitic legend. The Hebrew Ruach and Arabic Ruh, now + perverted to mean soul or spirit, simply signify wind or breath, the + outward and visible sign of life. Their later schools are even more + explicit. “For that which befalls man befalls beasts; as the one dies, so + does the other; they have all one death; all go unto one place” (Eccles. + iii. 19). But the modern soul, a nothing, a string of negations, a + negative in chief, is thus described in the Mahâbhârat: “It is + indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible: it is eternal, universal, + permanent, immovable: it is invisible and unalterable.” Hence the modern + spiritualism which, rejecting materialism, can use only material language. + </p> + <p> + These, says the Hâjî, are mere sounds. He would not assert “Verba gignunt + verba,” but “Verba gignunt res,” a step further. The idea is Bacon’s + “idola fori, omnium molestissima,” the twofold illusions of language; + either the names of things that have no existence in fact, or the names of + things whose idea is confused and ill-defined. + </p> + <p> + He derives the Soul-idea from the “savage ghost” which Dr. Johnson defined + to be a “kind of shadowy being.” He justly remarks that it arose (perhaps) + in Egypt; and was not invented by the “People of the Book.” By this term + Moslems denote Jews and Christians who have a recognized revelation, while + their ignorance refuses it to Guebres, Hindus, and Confucians. + </p> + <p> + He evidently holds to the doctrine of progress. With him protoplasm is the + Yliastron, the Prima Materies. Our word matter is derived from the + Sanskrit {Sanskrit} (mâtrâ), which, however, signifies properly the + invisible type of visible matter; in modern language, the substance + distinct from the sum of its physical and chemical properties. Thus, Mâtrâ + exists only in thought, and is not recognizable by the action of the five + senses. His “Chain of Being” reminds us of Prof. Huxley’s Pedigree of the + Horse, Orohippus, Mesohippus, Meiohippus, Protohippus, Pleiohippus, and + Equus. He has evidently heard of modern biology, or Hylozoism, which holds + its quarter-million species of living beings, animal and vegetable, to be + progressive modifications of one great fundamental unity, an unity of + so-called “mental faculties” as well as of bodily structure. And this is + the jelly-speck. He scoffs at the popular idea that man is the great + central figure round which all things gyrate like marionettes; in fact, + the anthropocentric era of Draper, which, strange to say, lives by the + side of the telescope and the microscope. As man is of recent origin, and + may end at an early epoch of the macrocosm, so before his birth all things + revolved round nothing, and may continue to do so after his death. + </p> + <p> + The Hâjî, who elsewhere denounces “compound ignorance,” holds that all + evil comes from error; and that all knowledge has been developed by + overthrowing error, the ordinary channel of human thought. He ends this + section with a great truth. There are things which human Reason or + Instinct matured, in its undeveloped state, cannot master; but Reason is a + Law to itself. Therefore we are not bound to believe, or to attempt belief + in, any thing which is contrary or contradictory to Reason. Here he is + diametrically opposed to Rome, who says, “Do not appeal to History; that + is private judgment. Do not appeal to Holy Writ; that is heresy. Do not + appeal to Reason; that is Rationalism.” + </p> + <p> + He holds with the Patriarchs of Hebrew Holy Writ, that the present life is + all-sufficient for an intellectual (not a sentimental) being; and, + therefore, that there is no want of a Heaven or a Hell. With far more + contradiction the Western poet sings:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed + In one self-place; but when we are in hell, + And where hell is there must we ever be, + And, to be short, when all this world dissolves, + And every creature shall be purified, + All places shall be hell which are not heaven. +</pre> + <p> + For what want is there of a Hell when all are pure? He enlarges upon the + ancient Buddhist theory, that Happiness and Misery are equally distributed + among men and beasts; some enjoy much and suffer much; others the reverse. + Hence Diderot declares, “Sober passions produce only the commonplace . . . + the man of moderate passion lives and dies like a brute.” And again we + have the half truth:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + That the mark of rank in nature + Is capacity for pain. +</pre> + <p> + The latter implies an equal capacity for pleasure, and thus the balance is + kept. + </p> + <p> + Hâjî Abdû then proceeds to show that Faith is an accident of birth. One of + his omitted distichs says:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Race makes religion; true! but aye + upon the Maker acts the made, + A finite God, and infinite sin, + in lieu of raising man, degrade. +</pre> + <p> + In a manner of dialogue he introduces the various races each fighting to + establish its own belief. The Frank (Christian) abuses the Hindu, who + retorts that he is of Mlenchha, mixed or impure, blood, a term applied to + all non-Hindus. The same is done by Nazarene and Mohammedan; by the + Confucian, who believes in nothing, and by the Soofi, who naturally has + the last word. The association of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph with the + Trinity, in the Roman and Greek Churches, makes many Moslems conclude that + Christians believe not in three but in five Persons. So an Englishman + writes of the early Fathers, “They not only said that 3 = 1, and that 1 = + 3: they professed to explain how that curious arithmetical combination had + been brought about. The Indivisible had been divided, and yet was not + divided: it was divisible, and yet it was indivisible; black was white and + white was black; and yet there were not two colours but one colour; and + whoever did not believe it would be damned.” The Arab quotation runs in + the original:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Ahsanu ’l-Makâni l’ il-Fatâ ’l-Jehannamu</i> + The best of places for (the generous) youth is Gehenna. +</pre> + <p> + Gehenna, alias Jahim, being the fiery place of eternal punishment. And the + second saying, <i>Al- nâr wa lâ ’l-’Ar</i>—“Fire (of Hell) rather than + Shame,”—is equally condemned by the Koranist. The Gustâkhi (insolence) of + Fate is the expression of Umar-i-Khayyam (St. xxx):— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + What, without asking hither hurried <i>whence?</i> + And, without asking <i>whither</i> hurried hence! + Oh many a cup of this forbidden wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence. +</pre> + <p> + Soofistically, the word means “the coquetry of the beloved one,” the + divinæ particula auræ. And the section ends with Pope’s:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_CONC" id="link2H_CONC"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CONCLUSION + </h2> + <p> + Here the Hâjî ends his practical study of mankind. The image of Destiny + playing with men as pieces is a view common amongst Easterns. His idea of + wisdom is once more Pope’s:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And all our knowledge is ourselves to know. + (Essay IV. 398.) +</pre> + <p> + Regret, <i>i.e.</i>, repentance, was one of the forty-two deadly sins of + the Ancient Egyptians. “Thou shalt not consume thy heart,” says the Ritual + of the Dead, the negative justification of the soul or ghost (Lepsius + “Alteste Texte des Todtenbuchs”). We have borrowed competitive examination + from the Chinese; and, in these morbid days of weak introspection and + retrospection, we might learn wisdom from the sturdy old Khemites. When he + sings “Abjure the Why and seek the How,” he refers to the old Scholastic + difference of the <i>Demonstratio propter quid</i> (why is a thing?), as + opposed to <i>Demonstratio quia</i> (<i>i.e.</i> that a thing is). The + “great Man” shall end with becoming deathless, as Shakespeare says in his + noble sonnet:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then! +</pre> + <p> + Like the great Pagans, the Hâjî holds that man was born good, while the + Christian, “tormented by the things divine,” cleaves to the comforting + doctrine of innate sinfulness. Hence the universal tenet, that man should + do good in order to gain by it here or hereafter; the “enlightened + selfishness,” that says, Act well and get compound interest in a future + state. The allusion to the “Theist-word” apparently means that the + votaries of a personal Deity must believe in the absolute foreknowledge of + the Omniscient in particulars as in generals. The Rule of Law emancipates + man; and its exceptions are the gaps left by his ignorance. The wail over + the fallen flower, etc., reminds us of the Pulambal (Lamentations) of the + Anti-Brahminical writer, “Pathira-Giriyâr.” The allusion to Mâyâ is from + Dâs Kabîr:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Mâyâ mare, na man mare, mar mar gayâ, sarîr. + Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone + the flesh. +</pre> + <p> + Nirwâna, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in the + Supreme, not to be confounded with Pari-nirwâna or absolute annihilation. + In the former also, dying gives birth to a new being, the embodiment of <i>karma</i> + (deeds), good and evil, done in the countless ages of transmigration. + </p> + <p> + Here ends my share of the work. On the whole it has been considerable. I + have omitted, as has been seen, sundry stanzas, and I have changed the + order of others. The text has nowhere been translated verbatim; in fact, a + familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments which were judged + too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Hâjî Abdû was the Bahr Tawîl (long + verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that peculiarity, and to fringe + it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the original. + </p> + <p> + Vive, valeque! + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE KASIDAH OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI *** + +This file should be named 6036-h.htm or 6036-h.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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