REVOLUTIONS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
"Even Carlyle can be longwinded and short-sighted on occasions. 'Once
in destroying the False,' says he, 'there was a certain inspiration.'
And always there is, to be sure, my Master. For the world is not
Europe, and the final decision on Who Is and What Is To Rule, was not
delivered by the French Revolution. The Orient, the land of
origination and prophecy, must yet solve for itself this eternal
problem of the Old and New, the False and True. And whether by
Revolutions, Speculations, or Constitutions, ancient Revelation will
be purged and restored to its original pristine purity: the
superannuated lumber that accumulated around it during centuries of
apathy, fatalism, and sloth, must go: the dust and mould and cobwebs
of the Temple will be swept away. Indeed, 'a war must be eternally
waged on evils eternally renewed.' The genius of destruction has done
its work, you say, O my esteemed Master? and there is nothing more to
destroy? The gods might say this of other worlds than ours. In Europe,
as in Asia, there is to be considered and remembered: if this mass of
things we call humanity and civilisation were as healthy as the
eternal powers would have them, the healthiest of the race would not
be constantly studying and dissecting our social and political ills.
"In a certain sense, we are healthier to-day than the Europeans; but
our health is that of the slave and not the master: it is of more
benefit to others than it is to ourselves. We are doomed to be the
drudges of neurasthenic, psychopathic, egoistic masters, if we do not
open our minds to the light of science and truth. 'Every age has its
Book,' says the Prophet. But every book, if it aspires to be a guide
to life, must contain of the eternal truth what was in the one that
preceded it. We can not afford to let aught of this die. Leave the
principal original altar in the Temple, and destroy all the others.
Light on that altar the torch of science, which the better mind and
cleaner hand of Europe are transmitting to us, and place your foot
upon its false and unspeakable divinities. The gods of wealth, of
egoism, of alcohol, of fornication, we must not acknowledge; nay, we
must resist unto death their malign influence and power. But alas,
what are we doing to-day? Instead of looking up to the pure and lofty
souls of Europe for guidance, we welter in the mud with the lowest and
most degenerate. We are beginning to know and appreciate English
whiskey, but not English freedom; we know the French grisettes, but
not the French sages; we guzzle German beer, but of German wisdom we
taste not a drop.
"O my Brothers, let us cease rejoicing in the Dastur; for at heart we
know no freedom, nor truth, nor order. We elect our representatives to
Parliament, but not unlike the Europeans; we borrow from France what
the deeper and higher mind of France no longer believes; we imitate
England in what England has long since discarded; but our Books of
Revelation, which made France and Germany and England what they are,
and in which is the divine essence of truth and right and freedom, we
do not rightly understand. A thousand falsehoods are cluttered around
the truth to conceal it from us. I call you back, O my Brothers, to
the good old virtues of our ancestors. Without these the Revolution
will miscarry and our Dastur will not be worth a date-stone. Our
ancestors,--they never bowed their proud neck to tyranny, whether
represented in an autocrat or in a body of autocrats; they never
betrayed their friends; they never soiled their fingers with the coin
of usury; they never sacrificed their manhood to fashion; they never
endangered in the cafés and lupanars their health and reason. The
Mosque and the Church, notwithstanding the ignorance and bigotry they
foster, are still better than lunatic asylums. And Europe can not have
enough of these to-day.
"Continence, purity of heart, fidelity, simplicity, a sense of true
manhood, magnanimity of spirit, a healthiness of body and mind,--these
are the beautiful ancient virtues. These are the supreme truths of the
Books of Revelation: in these consists the lofty spirituality of the
Orient. But through what thick, obscene growths we must pass to-day,
through what cactus hedges and thistle-fields we must penetrate,
before we rise again to those heights.
"'There can be no Revolution without a Reformation,' says a German
philosopher. And truly so. For the fetters which bind us can not be
shaken off, before the conscience is emancipated. A political
revolution must always be preceded by a spiritual one, that it might
have some enduring effect. Otherwise, things will revert to their
previous state of rottenness as sure as Allah lives. But mind you, I
do not say, Cut down the hedges; mow the thistle-fields; uproot the
obscene plants; no: I only ask you to go through them, and out of
them, to return no more. Sell your little estate there, if you have
one; sell it at any price: give it away and let the dead bury their
dead. Cease to work in those thorny fields, and God and nature will do
the rest.
"I am for a reformation by emigration. And quietly, peacefully, this
can be done. Nor fire, nor sword bring I: only this I say: Will and
do; resolve and act upon your resolution. The emigration of the mind
before the revolution of the state, my Brothers. The soul must be
free, and the mind, before one has a right to be a member of a free
Government, before one can justly enjoy his rights and perform his
duties as a subject. But a voting slave, O my Brothers, is the
pitifulest spectacle under the sun. And remember that neither the
Dastur, nor the Unionists, nor the Press, can give you this spiritual
freedom, if you do not awake and emigrate. Come up to the highlands:
here is a patrimony for each of you; here are vineyards to cultivate.
Leave the thistle-fields and marshes behind; regret nothing. Come out
of the superstitions of the sheikhs and ulema; of the barren mazes of
the sufis; of the deadly swamps of theolougues and priests: emigrate!
Every one of us should be a Niazi in this moral struggle, an Enver in
this spiritual revolution. A little will-power, a little heroism,
added to those virtues I have named, the solid virtues of our
ancestors, and the Orient will no longer be an object of scorn and
gain to commercial Europe. We shall then stand on an equal footing
with the Europeans. Ay, with the legacy of science which we shall
learn to invest, and with our spirituality divested of its cobwebs,
and purified, we shall stand even higher than the Americans and
Europeans."--
On the following day Damascus was simmering with excitement--Damascus,
the stronghold of the ulema--the learned fanatics--whom Khalid has
lightly pinched. But they scarcely felt it; they could not believe it.
Now, the gentry of Islam, the sheikhs and ulema, would hear this
lack-beard dervish, as he was called. But they disdain to stand with
the rabble in the Midan or congregate with the _Mutafarnejin_
(Europeanised) in the public Halls. Nowhere but at the Mosque,
therefore, can they hear what this Khalid has to say. This was
accordingly decided upon, and, being approved by all parties
concerned,--the Mufti, the Vali, the Deputies of the Holy Society and
the speaker,--a day was set for the great address at the great Mosque
of Omaiyah.
Meanwhile, the blatant Officer, the wheedling Politician, and the
lack-beard Dervish, are feasted by the personages and functionaries of
Damascus. The Vali, the Mufti, Abdallah Pasha,--he who owns more than
two score villages and has more than five thousand braves at his beck
and call,--these, and others of less standing, vie with each other in
honouring the distinguished visitors. And after the banqueting, while
Ahmed Bey retires to a private room with his host to discuss the
political situation, Khalid, to escape the torturing curiosity of the
bores and quidnuncs of the evening, goes out to the open court, and
under an orange tree, around the gurgling fountain, breathes again of
quietude and peace. Nay, breathes deeply of the heavy perfume of the
white jasmines of his country, while musing of the scarlet salvias of
a distant land.
And what if the salvia, as by a miracle, blossoms on the jasmine? What
if the former stifles the latter? Indeed, one can escape boredom, but
not love. One can flee the quidnuncs of the salon, but not the
questioning perplexity of one's heart. A truce now to ambiguities.
'Tis high time that we give a brief account of what took place after
Khalid took leave of Mrs. Gotfry. Many "devilish mischances" have
since then conspired against Khalid's peace of mind. For when they
were leaving Beirut, only a few minutes before the train started, Mrs.
Gotfry, who was also going to Damascus, steps into the same carriage,
which he and his companions occupied: mischance first. Arriving in
Damascus they both stay at the same Hotel: mischance second. At table
this time he occupies the seat next to hers, and once, rising
simultaneously, their limbs touch: mischance third. And the last and
worst, when he retires to his room, he finds that her own is in the
same side-hall opposite to his. Now, who could have ordered it thus,
of all the earthly powers? And who can say what so many mischances
might not produce? True, a thousand thistles do not make a rose; but
with destiny this logic does not hold. For every new mischance makes
us forget the one preceding; and the last and worst is bound to be the
harbinger of good fortune. Yes, every people, we imagine, has its
aphorisms on the subject: Distress is the key of relief, says the
Arabic proverb; The strait leads to the plain, says the Chinese; The
darkest hour is nearest the dawn, says the English.
But we must not make any stipulations with time, or trust in
aphorisms. We do not know what Mrs. Gotfry's ideas are on the subject.
Nor can we say how she felt in the face of these strange coincidences.
In her religious heart, might there not be some shadow of an ancient
superstition, some mystical, instinctive strain, in which the
preternatural is resolved? That is a question which neither our Scribe
nor his Master will help us to answer. And we, having been faithful so
far in the discharge of our editorial duty, can not at this juncture
afford to fabricate.
We know, however, that the Priestess of Buhaism and the beardless,
long-haired Dervish have many a conversation together: in the train,
in the Hotel, in the parks and groves of Damascus, they tap their
hearts and minds, and drink of each other's wine of thought and
fancy.
"I first mistook you for a Mohammedan," she said to him once; and he
assured her that she was not mistaken.
"Then, you are not a Christian?"
"I am a Christian, too."
And he relates of the Buha when he was on trial in Rhodes. "Of what
religion are you," asks the Judge. "I am neither a Camel-driver nor a
Carpenter," replies the Buha, alluding thereby to Mohammad and
Christ. "If you ask me the same question," Khalid continues--"but
I see you are uncomfortable." And he takes up the cushion which
had fallen behind the divan, and places it under her arm. He then
lights a cigarette and holds it up to her inquiringly. Yes? He,
therefore, lights another for himself, and continues. "If you ask me
the same question that was asked the Buha, I would not hesitate in
saying that I am both a Camel-driver and Carpenter. I might also be
a Buhaist in a certain sense. I renounce falsehood, whatsoever be
the guise it assumes; and I embrace truth, wheresoever I find it.
Indeed, every religion is good and true, if it serves the high
purpose of its founder. And they are false, all of them, when they
serve the low purpose of their high priests. Take the lowest of the
Arab tribes, for instance, and you will find in their truculent
spirit a strain of faith sublime, though it is only evinced at times.
The Beduins, rovers and raveners, manslayers and thieves, are in
their house of moe-hair the kindest hosts, the noblest and most
generous of men. They receive the wayfarer, though he be an enemy,
and he eats and drinks and sleeps with them under the same root, in
the assurance of Allah. If a religion makes a savage so good, so kind,
it has well served its purpose. As for me, I admire the grand
passion in both the Camel-driver and the Carpenter: the barbaric
grandeur, the magnanimity and fidelity of the Arab as well as the
sublime spirituality, the divine beauty, of the Nazarene, I deeply
reverence. And in one sense, the one is the complement of the
other: the two combined are _my_ ideal of a Divinity."
And now we descend from the chariot of the empyrean where we are
riding with gods and apostles, and enter into one drawn by mortal
coursers. We go out for a drive, and alight from the carriage in the
poplar grove, to meander in its shades, along its streams. But
digressing from one path into another, we enter unaware the eternal
vista of love. There, on a boulder washed by the murmuring current, in
the shade of the silver-tufted poplars, Khalid and Mrs. Gotfry sit
down for a rest.
"Everything in life must always resolve itself into love," said
Khalid, as he stood on the rock holding out his hand to his friend.
"Love is the divine solvent. Love is the splendour of God."
Mrs. Gotfry paused at the last words. She was startled by this image.
Love, the splendour of God? Why, the Bab, the Buha, is the splendour
of God. Buha mean splendour. The Buha, therefore, is love. Love is the
new religion. It is the old religion, the eternal religion, the only
religion. How came he by this, this young Syrian? Would he rival the
Buha? Rise above him? They are of kindred races--their ancestors,
too, may be mine. Love the splendour of God--God the splendour of
Love. Have I been all along fooling myself? Did I not know my own
heart?
These, and more such, passed through Mrs. Gotfry's mind, as shuttles
through a loom, while Khalid was helping her up to her seat on the
boulder, which is washed by the murmuring current.
"If life were such a rock under our feet," said he, pressing his lips
upon her hand, "the divine currents around it will melt it, soon or
late, into love."
They light cigarettes. A fresh breeze is blowing from the city. It is
following them with the perfume of its gardens. The falling leaves are
whispering in the grove to the swaying boughs. The narcissus is
nodding to the myrtle across the way. And the bulbuls are pouring
their golden splendour of song. Khalid speaks.
"Beauty either detains, repels, or enchants. The first is purely
external, linear; the second is an imitation of the first, its
artistic artificial ideal, so to speak; and the third"--He is silent.
His eyes, gazing into hers, take up the cue.
Mrs. Gotfry turns from him exhausted. She looks into the water.
"See the rose-beds in the stream; see the lovely pebbles dancing
around them."
"I can see everything in your eyes, which are like limpid lakes shaded
with weeping-willows. I can even hear bulbuls singing in your
brows.--Turn not from me your eyes. They reflect the pearls of your
soul and the flowers of your body, even as those crystal waters
reflect the pebbles and rose-beds beneath."
"Did you not say that love is the splendour of God?"
"Yes."
"Then, why look for it in my eyes?"
"And why look for it in the heart of the heavens, in the depths of
the sea--in the infinities of everything that is beautiful and
terrible--in the breath of that little flower, in the song of the
bulbul, in the whispers of your silken lashes, in--"
"Shut your eyes, Khalid; be more spiritual."
"With my eyes open I see but one face; with my eyes closed I see a
million faces: they are all yours. And they are loving, and sweet, and
kind. But I am content with one, with the carnate symbol of them, with
you, and though you be cold and cruel. The divine splendour is here,
and here and here--"
"Why, your ardour is exhausting."
* * * * *
But on their way back to the Hotel, Khalid gives her this from
Swedenborg: "'Do you love me' means 'do you see the same truth that I
see?'"
There is no use. Khalid is impossible.