"Thus spoke the king to the great Master: 'Thou didst bless and ban
the people; thou didst give benison and curse, luck and sorrow, to
the evil or the good.'
"And the Master said, 'It may be so.'
"And the king continued, 'There came two men, and one was good and
the other bad. And one thou didst bless, thinking he was good; but
he was wicked. And the other thou didst curse, and thought him bad;
but he was good.'
"The Master said, 'And what came of it?'
"The king answered, 'All evil came upon the good man, and all
happiness to the bad.'
"And the Master said, 'I write letters, but I am not the messenger; I
hunt the deer, but I am not the cook; I plant the vine, but I do not
pour the wine to the guests; I ordain war, yet do not fight; I send
ships forth on the sea, but do not sail them. There is many a slip
between cup and lip, as the chief of the rebel spirits said when he
was thrown out of heaven, and I am not greater nor wiser than he was
before he fell. Hast thou any more questions, O son?'
"And the king went his way."
One afternoon I was walking with three ladies. One was married, one was
a young widow, and one, no longer very young, had not as yet husbanded
her resources. And as we went by the Thames, conversation turned upon
many things, and among them the mystery of the future and mediums; and
the widow at last said she would like to have her fortune told.
"You need not go far to have it done," I said. "There is a gypsy camp
not a mile away, and in it one of the cleverest fortune-tellers in
England."
"I am almost afraid to go," said the maiden lady. "It seems to me to be
really wrong to try to look into the awful secrets of futurity. One can
never be certain as to what a gypsy may not know. It's all very well, I
dare say, to declare it's all rubbish, but then you know you never can
tell what may be in a rubbish-heap, and they may be predicting true
things all the time while they think they're humbugging you. And they do
often foretell the most wonderful things; I know they do. My aunt was
told that she would marry a man who would cause her trouble, and, sure
enough, she did; and it was such a shame, she was such a sweet-tempered,
timid woman, and he spent half her immense fortune. Now wasn't that
wonderful?"
It would be a curious matter for those who like studying statistics and
chance to find out what proportion in England of sweet-tempered, timid
women of the medium-middle class, in newly-sprouted families, with
immense fortunes, do _not_ marry men who only want their money. Such
heiresses are the natural food of the noble shark and the swell sucker,
and even a gypsy knows it, and can read them at a glance. I explained
this to the lady; but she knew what she knew, and would not know
otherwise.
So we came along the rippling river, watching the darting swallows and
light water-gnats, as the sun sank afar into the tawny, golden west, and
Night, in ever-nearing circles, wove her shades around us. We saw the
little tents, like bee-hives,--one, indeed, not larger than the hive in
which Tyll Eulenspiegel slept his famous nap, and in which he was carried
away by the thieves who mistook him for honey and found him vinegar. And
the outposts, or advanced pickets of small, brown, black-eyed elves, were
tumbling about as usual, and shouted their glad greeting; for it was only
the day before that I had come down with two dozen oranges, which by
chance proved to be just one apiece for all to eat except for little
Synfie Cooper, who saved hers up for her father when he should return.
I had just an instant in which to give the gypsy sorceress a "straight
tip," and this I did, saying in Romany that one of the ladies was married
and one a widow. I was indeed quite sure that she must know the married
lady as such, since she had lived near at hand, within a mile, for
months. And so, with all due solemnity, the sorceress went to her work.
"You will come first, my lady, if you please," she said to the married
dame, and led her into a hedge-corner, so as to be remote from public
view, while we waited by the camp.
The hand was inspected, and properly crossed with a shilling, and the
seeress began her prediction.
"It's a beautiful hand, my lady, and there's luck in it. The line o'
life runs lovely and clear, just like a smooth river from sea to sea, and
that means you'll never be in danger before you die, nor troubled with
much ill. And it's written that you'll have another husband very soon."
"But I don't want another," said the lady.
"Ah, my dear lady, so you'll say till you get him, but when he comes
you'll be glad enough; so do you just get the first one out of your head
as soon as you can, for the next will be the better one. And you'll
cross the sea and travel in a foreign land, and remember what I told you
to the end of your life days."
Then the widow had her turn.
"This is a lucky hand, and little need you had to have your fortune told.
You've been well married once, and once is enough when it's all you need.
There's others as is never satisfied and wants everything, but you've had
the best, and more you needn't want, though there'll be many a man who'll
be in love with you. Ay, indeed, there's fair and dark as will feel the
favor of your beautiful eyes, but little good will it do them, and barons
and lords as would kiss the ground you tread on; and no wonder, either,
for you have the charm which nobody can tell what it is. But it will do
'em no good, nevermore."
"Then I'm never to have another husband," said the widow.
"No, my lady. He that you married was the best of all, and, after him,
you'll never need another; and that was written in your hand when you
were born, and it will be your fate, forever and ever: and that is the
gypsy's production over the future, and what she has producted will come
true. All the stars in the fermentation of heaven can't change it. But
if you ar'n't satisfied, I can set a planet for you, and try the cards,
which comes more expensive, for I never do that under ten shillings."
There was a comparing of notes among the ladies and much laughter, when
it appeared that the priestess of the hidden spell, in her working, had
mixed up the oracles. Jacob had manifestly got Esau's blessing. It was
agreed that the _bonnes fortunes_ should be exchanged, that the shillings
might not be regarded as lost, and all this was explained to the
unmarried lady. She said nothing, but in due time was also _dukkered_ or
fortune-told. With the same mystery she was conducted to the secluded
corner of the hedge, and a very long, low-murmuring colloquy ensued.
What it was we never knew, but the lady had evidently been greatly
impressed and awed. All that she would tell was that she had heard
things that were "very remarkable, which she was sure no person living
could have known," and in fact that she believed in the gypsy, and even
the blunder as to the married lady and the widow, and all my assurances
that chiromancy as popularly practiced was all humbug, made no
impression. There was once "a disciple in Yabneh" who gave a hundred and
fifty reasons to prove that a reptile was no more unclean than any other
animal. But in those days people had not been converted to the law of
turtle soup and the gospel of Saint Terrapin, so the people said it was a
vain thing. And had I given a hundred and fifty reasons to this lady,
they would have all been vain to her, for she wished to believe; and when
our own wishes are served up unto us on nice brown pieces of the
well-buttered toast of flattery, it is not hard to induce us to devour
them.
It is written that when Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, the chief of all the
devils of mischief, was being led a captive to Solomon, he did several
mysterious things while on the way, among others bursting into
extravagant laughter, when he saw a magician conjuring and predicting.
On being questioned by Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, why he had seemed so
much amused, Ashmedai answered that it was because the seer was at the
very time sitting on a princely treasure, and he did not, with all his
magic and promising fortune to others, know this. Yet, if this had been
told to all the world, the conjurer's business would not have suffered.
Not a bit of it. _Entre Jean_, _passe Jeannot_: one comes and goes,
another takes his place, and the poor will disappear from this world
before the too credulous shall have departed.
It was on the afternoon of the following day that I, by chance, met the
gypsy with a female friend, each with a basket, by the roadside, in a
lonely, furzy place, beyond Walton.
"You are a nice fortune-teller, aren't you now?" I said to her. "After
getting a tip, which made it all as clear as day, you walk straight into
the dark. And here you promise a lady two husbands, and she married
already; but you never promised me two wives, that I might make merry
withal. And then to tell a widow that she would never be married again!
You're a _bori chovihani_ [a great witch],--indeed, you aren't."
"_Rye_," said the gypsy, with a droll smile and a shrug,--I think I can
see it now,--"the _dukkerin_ [prediction] was all right, but I pet the
right _dukkerins_ on the wrong ladies."
And the Master said, "I write letters, but I am not the messenger." His
orders, like the gypsy's, had been all right, but they had gone to the
wrong shop. Thus, in all ages, those who affect superior wisdom and
foreknowledge absolute have found that a great practical part of the real
business consisted in the plausible explanation of failures. The great
Canadian weather prophet is said to keep two clerks busy, one in
recording his predictions, the other in explaining their failures; which
is much the case with the rain-doctors in Africa, who are as ingenious
and fortunate in explaining a miss as a hit, as, indeed, they need be,
since they must, in case of error, submit to be devoured alive by
ants,--insects which in Africa correspond in several respects to editors
and critics, particularly the stinging kind. "_Und ist man bei der
Prophezeiung angestellt_," as Heine says; "when a man has a situation in
a prophecy-office," a great part of his business is to explain to the
customers why it is that so many of them draw blanks, or why the trains
of fate are never on time.