was owing to the scarlet dye, which I brought to perfection with
infinite difficulty. The powder, it is true, was accidentally found by
me in our china vases; but there it might have remained to this
instant, useless, if I had not taken the pains to make it useful. I
grant that we can only partially foresee and command events; yet on the
use we make of our own powers, I think, depends our destiny. But,
gentlemen, you would rather hear my adventures, perhaps, than my
reflections; and I am truly concerned, for your sakes, that I have no
wonderful events to relate. I am sorry I cannot tell you of my having
been lost in a sandy desert. I have never had the plague, nor even been
shipwrecked: I have been all my life an inhabitant of Constantinople,
and have passed my time in a very quiet and uniform manner.
"The money I received from the sultan's favorite for my china vase, as
my brother may have told you, enabled me to trade on a more extensive
scale. I went on steadily with my business; and made it my whole study
to please my employers, by all fair and honorable means. This industry
and civility succeeded beyond my expectations: in a few years, I was
rich for a man in my way of business.
"I will not proceed to trouble you with the journal of a petty
merchant's life; I pass on to the incident which made a considerable
change in my affairs.
"A terrible fire broke out near the walls of the grand seignior's
seraglio: as you are strangers, gentlemen, you may not have heard of
this event, though it produced so great a sensation in Constantinople.
The vizier's superb palace was utterly consumed; and the melted lead
poured down from the roof of the mosque of St. Sophia. Various were the
opinions formed by my neighbors respecting the cause of the
conflagration. Some supposed it to be a punishment for the sultan's
having neglected, one Friday, to appear at the mosque of St. Sophia;
others considered it as a warning sent by Mahomet, to dissuade the
Porte from persisting in a war in which we were just engaged. The
generality, however, of the coffee-house politicians contented
themselves with observing that it was the will of Mahomet that the
palace should be consumed. Satisfied by this supposition, they took no
precaution to prevent similar accidents in their own houses. Never were
fires so common in the city as at this period; scarcely a night passed
without our being wakened by the cry of fire.
"These frequent fires were rendered still more dreadful by villains,
who were continually on the watch to increase the confusion by which
they profited, and to pillage the houses of the sufferers. It was
discovered that these incendiaries frequently skulked, towards evening,
in the neighborhood of the bezestein, where the richest merchants store
their goods; some of these wretches were detected in throwing
_coundaks_, or matches, into the windows; and if these combustibles
remained a sufficient time, they could not fail to set the house on
fire.
"Notwithstanding all these circumstances, many even of those who had
property to preserve continued to repeat, 'It is the will of Mahomet,'
and consequently to neglect all means of preservation. I, on the
contrary, recollecting the lesson I had learned from the sensible
foreigner, neither suffered my spirits to sink with superstitious fears
of ill luck, nor did I trust presumptuously to my good fortune. I took
every possible means to secure myself. I never went to bed without
having seen that all the lights and fires in the house were
extinguished, and that I had a supply of water in the cistern. I had
likewise learned from my Frenchman that wet mortar was the most
effectual thing for stopping the progress of flames: I therefore had a
quantity of mortar made up in one of my outhouses, which I could use at
a moment's warning. These precautions were all useful to me: my own
house, indeed, was never actually on fire, but the houses of my
next-door neighbors were no less than five times in flames, in the
course of one winter. By my exertions, or rather by my precautions,
they suffered but little damage; and all my neighbors looked upon me as
their deliverer and friend: they loaded me with presents, and offered
more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the
Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being
called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is
often only a more refined species of pride. But to proceed with my
story.
"One night I had been later than usual at supper, at a friend's house:
none but the watch were in the streets, and even they, I believe, were
asleep.
"As I passed one of the conduits, which convey water to the city, I
heard a trickling noise; and, upon examination, I found that the cock
of the water-spout was half turned, so that the water was running out.
I turned it back to its proper place, thought it had been left unturned
by accident, and walked on; but I had not proceeded far before I came
to another spout and another, which were in the same condition. I was
convinced that this could not be the effect merely of accident, and
suspected that some ill-intentioned persons designed to let out and
waste the water of the city, that there might be none to extinguish any
fire that should break out in the course of the night.
"I stood still for a few moments, to consider how it would be most
prudent to act. It would be impossible for me to run to all parts of
the city, that I might stop the pipes that were running to waste. I
first thought of wakening the watch and the firemen, who were most of
them slumbering at their stations; but I reflected that they were
perhaps not to be trusted, and that they were in a confederacy with the
incendiaries; otherwise, they would certainly, before this hour, have
observed and stopped the running of the sewers in their neighborhood. I
determined to waken a rich merchant, called Damat Zade, who lived near
me, and who had a number of slaves whom he could send to different
parts of the city, to prevent mischief, and give notice to the
inhabitants of their danger.
"He was a very sensible, active man, and one that could easily be
wakened: he was not, like some Turks, an hour in recovering their
lethargic senses. He was quick in decision and action; and his slaves
resembled their master. He despatched a messenger immediately to the
grand vizier, that the sultan's safety might be secured; and sent
others to the magistrates, in each quarter of Constantinople. The large
drums in the janissary aga's tower beat to rouse the inhabitants; and
scarcely had this been heard to beat half an hour before the fire broke
out in the lower apartments of Damat Zade's house, owing to a
_coundak_, which had been left behind one of the doors.
"The wretches who had prepared the mischief came to enjoy it, and to
pillage; but they were disappointed. Astonished to find themselves
taken into custody, they could not comprehend how their designs had
been frustrated. By timely exertions, the fire in my friend's house was
extinguished; and though fires broke out, during the night, in many
parts of the city, but little damage was sustained, because there was
time for precautions; and by the stopping of the spouts, sufficient
water was preserved. People were awakened, and warned of the danger,
and they consequently escaped unhurt.
"The next day, as soon as I made my appearance at the bezestein, the
merchants crowded round, called me their benefactor, and the preserver
of their lives and fortunes. Damat Zade, the merchant whom I had
awakened the preceding night, presented to me a heavy purse of gold,
and put upon my finger a diamond ring of considerable value; each of
the merchants followed his example, in making me rich presents: the
magistrates also sent me tokens of their approbation; and the grand
vizier sent me a diamond of the first water, with a line written by his
own hand: 'To the man who has saved Constantinople.' Excuse me,
gentlemen, for the vanity I seem to show in mentioning these
circumstances. You desired to hear my history, and I cannot therefore
omit the principal circumstance of my life. In the course of
four-and-twenty hours, I found myself raised, by the munificent
gratitude of the inhabitants of this city, to a state of affluence far
beyond what I had ever dreamed of attaining.
"I now took a house suited to my circumstances, and bought a few
slaves. As I was carrying my slaves home, I was met by a Jew, who
stopped me, saying, in his language, 'My lord, I see, has been
purchasing slaves: I could clothe them cheaply.' There was something
mysterious in the manner of this Jew, and I did not like his
countenance; but I considered that I ought not to be governed by
caprice in my dealings, and that, if this man could really clothe my
slaves more cheaply than another, I ought not to neglect his offer
merely because I took a dislike to the cut of his beard, the turn of
his eye, or the tone of his voice. I therefore bade the Jew follow me
home, saying that I would consider of his proposal.
"When we came to talk over the matter, I was surprised to find him so
reasonable in his demands. On one point, indeed, he appeared unwilling
to comply. I required not only to see the clothes I was offered, but
also to know how they came into his possession. On this subject he
equivocated; I therefore suspected there must be something wrong. I
reflected what it could be, and judged that the goods had been stolen,
or that they had been the apparel of persons who had died of some
contagious distemper. The Jew showed me a chest, from which he said I
might choose whatever suited me best. I observed, that, as he was going
to unlock the chest, he stuffed his nose with some aromatic herbs. He
told me that he did so to prevent his smelling the musk with which the
chest was perfumed: musk, he said, had an extraordinary effect upon his
nerves. I begged to have some of the herbs which he used himself;
declaring that musk was likewise offensive to me.
"The Jew, either struck by his own conscience, or observing my
suspicions, turned as pale as death. He pretended he had not the right
key, and could not unlock the chest; said he must go in search of it,
and that he would call on me again.
"After he had left me, I examined some writing upon the lid of the
chest, that had been nearly effaced. I made out the word Smyrna, and
this was sufficient to confirm all my suspicions. The Jew returned no
more: he sent some porters to carry away the chest, and I heard nothing
of him for some time, till one day, when I was at the house of Damat
Zade, I saw a glimpse of the Jew passing hastily through one of the
courts, as if he wished to avoid me. 'My friend,' said I to Damat Zade,
'do not attribute my question to impertinent curiosity, or to a desire
to intermeddle with your affairs, if I venture to ask the nature of
your business with the Jew, who has just now crossed your court.'
"'He has engaged to supply me with clothing for my slaves,' replied my
friend, 'cheaper than I can purchase it elsewhere. I have a design to
surprise my daughter, Fatima, on her birthday, with an entertainment in
the pavilion in the garden; and all her female slaves shall appear in
new dresses on the occasion.'
"I interrupted my friend, to tell him what I suspected relative to this
Jew and his chest of clothes. It is certain that the infection of the
plague can be communicated by clothes, not only after months but after
years have elapsed. The merchant resolved to have nothing more to do
with this wretch, who could thus hazard the lives of thousands of his
fellow-creatures for a few pieces of gold: we sent notice of the
circumstance to the cadi, but the cadi was slow in his operations; and,
before he could take the Jew into custody, the cunning fellow had
effected his escape. When his house was searched, he and his chest had
disappeared: we discovered that he sailed for Egypt, and rejoiced that
we had driven him from Constantinople.
"My friend, Damat Zade, expressed the warmest gratitude to me. 'You
formerly saved my fortune: you have now saved my life; and a life yet
dearer than my own, that of my daughter Fatima.'
"At the sound of that name I could not, I believe, avoid showing some
emotion. I had accidentally seen this lady, and I had been captivated
by her beauty, and by the sweetness of her countenance; but as I knew
she was destined to be the wife of another, I suppressed my feeling,
and determined to banish the recollection of the fair Fatima forever
from my imagination. Her father, however, at this instant, threw into
my way a temptation which it required all my fortitude to resist.
'Saladin,' continued he, 'it is but just that you, who have saved our
lives, should share our festivity. Come here on the birthday of my
Fatima: I will place you in a balcony, which overlooks the garden, and
you shall see the whole spectacle. We shall have a _feast of tulips_,
in imitation of that which, as you know, is held in the grand
seignior's gardens. I assure you, the sight will be worth seeing; and
besides, you will have a chance of beholding my Fatima, for a moment,
without her veil.'
"'That,' interrupted I, 'is the thing I most wish to avoid. I dare not
indulge myself in a pleasure which might cost me the happiness of my
life. I will conceal nothing from you, who treat me with so much
confidence. I have already beheld the charming countenance of your
Fatima, but I know that she is destined to be the wife of a happier
man.'
"Damat Zade seemed much pleased by the frankness with which I explained
myself; but he would not give up the idea of my sitting with him, in
the balcony, on the day of the feast of tulips, and I, on my part,
could not consent to expose myself to another view of the charming
Fatima. My friend used every argument, or rather every sort of
persuasion, he could imagine to prevail upon me: he then tried to laugh
me out of my resolution; and, when all failed, he said, in a voice of
anger, 'Go, then, Saladin; I am sure you are deceiving me: you have a
passion for some other woman, and you would conceal it from me, and
persuade me you refuse the favor I offer you from prudence, when, in
fact, it is from indifference and contempt. Why could you not speak the
truth of your heart to me with that frankness with which one friend
should treat another?'
"Astonished at this unexpected charge, and at the anger which flashed
from the eyes of Damat Zade, who till this moment had always appeared
to me a man of a mild and reasonable temper, I was for an instant
tempted to fly into a passion and leave him: but friends, once lost,
are not easily regained. This consideration had power sufficient to
make me command my temper. 'My friend,' replied I, 'we will talk over
this affair to-morrow: you are now angry, and cannot do me justice; but
to-morrow you will be cool: you will then be convinced that I have not
deceived you; and that I have no design but to secure my own happiness
by the most prudent means in my power, by avoiding the sight of the
dangerous Fatima. I have no passion for any other woman.'
"'Then,' said my friend, embracing me, and quitting the tone of anger
which he had assumed only to try my resolution to the utmost,--'then,
Saladin, Fatima is yours.'
"I scarcely dared to believe my senses! I could not express my joy!
'Yes, my friend,' continued the merchant, 'I have tried your prudence
to the utmost; it has been victorious, and I resign my Fatima to you,
certain that you will make her happy. It is true, I had a greater
alliance in view for her: the pacha of Maksoud has demanded her from
me; but I have found, upon private inquiry, he is addicted to the
intemperate use of opium: and my daughter shall never be the wife of
one who is a violent madman one half the day, and a melancholy idiot
during the remainder. I have nothing to apprehend from the pacha's
resentment, because I have powerful friends with the grand vizier who
will oblige him to listen to reason, and to submit quietly to a
disappointment he so justly merits. And now, Saladin, have you any
objection to seeing the feast of tulips?'
"I replied only by falling at the merchant's feet, and embracing his
knees. The feast of tulips came, and on that day I was married to the
charming Fatima! The charming Fatima I continue still to think her,
though she has now been my wife some years. She is the joy and pride of
my heart; and, from our mutual affection, I have experienced more
felicity than from all the other circumstances of my life, which are
called so fortunate. Her father gave me the house in which I now live,
and joined his possessions to ours; so that I have more wealth even
than I desire. My riches, however, give me continually the means of
relieving the wants of others; and therefore I cannot affect to despise
them. I must persuade my brother Murad to share them with me, and to
forget his misfortunes: I shall then think myself completely happy. As
to the sultana's looking-glass, and your broken vase, my dear brother,"
continued Saladin, "we must think of some means--"
"Think no more of the sultana's looking-glass, or of the broken vase,"
exclaimed the sultan, throwing aside his merchant's habit, and showing
beneath it his own imperial vest. "Saladin, I rejoice to have heard,
from your own lips, the history of your life. I acknowledge, vizier, I
have been in the wrong, in our argument," continued the sultan, turning
to his vizier. "I acknowledge that the histories of Saladin the Lucky
and Murad the Unlucky favor your opinion, that prudence has more
influence than chance in human affairs. The success and happiness of
Saladin seem to me to have arisen from his prudence: by that prudence,
Constantinople has been saved from flames, and from the plague. Had
Murad possessed his brother's discretion, he would not have been on the
point of losing his head, for selling rolls which he did not bake: he
would not have been kicked by a mule, or bastinadoed for finding a
ring: he would not have been robbed by one party of soldiers, or shot
by another: he would not have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a
Jew; he would not have set a ship on fire; nor would he have caught the
plague, and spread it through Grand Cairo: he would not have run my
sultana's looking-glass through the body, instead of a robber: he would
not have believed that the fate of his life depended on certain verses
on a china vase: nor would he, at last, have broken this precious
talisman, by washing it with hot water. Henceforward, let Murad the
Unlucky be named Murad the Imprudent: let Saladin preserve the surname
he merits, and be henceforth called Saladin the Prudent."
So spake the sultan, who, unlike the generality of monarchs, could bear
to find himself in the wrong; and could discover his vizier to be in
the right, without cutting off his head. History further informs us
that the sultan offered to make Saladin a pacha, and to commit to him
the government of a province; but Saladin the Prudent declined this
honor, saying he had no ambition, was perfectly happy in his present
situation, and that, when this was the case, it would be folly to
change, because no one can be more than happy. What further adventures
befell Murad the Imprudent are not recorded; it is known only that he
became a daily visitor to the _Teriaky_; and that he died a martyr to
the immoderate use of opium.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
I.
MY LIFE TO ITS CRISIS.
New-Yorkers of to-day see so many processions, and live through so many
sensations, and hurrah for so many heroes in every year, that it is
only the oldest of fogies who tells you of the triumphant procession of
steamboats which, in the year 1824, welcomed General Lafayette on his
arrival from his tour through the country he had so nobly served. But,
if the reader wishes to lengthen out this story, he may button the next
silver-gray friend he meets, and ask him to tell of the broken English
and broken French of the Marquis, of Levasseur, and the rest of them;
of the enthusiasm of the people and the readiness of the visitors, and
he will please bear in mind that of all that am I.
For it so happened that on the morning when, for want of better lions
to show, the mayor and governor and the rest of them took the Marquis
and his secretary, and the rest of them, to see the orphan asylum in
Deering Street,--as they passed into the first ward, after having had
"a little refreshment" in the managers' room, Sally Eaton, the head
nurse, dropped the first courtesy to them, and Sally Eaton, as it
happened, held me screaming in her arms. I had been sent to the asylum
that morning with a paper pinned to my bib, which said my name was
Felix Carter.
"Eet ees verra fine," said the Marquis, smiling blandly.
"Ràvissant!" said Levasseur, and he dropped a five-franc piece into
Sally Eaton's hand. And so the procession of exhibiting managers
talking bad French, and of exhibited Frenchmen talking bad English,
passed on; all but good old Elkanah Ogden,--God bless him!--who
happened to have come there with the governor's party, and who loitered
a minute to talk with Sally Eaton about me.
Years afterwards she told me how the old man kissed me, how his eyes
watered when he asked my story, how she told again of the moment when I
was heard screaming on the doorstep, and how she offered to go and
bring the paper which had been pinned to my bib. But the old man said
it was no matter,--"only we would have called him Marquis," said he,
"if his name was not provided for him. We must not leave him here," he
said; "he shall grow up a farmer's lad, and not a little cockney." And
so, instead of going the grand round of infirmaries, kitchens,
bakeries, and dormitories with the rest, the good old soul went back
into the managers' room, and wrote at the moment a letter to John
Myers, who took care of his wild land in St. Lawrence County for him,
to ask him if Mrs. Myers would not bring up an orphan baby by hand for
him; and if, both together, they would not train this baby till he said
"Stop"; if, on the other hand, he allowed them, in the yearly account,
a hundred dollars each year for the charge.
Anybody who knows how far a hundred dollars goes in the backwoods, in
St. Lawrence County, will know that any settler would be glad to take a
ward so recommended. Anybody who knew Betsy Myers as well as old
Elkanah Ogden did, would know she would have taken any orphan brought
to her door, even if he were not recommended at all.
So it happened, thanks to Lafayette and the city council! that I had
not been a "Child of the Public" a day, before, in its great, clumsy,
liberal way, it had provided for me. I owed my healthy, happy home of
the next fourteen years in the wilderness to those marvellous habits,
which I should else call absurd, with which we lionize strangers.
Because our hospitals and poorhouses are the largest buildings we have,
we entertain the Prince of Wales and Jenny Lind alike, by showing them
crazy people and paupers. Easy enough to laugh at is the display; but
if, dear Public, it happen that by such a habit you ventilate your
Bridewell or your Bedlam, is not the ventilation, perhaps, a
compensation for the absurdity? I do not know if Lafayette was any the
better for his seeing the Deering Street Asylum; but I do know I was.
This is no history of my life. It is only an illustration of one of its
principles. I have no anecdotes of wilderness life to tell, and no
sketch of the lovely rugged traits of John and Betsy Myers,--my real
father and mother. I have no quest for the pretended parents, who threw
me away in my babyhood, to record. They closed accounts with me when
they left me on the asylum steps, and I with them. I grew up with such
schooling as the public gave,--ten weeks in winter always, and ten in
summer, till I was big enough to work on the farm,--better periods of
schools, I hold, than on the modern systems. Mr. Ogden I never saw.
Regularly he allowed for me the hundred a year till I was nine years
old, and then suddenly he died, as the reader perhaps knows. But John
Myers kept me as his son, none the less. I knew no change until, when I
was fourteen, he thought it time for me to see the world, and sent me
to what, in those days, was called a "Manual-Labor School."