The Book of Khalid (15 page)

For our Scribe is the choragus of the Modern School of Arabic poetry. And this particular Diwan of his is a sort of rhymed inventory of all the inventions and discoveries of modern Science and all the wonders of America. He has published other Diwans, in which French morbidity is crowned with laurels from the Arabian Nights. For this Modern School has two opposing wings, moved by two opposing forces, Science being the motive power of the one, and Byron and De Musset the inspiring geniuses of the other. We would not be faithful to our Editorial task and to our Friend, if we did not give here a few luminant examples of the Diwan in question. We are, indeed, very sorry, for the sake of our readers, that space will not allow us to give them a few whole qasïdahs from it. To those who are so fortunate as to be able to read and understand the Original, we point out the Ode to the Phonograph, beginning thus:

And another to the Brooklyn Bridge, of which these are the opening lines:

And finally, the great Poem entitled, On the Virtue and Benefit of Modern Science, of which we remember these couplets:

Here be rhymed truth, at least, which can boast of not being poetry. Ay, in this MS. which Shakib is packing along with Al-Mutanabbi in the bottom of his trunk to evade the Basilisk touch of the Port officials of Beirut, is packed all the hopes of the Modern School. Pack on, Shakib; for whether at the Mena House, or in the hasheesh-dens of Cairo, the Future is drinking to thee, and dreaming of thee and thy School its opium dreams. And Khalid, the while, sits impassive on his trunk, and Im-Hanna is cooking the last dinner of
mojadderah
.

Emigration has introduced into Syria somewhat of the three prominent features of Civilisation: namely, a little wealth, a few modern ideas, and many strange diseases. And of these three blessings our two Syrians together are plentifully endowed. For Shakib is a type of the emigrant, who returns home prosperous in every sense of the word. A Book of Verse to lure Fame, a Letter of Credit to bribe her if necessary, and a double chin to praise the gods. This is a complete set of the prosperity, which Khalid knows not. But he has in his lungs what Shakib the poet can not boast of; while in his trunk he carries but a little wearing apparel, his papers, and his blankets. And in his pocket, he has his
ribbed silver cigarette case—the only object he can not part with—a heart-shaped locket with a little diamond star on its face—the only present he is bringing with him home,—and a third-class passage across the Atlantic. For Khalid will not sleep in a bunk, even though it be furnished with eiderdown cushions and tiger skins.

And since he is determined to pass his nights on deck, it matters little whether he travels first class, or second or tenth. Shakib, do what he may, cannot prevail upon him to accept the first-class passage he had bought in his name. “Let us not quarrel about this,” says he; “we shall be together on board the same ship, and that settles the question. Indeed, the worse way returning home must be ultimately the best. No, Shakib, it matters not how I travel, if I but get away quickly from this pandemonium of Civilisation. Even now, as I sit on this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, this jumble of sounds. But I—extract me quickly from them!”

Ay, quickly please, especially for our sake and the Reader’s. Now, the dinner is finished, the rug is folded and presented to our landlord with our salaams, the trunks are locked and roped, and our Arabs will silently steal away. And peacefully, too, were it not that an hour before sailing a capped messenger is come to deliver a message to Shakib. There is a pleasant dilative sensation in receiving a message on board a steamer, especially when the messenger has to
seek you among the Salon passengers. Now, Shakib dilates with pride as he takes the envelope in his hand; but when he opens it, and reads on the enclosed card, “Mr. Isaac Goldheimer wishes you a
bon voyage
,” he turns quickly on his heels and goes on deck to walk his wrath away. For this Mr. Goldheimer is the very landlord who received the Turkish rug. Reflect on this, Reader. Father Abraham would have walked with us to the frontier to betoken his thanks and gratitude. “But this modern Jew and his miserable card,” exclaims Shakib in his teeth, as he tears and throws it in the water,—“who asked him to send it, and who would have sued him if he didn’t?”

But Shakib, who has lived so long in America and traded with its people, is yet ignorant of some of the fine forms and conventions of Civilisation. He does not know that fashionable folk, or those aping the dear fashionable folk, have a right to assert their superiority at his expense.—I do not care to see you, but I will send a messenger and card to do so for me. You are not my equal, and I will let you know this, even at the hour of your departure, and though I have to hire a messenger to do so.—Is there no taste, no feeling, no gratitude in this? Don’t you wish, O Shakib,—but compose yourself. And think not so ill of your Jewish landlord, whom you wish you could wrap in that rug and throw overboard. He certainly meant well. That formula of card and messenger is so convenient and so cheap. Withal, is he not too busy, think you, to come up to the dock for the puerile, prosaic purpose of shaking hands and saying ta-ta? If you can not consider the matter in this light, try to forget it. One must not be too visceral at the hour of departure. Behold, your skyscrapers and your Statue of Liberty are now receding from view; and your landlord and his card and messenger
will be further from us every while we think of them, until, thanks to Time and Space and Steam! they will be too far away to be remembered.

Here, then, with our young Seer and our Scribe, we bid New York farewell, and earnestly hope that we do not have to return to it again, or permit any of them to do so. In fact, we shall not hereafter consider, with any ulterior material or spiritual motive, any more of such disparaging, denigrating matter, in the two MSS. before us, as has to pass through our reluctant hands “touchin’ on and appertainin’ to” the great City of Manhattan and its distinguished denizens. For our part, we have had enough of this painful task. And truly, we have never before undergone such trials in sailing between—but that Charybdis and Scylla allusion has been done to death. Indeed, we love America, and in the course of our present task, which we also love, we had to suffer Khalid’s shafts to pass through our ken and sometimes really through our heart. But no more of this. Ay, we would fain set aside our pen from sheer weariness of spirit and bid the Reader, too, farewell. Truly, we would end here this Book of Khalid were it not that the greater part of the most important material in the K. L. MS. is yet intact, and the more interesting portion of Shakib’s History is yet to come. Our readers, though we do not think they are sorry for having come out with us so far, are at liberty either to continue with us, or say good-bye. But for the Editor there is no choice. What we have begun we must end, unmindful of the influence, good or ill, of the Zodiacal Signs under which we work.

“Our Phoenician ancestors,” says Khalid, “never left anything they undertook unfinished. Consider what they accomplished in their days, and the degree of culture they attained. The most beautiful fabrications in metals and
precious stones were prepared in Syria. Here, too, the most important discoveries were made: namely, those of glass and purple. As for me, I can not understand what the Murex trunculus is; and I am not certain if scholars and archæologists, or even mariners and fishermen, will ever find a fossil of that particular species. But murex or no murex, Purple was discovered by my ancestors. Hence the purple passion, that is to say the energy and intensity which coloured everything they did, everything they felt and believed. For whether in bemoaning Tammuz, or in making tear-bottles, or in trading with the Gauls and Britons, the Phoenicians were the same superstitious, honest, passionate, energetic people. And do not forget, you who are now enjoying the privilege of setting down your thoughts in words, that on these shores of Syria written language received its first development.

“It is also said that they discovered and first navigated the Atlantic Ocean, my Phœnicians; that they worked gold mines in the distant isle of Thasos and opened silver mines in the South and Southwest of Spain. In Africa, we know, they founded the colonies of Utica and Carthage. But we are told they went farther than this. And according to some historians, they rounded the Cape, they circumnavigated Africa. And according to recent discoveries made by an American archæologist, they must have discovered America too! For in the ruins of the Aztecs of Mexico there are traces of a Phoenician language and religion. This, about the discovery of America, however, I can not verify with anything from Sanchuniathon. But might they not have made this discovery after the said Sanchuniathon had given up the ghost? And if they did, what can We, their worthless descendants do for them now? Ah, if we but knew the name of their Columbus! No, it is not practical to build a monument to a
whole race of people. And yet, they deserve more than this from us, their descendants.

“These dealers in tin and amber, these manufacturers of glass and purple, these developers of a written language, first gave the impetus to man’s activity and courage and intelligence. And this activity of the industry and will is not dead in man. It may be dead in us Syrians, but not in the Americans. In their strenuous spirit it rises uppermost. After all, I must love the Americans, for they are my Phoenician ancestors incarnate. Ay, there is in the nature of things a mysterious recurrence which makes for a continuous, everlasting modernity. And I believe that the spirit which moved those brave sea-daring navigators of yore, is still working lustily, bravely, but alas, not joyously—bitterly, rather, selfishly, greedily—behind the steam engine, the electric motor, the plough, and in the clinic and the studio as in the Stock Exchange. That spirit in its real essence, however, is as young, as puissant to-day as it was when the native of Byblus first struck out to explore the seas, to circumnavigate Africa, to discover even America!”

And what in the end might Khalid discover for us or for himself, at least, in his explorations of the Spirit-World? What Colony of the chosen sons of the young and puissant Spirit, on some distant isle beyond the seven seas, might he found? To what far, silent, undulating shore, where “a written language is the instrument only of the lofty expressions and aspirations of the soul” might he not bring us? What Cape of Truth in the great Sea of Mystery might we not be able to circumnavigate, if only this were possible of the language of man?

“Not with glass,” he exclaims, “not with tear-bottles, not with purple, not with a written language, am I now
concerned, but rather with what those in Purple and those who make this written language their capital, can bring within our reach of the treasures of the good, the true, and the beautiful. I would fain find a land where the soul of man, and the heart of man, and the mind of man, are as the glass of my ancestors’ tear-bottles in their enduring quality and beauty. My ancestors’ tear-bottles, and though buried in the earth ten thousand years, lose not a grain of their original purity and transparency, of their soft and iridescent colouring. But where is the natural colour and beauty of these human souls, buried in bunks under hatches? Or of those moving in high-lacquered salons above? …

“O my Brothers of the clean and unclean species, of the scented and smelling kind, of the have and have-not classes, there is but one star in this vague dusky sky above us, for you as for myself. And that star is either the last in the eternal darkness, or the first in the rising dawn. It is either the first or the last star of night. And who shall say which it is? Not the Church, surely, nor the State; not Science, nor Sociology, nor Philosophy, nor Religion. But the human will shall influence that star and make it yield its secret and its fire. Each of you, O my Brothers, can make it light his own hut, warm his own heart, guide his own soul. Never before in the history of man did it seem as necessary as it does now that each individual should think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger of Jannat or Juhannam.”