When the marriage ceremony was over, the three got into their cab; and, once more, our vehicle (neatly hidden round the corner of the church, so that they could not suspect it to be near them) started to follow theirs. We traced them to the terminus of the South-Western Railway. The newly married couple took tickets for Richmond,—paying their fare with a half sovereign, and so depriving me of the pleasure of arresting them, which I should certainly have done, if they had offered a bank-note. They parted from Mr. Jay, saying, "Remember the address,—l4, Babylon Terrace. You dine with us to-morrow week." Mr. Jay accepted the invitation, and added, jocosely, that he was going home at once to get off his clean clothes, and to be comfortable and dirty again for the rest of the day. I have to report that I saw him home safely, and that he is comfortable and dirty again (to use his own disgraceful language) at the present moment.
Here the affair rests, having by this time reached what I may call its first stage. I know very well what persons of hasty judgments will be inclined to say of my proceedings thus far. They will assert that I have been deceiving myself, all through, in the most absurd way; they will declare that the suspicious conversations which I have reported referred solely to the difficulties and dangers of successfully carrying out a runaway match; and they will appeal to the scene in the church, as offering undeniable proof of the correctness of their assertions. So let it be. I dispute nothing, up to this point. But I ask a question, out of the depths of my own sagacity as a man of the world, which the bitterest of my enemies will not, I think, find it particularly easy to answer. Granted the fact of the marriage, what proof does it afford me of the innocence of the three persons concerned in that clandestine transaction? It gives me none. On the contrary, it strengthens my suspicions against Mr. Jay and his confederates, because it suggests a distinct motive for their stealing the money. A gentleman who is going to spend his honeymoon at Richmond wants money; and a gentleman who is in debt to all his tradespeople wants money. Is this an unjustifiable imputation of bad motives? In the name of outraged Morality, I deny it. These men have combined together, and have stolen a woman. Why should they not combine together and steal a cash-box? I take my stand on the logic of rigid Virtue; and I defy all the sophistry of Vice to move me an inch out of my position.
Speaking of virtue, I may add that I have put this view of the case to Mr. and Mrs. Yatman. That accomplished and charming woman found it difficult, at first, to follow the close chain of my reasoning. I am free to confess that she shook her head, and shed tears, and joined her husband in premature lamentation over the loss of the two hundred pounds. But a little careful explanation on my part, and a little attentive listening on hers, ultimately changed her opinion. She now agrees with me, that there is nothing in this unexpected circumstance of the clandestine marriage which absolutely tends to divert suspicion from Mr. Jay, or Mr. "Jack," or the runaway lady,—"audacious hussey" was the term my fair friend used in speaking of her, but let that pass. It is more to the purpose to record, that Mrs. Yatman has not lost confidence in me, and that Mr. Yatman promises to follow her example and do his best to look hopefully for future results.
I have now, in the new turn that circumstances have taken, to await advice from your office. I pause for fresh orders with all the composure of a man who has got two strings to his bow. When I traced the three confederates from the church door to the railway terminus, I had two motives for doing so. First, I followed them as a matter of official business, believing them still to have been guilty of the robbery. Secondly, I followed them as a matter of private speculation, with a view of discovering the place of refuge to which the runaway couple intended to retreat, and of making my information a marketable commodity to offer to the young lady's family and friends. Thus, whatever happens, I may congratulate myself beforehand on not having wasted my time. If the office approves of my conduct, I have my plan ready for further proceedings. If the office blames me, I shall take myself off, with my marketable information, to the genteel villa-residence in the neighborhood of the Regent's Park. Any way, the affair puts money into my pocket, and does credit to my penetration, as an uncommonly sharp man.
I have only one word more to add, and it is this:—If any individual ventures to assert that Mr. Jay and his confederates are innocent of all share in the stealing of the cash-box, I, in return, defy that individual—though he may even be Chief Inspector Theakstone himself—to tell me who has committed the robbery at Rutherford Street, Soho.
Strong in that conviction,
I have the honor to beYour very obedient servant,
Matthew Sharpin.
Birmingham, July 9th.
Sergeant Bulmer,
That empty-headed puppy, Mr. Matthew Sharpin, has made a mess of the case at Rutherford Street, exactly as I expected he would. Business keeps me in this town; so I write to you to set the matter straight. I enclose, with this, the pages of feeble scribble-scrabble which the creature, Sharpin, calls a report. Look them over; and when you have made your way through all the gabble, I think you will agree with me that the conceited booby has looked for the thief in every direction but the right one. The case is perfectly simple, now. Settle it at once; forward your report to me at this place; and tell Mr. Sharpin that he is suspended till further notice.
Yours,
Francis Theakstone.
London, July 10th.
Inspector Theakstone,
Your letter and enclosure came safe to hand. Wise men, they say, may always learn something, even from a fool. By the time I had got through Sharpin's maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough to the end of the Rutherford-Street case, just as you thought I should. In half an hour's time I was at the house. The first person I saw there was Mr. Sharpin himself.
"Have you come to help me?" says he.
"Not exactly," says I. "I've come to tell you that you are suspended till further notice."
"Very good," says he, not taken down, by so much as a single peg, in his own estimation. "I thought you would be jealous of me. It's very natural; and I don't blame you. Walk in, pray, and make yourself at home. I'm off to do a little detective business on my own account, in the neighborhood of the Regent's Park. Ta-ta, Sergeant, ta-ta!"
With those words he took himself out of my way,—which was exactly what I wanted him to do. As soon as the maid-servant had shut the door, I told her to inform her master that I wanted to say a word to him in private. She showed me into the parlor behind the shop; and there was Mr. Yatman, all alone, reading the newspaper.
"About this matter of the robbery, Sir," says I.
He cut me short, peevishly enough,—being naturally a poor, weak, womanish sort of man. "Yes, yes, I know," says he. "You have come to tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my second-floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the scoundrel who has stolen my money."
"Yes, Sir," says I. "Thatisone of the things I came to tell you. ButI have got something else to say, besides that."
"Can you tell me who the thief is?" says he, more pettish than ever.
"Yes, Sir," says I, "I think I can."
He put down the newspaper, and began to look rather anxious and frightened.
"Not my shopman?" says he. "I hope, for the man's own sake, it's not my shopman."
"Guess again, Sir," says I.
"That idle slut, the maid?" says he.
"She is idle, Sir," says I, "and she is also a slut; my first inquiries about her proved as much as that. But she's not the thief."
"Then, in the name of Heaven, who is?" says he.
"Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise, Sir?" says I. "And in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my remarking, that I am the stronger man of the two, and that, if you allow yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure self-defence?"
He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away from me.
"You have asked me to tell you, Sir, who has taken your money," I went on. "If you insist on my giving you an answer"—
"I do insist," he said, faintly. "Who has taken it?"
"Your wife has taken it," I said, very quietly, and very positively at the same time.
He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck his fist on the table, so heavily that the wood cracked again.
"Steady, Sir," says I. "Flying into a passion won't help you to the truth."
"It's a lie!" says he, with another smack of his fist on the table,—"a base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you"—
He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.
"When your better sense comes back to you, Sir," says I, "I am sure you will be gentleman enough to make me an apology for the language you have just used. In the mean time, please to listen, if you can, to a word of explanation. Mr. Sharpin has sent in a report to our Inspector, of the most irregular and ridiculous kind; setting down, not only all his own foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs. Yatman as well. In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the waste-paper basket; but, in this particular case, it so happens that Mr. Sharpin's budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion which the simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the beginning to the end. Of that conclusion I am so sure, that I will forfeit my place, if it does not turn out that Mrs. Yatman has been practising upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging him to suspect the wrong persons. I tell you that confidently; and I will even go farther. I will undertake to give a decided opinion as to why Mrs. Yatman took the money, and what she has done with it, or with a part of it. Nobody can look at that lady, Sir, without being struck by the great taste and beauty of her dress"——
As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of speech again. He cut me short directly, as haughtily as if he had been a duke instead of a stationer. "Try some other means of justifying your vile calumny against my wife," says he. "Her milliner's bill, for the past year, is on my file of receipted accounts, at this moment."
"Excuse me, Sir," says I, "but that proves nothing. Milliners, I must tell you, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily experience of our office. A married lady who wishes it can keep two accounts at her dress-maker's:—one is the account which her husband sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by instalments, whenever she can. According to our usual experience, these instalments are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money. In your case, I suspect no instalments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened; Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself driven into a corner; and she has paid her private account out of your cashbox."
"I won't believe it!" says he. "Every word you speak is an abominable insult to me and to my wife."
"Are you man enough, Sir," says I, taking him up short, in order to save time and words, "to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now, off the file, and to come with me at once to the milliner's shop where Mrs. Yatman deals?"
He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his hat. I took out of my pocket-book the list containing the numbers of the lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.
Arrived at the milliner's, (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I expected,) I asked for a private interview, on important business, with the mistress of the concern. It was not the first time that she and I had met over the same delicate investigation. The moment she set eyes on me, she sent for her husband. I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what we wanted.
"This is strictly private?" says the husband. I nodded my head.
"And confidential?" says the wife. I nodded again.
"Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the Sergeant with a sight of the books?" says the husband.
"None in the world, love, if you approve of it," says the wife.
All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference. The books were brought,—and one minute's look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman's name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of every word that I had spoken.
There, in one book, was the husband's account, which Mr. Yatman had settled. And there, in the other, was the private account, crossed off also; the date of settlement being the very day after the loss of the cash-box. This said private account amounted to the sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds, odd shillings; and it extended over a period of three years. Not a single instalment had been paid on it. Under the last line was an entry to this effect: "Written to for the third time, June 23d." I pointed to it, and asked the milliner if that meant "last June." Yes, it did mean last June; and she now deeply regretted to say that it had been accompanied by a threat of legal proceedings.
"I thought you gave good customers more than three years' credit?" saysI.
The milliner looks at Mr. Yatman, and whispers to me,—"Not when a lady's husband gets into difficulties."
She pointed to the account as she spoke. The entries after the time when Mr. Yatman's circumstances became involved were just as extravagant, for a person in his wife's situation, as the entries for the year before that period. If the lady had economized in other things, she had certainly not economized in the matter of dress.
There was nothing left now but to examine the cash-book, for form's sake. The money had been paid in notes, the amounts and numbers of which exactly tallied with the figures set down in my list.
After that, I thought it best to get Mr. Yatman out of the house immediately. He was in such a pitiable condition, that I called a cab and accompanied him home in it. At first, he cried and raved like a child; but I soon quieted him,—and I must add, to his credit, that he made me a most handsome apology for his language, as the cab drew up at his house-door. In return, I tried to give him some advice about how to set matters right, for the future, with his wife. He paid very little attention to me, and went up stairs muttering to himself about a separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape or not seems doubtful. I should say, myself, that she will go into screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her. But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case is now at an end; and the present report may come to a conclusion along with it.
I remain, accordingly, yours to command,
Thomas Bulmer.
P.S.—I have to add, that, on leaving Rutherford Street, I met Mr.Matthew Sharpin coming back to pack up his things.
"Only think!" says he, rubbing his hands in great spirits, "I've been to the genteel villa-residence; and the moment I mentioned my business, they kicked me out directly. There were two witnesses of the assault; and it's worth a hundred pounds to me, if it's worth a farthing."
"I wish you joy of your luck," says I.
"Thank you," says he. "When may I pay you the same compliment on finding the thief?"
"Whenever you like," says I, "for the thief is found."
"Just what I expected," says he. "I've done all the work; and now you cut in, and claim all the credit.—Mr. Jay, of course?"
"No," says I.
"Who is it, then?" says he.
"Ask Mrs. Yatman," says I. "She'll tell you."
"All right! I'd much rather hear it from her than from you," says he,—and goes into the house in a mighty hurry.
What do you think of that, Inspector Theakstone? Would you like to stand in Mr. Sharpin's shoes? I shouldn't, I can promise you!
July 12th.
Sir,
Sergeant Bulmer has already told you to consider yourself suspended until further notice. I have now authority to add, that your services as a member of the Detective Police are positively declined. You will please to take this letter as notifying officially your dismissal from the force.
I may inform you, privately, that your rejection is not intended to cast any reflections on your character. It merely implies that you are not quite sharp enough for our purpose. If we are to have a new recruit among us, we should infinitely prefer Mrs. Yatman.
Your obedient servant,
Francis Theakstone.
* * * * *
Note on the preceding correspondence—The editor is, unfortunately, not in a position to add any explanations of importance to the last of the published letters of Chief Inspector Theakstone. It has been discovered that Mr. Matthew Sharpin left the house in Rutherford Street a quarter of an hour after his interview outside of it with Sergeant Bulmer,—his manner expressing the liveliest emotions of terror and astonishment, and his left cheek displaying a bright patch of red, which looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard, by the shopman at Rutherford Street, to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman; and was seen to clinch his fist vindictively, as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services to the provincial police.
On the interesting domestic subject of Mr. and Mrs. Yatman still less is known. It has, however, been positively ascertained that the medical attendant of the family was sent for in a great hurry on the day when Mr. Yatman returned from the milliner's shop. The neighboring chemist received, soon afterwards, a prescription of a soothing nature to make up for Mrs. Yatman. The day after, Mr. Yatman purchased some smelling-salts at the shop, and afterwards appeared at the circulating library to ask for a novel that would amuse an invalid lady. It has been inferred from these circumstances that he has not thought it desirable to carry out his threat of separating himself from his wife,—at least in the present (presumed) condition of that lady's sensitive nervous system.
* * * * *
[Footnote A: A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.]
Here is the place; right over the hillRuns the path I took;You can see the gap in the old wall still,And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,And the poplars tall;And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the bee-hives ranged in the sun;And down by the brinkOf the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,Heavy and slow;And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,And the same brook sings of a year ago.
There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;And the June sun warmTangles his wings of fire in the trees,Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover's careFrom my Sunday coatI brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,And cooled at the brook-side my brow and throat.
Since we parted, a month had passed,—To love, a year;Down through the beeches, I looked at lastOn the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
I can see it all now,—the slantwise rainOf light through the leaves,The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before,—The house and the trees,The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Before them, under the garden wall,Forward and back,Went, drearily singing, the chore-girl small,Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listened: the summer sunHad the chill of snow;For I knew she was telling the bees of oneGone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself, "My Mary weepsFor the dead to-day:Haply her blind old grandsire sleepsThe fret and the pain of his age away."
But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,With his cane to his chin,The old man sat; and the chore-girl stillSung to the bees stealing out and in.
And the song she was singing ever sinceIn my ear sounds on:—"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
To Baron von Hammer Purgstall, who died in Vienna during the last year, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides the "Divan" of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets, who wrote during a period of five and a half centuries, from A.D. 1000 to 1550. The seven masters of the Persian Parnassus, Firdousi, Enweri, Nisami, Dschelaleddin, Saadi, Hafiz, and Dschami, have ceased to be empty names; and others, like Ferideddin Attar, and Omar Chiam, promise to rise in Western estimation. That for which mainly books exist is communicated in these rich extracts. Many qualities go to make a good telescope,—as the largeness of the field, facility of sweeping the meridian, achromatic purity of lenses, and so forth,—but the one eminent value is the space-penetrating power; and there are many virtues in books, but the essential value is the adding of knowledge to our stock, by the record of new facts, and, better, by the record of intuitions, which distribute facts, and are the formulas which supersede all histories.
Oriental life and society, especially in the Southern nations, stand in violent contrast with the multitudinous detail, the secular stability, and the vast average of comfort of the Western nations. Life in the East is fierce, short, hazardous, and in extremes. Its elements are few and simple, not exhibiting the long range and undulation of European existence, but rapidly reaching the best and the worst. The rich feed on fruits and game,—the poor, on a watermelon's peel. All or nothing is the genius of Oriental life. Favor of the Sultan, or his displeasure, is a question of Fate. A war is undertaken for an epigram or a distich, as in Europe for a duchy. The prolific sun, and the sudden and rank plenty which his heat engenders, make subsistence easy. On the other side, the desert, the simoom, the mirage, the lion, and the plague endanger it, and life hangs on the contingency of a skin of water more or less. The very geography of old Persia showed these contrasts. "My father's empire," said Cyrus to Xenophon, "is so large, that people perish with cold, at one extremity, whilst they are suffocated with heat, at the other." The temperament of the people agrees with this life in extremes. Religion and poetry are all their civilization. The religion teaches an inexorable Destiny. It distinguishes only two days in each man's history: his birthday, calledthe Day of the Lot, and the Day of Judgment. Courage and absolute submission to what is appointed him are his virtues.
The favor of the climate, making subsistence easy, and encouraging an outdoor life, allows to the Eastern nations a highly intellectual organization,—leaving out of view, at present, the genius of the Hindoos, (more Oriental in every sense,) whom no people have surpassed in the grandeur of their ethical statement. The Persians and the Arabs, with great leisure and few books, are exquisitely sensible to the pleasures of poetry. Layard has given some details of the effect which theimprovvisatoriproduced on the children of the desert. "When the bard improvised an amatory ditty, the young chief's excitement was almost beyond control. The other Bedouins were scarcely less moved by these rude measures, which have the same kind of effect on the wild tribes of the Persian mountains. Such verses, chanted by their self-taught poets, or by the girls of their encampment, will drive warriors to the combat, fearless of death, or prove an ample reward, on their return from the dangers of theghazon, or the fight. The excitement they produce exceeds that of the grape. He who would understand the influence of the Homeric ballads in the heroic ages should witness the effect which similar compositions have upon the wild nomads of the East." Elsewhere he adds, "Poetry and flowers are the wine and spirits of the Arab; a couplet is equal to a bottle, and a rose to a dram, without the evil effect of either."
The Persian poetry rests on a mythology whose few legends are connected with the Jewish history, and the anterior traditions of the Pentateuch. The principal figure in the allusions of Eastern poetry is Solomon. Solomon had three talismans: first, the signet ring, by which he commanded the spirits, on the stone of which was engraven the name of God; second, the glass, in which he saw the secrets of his enemies, and the causes of all things, figured; the third, the east wind, which was his horse. His counsellor was Simorg, king of birds, the all-wise fowl, who had lived ever since the beginning of the world, and now lives alone on the highest summit of Mount Kaf. No fowler has taken him, and none now living has seen him. By him Solomon was taught the language of birds, so that he heard secrets whenever he went into his gardens. When Solomon travelled, his throne was placed on a carpet of green silk, of a length and breadth sufficient for all his army to stand upon,—men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his left. When all were in order, the east wind, at his command, took up the carpet, and transported it, with all that were upon it, whither he pleased,—the army of birds at the same time flying overhead, and forming a canopy to shade them from the sun. It is related, that, when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, he had built, against her arrival, a palace, of which the floor or pavement was of glass, laid over running water, in which fish were swimming. The Queen of Sheba was deceived thereby, and raised her robes, thinking she was to pass through the water. On the occasion of Solomon's marriage, all the beasts, laden with presents, appeared before his throne. Behind them all came the ant with a blade of grass: Solomon did not despise the gift of the ant. Asaph, the vizier, at a certain time, lost the seal of Solomon, which one of the Dews, or evil spirits, found, and, governing in the name of Solomon, deceived the people.
Firdousi, the Persian Homer, has written in theShah Namehthe annals of the fabulous and heroic kings of the country: of Karun, (the Persian Croesus.) the immeasurably rich gold-maker, who, with all his treasures, lies buried not far from the Pyramids, in the sea which bears his name; of Jamschid, the binder of demons, whose reign lasted seven hundred years; of Kai Kaus, whose palace was built by demons on Alberz, in which gold and silver and precious stones were used so lavishly, and such was the brilliancy produced by their combined effect, that night and day appeared the same; of Afrasiyab, strong as an elephant, whose shadow extended for miles, whose heart was bounteous as the ocean, and his hands like the clouds when rain falls to gladden the earth. The crocodile in the rolling stream had no safety from Afrasiyab. Yet when he came to fight against the generals of Kaus, he was but an insect in the grasp of Rustem, who seized him by the girdle, and dragged him from his horse. Rustem felt such anger at the arrogance of the King of Mazinderan, that every hair on his body started up like a spear. The gripe of his hand cracked the sinews of an enemy.
These legends,—with Chiser, the fountain of life, Tuba, the tree of life,—the romances of the loves of Leila and Medschun, of Chosru and Schirin, and those of the nightingale for the rose,—pearl-diving, and the virtues of gems,—the cohol, a cosmetic by which pearls and eyebrows are indelibly stained black,—the bladder in which musk is brought,—the down of the lip, the mole on the cheek, the eyelash,—lilies, roses, tulips, and jasmines,—make the staple imagery of Persian odes.
The Persians have epics and tales, but, for the most part, they affect short poems and epigrams. Gnomic verses, rules of life, conveyed in a lively image, especially in an image addressed to the eye, and contained in a single stanza, were always current in the East; and if the poem is long, it is only a string of unconnected verses. They use an inconsecutiveness quite alarming to Western logic, and the connection between the stanzas of their longer odes is much like that between the refrain of our old English ballads,
"The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,"
or
"The rain it raineth every day,"
and the main story.
Take, as specimens of these gnomic verses, the following:—
"The secret that should not be blownNot one of thy nation must know;You may padlock the gate of a town,But never the mouth of a foe."
Or this of Omar Chiam:—
"On earth's wide thoroughfares belowTwo only men contented go:Who knows what's right and what's forbid,And he from whom is knowledge hid."
Or this of Enweri:—
"On prince or bride no diamond stoneHalf so gracious ever shone,As the light of enterpriseBeaming from a young man's eyes."
Or this of Ibn Jemin:—
"Two things thou shalt not long for, if thoulove a life serene:A woman for thy wife, though she were acrowned queen;And, the second, borrowed money, thoughthe smiling lender sayThat he will not demand the debt until theJudgment Day."
Or this poem on Friendship:—
"He who has a thousand friends has not afriend to spare,And he who has one enemy shall meet himeverywhere."
Here is a poem on a Melon, by Adsched of Meru:—
"Color, taste, and smell, smaragdus, sugar,and musk,—Amber for the tongue, for the eye a picturerare,—If you cut the fruit in slices, every slice acrescent fair,—If you leave it whole, the full harvest-moonis there."
Hafiz is the prince of Persian poets, and in his extraordinary gifts adds to some of the attributes of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace, and Burns the insight of a mystic, that sometimes affords a deeper glance at Nature than belongs to either of these bards. He accosts all topics with an easy audacity. "He only," he says, "is fit for company, who knows how to prize earthly happiness at the value of a night-cap. Our father Adam sold Paradise for two kernels of wheat; then blame me not, if I hold it dear at one grapestone." He says to the Shah, "Thou who rulest after words and thoughts which no ear has heard and no mind has thought, abide firm until thy young destiny tears off his blue coat from the old graybeard of the sky." He says,—
"I batter the wheel of heavenWhen it rolls not rightly by;I am not one of the snivellersWho fall thereon and die."
The rapidity of his turns is always surprising us:—
"See how the roses burn!Bring wine to quench the fire!Alas! the flames come up with us,—We perish with desire."
After the manner of his nation, he abounds in pregnant sentences which might be engraved on a sword-blade and almost on a ring.
"In honor dies he to whom the great seems ever wonderful."
"Here is the sum, that, when one door opens, another shuts."
"On every side is an ambush laid by the robber-troops of circumstance; hence it is that the horseman of life urges on his courser at headlong speed."
"The earth is a host who murders his guests."
"Good is what goes on the road of Nature. On the straight way the traveller never misses."
"Alas! till now I had not knownMy guide and Fortune's guide are one."
"The understanding's copper coinCounts not with the gold of love."
"'Tis writ on Paradise's gate,'Wo to the dupe that yields to Fate!'"
"The world is a bride superbly dressed;—Who weds her for dowry must pay his soul."
"Loose the knots of the heart; never think onthy fate:No Euclid has yet disentangled that snarl."
"There resides in the grievingA poison to kill;Beware to go near them'Tis pestilent still."
Harems and wine-shops only give him a new ground of observation, whence to draw sometimes a deeper moral than regulated sober life affords,—and this is foreseen:—
"I will be drunk and down with wine;Treasures we find in a ruined house."
Riot, he thinks, can snatch from the deeply hidden lot the veil that covers it:—
"To be wise the dull brain so earnestly throbs,Bring bands of wine for the stupid head."
"The Builder of heavenHath sundered the earth,So that no footwayLeads out of it forth.
"On turnpikes of wonderWine leads the mind forth,Straight, sidewise, and upward,West, southward, and north.
"Stands the vault adamantineUntil the Doomsday;The wine-cup shall ferryThee o'er it away."
That hardihood and self-equality of every sound nature, which result from the feeling that the spirit in him is entire and as good as the world, which entitle the poet to speak with authority, and make him an object of interest, and his every phrase and syllable significant, are in Hafiz, and abundantly fortify and ennoble his tone.
His was the fluent mind in which every thought and feeling came readily to the lips. "Loose the knots of the heart," he says. We absorb elements enough, but have not leaves and lungs for healthy perspiration and growth. An air of sterility, of incompetence to their proper aims, belongs to many who have both experience and wisdom. But a large utterance, a river, that makes its own shores, quick perception and corresponding expression, a constitution to which every morrow is a new day, which is equal to the needs of life, at once tender and bold, with great arteries,—this generosity of ebb and flow satisfies, and we should be willing to die when our time comes, having had our swing and gratification. The difference is not so much in the quality of men's thoughts as in the power of uttering them. What is pent and smouldered in the dumb actor is not pent in the poet, but passes over into new form, at once relief and creation.
The other merit of Hafiz is his intellectual liberty, which is a certificate of profound thought. We accept the religions and politics into which we fall; and it is only a few delicate spirits who are sufficient to see that the whole web of convention is the imbecility of those whom it entangles,—that the mind suffers no religion and no empire but its own. It indicates this respect to absolute truth by the use it makes of the symbols that are most stable and reverend, and therefore is always provoking the accusation of irreligion.
Hypocrisy is the perpetual butt of his arrows.
"Let us draw the cowl through the brook of wine."
He tells his mistress, that not the dervis, or the monk, but the lover, has in his heart the spirit which makes the ascetic and the saint; and certainly not their cowls and mummeries, but her glances, can impart to him the fire and virtue needful for such self-denial. Wrong shall not be wrong to Hafiz, for the name's sake. A law or statute is to him what a fence is to a nimble schoolboy,—a temptation for a jump. "We would do nothing but good; else would shame come to us on the day when the soul must hie hence;—and should they then deny us Paradise, the Houris themselves would forsake that, and come out to us."
His complete intellectual emancipation he communicates to the reader. There is no example of such facility of allusion, such use of all materials. Nothing is too high, nothing too low, for his occasion. He fears nothing, he stops for nothing. Love is a leveller, and Allah becomes a groom, and heaven a closet, in his daring hymns to his mistress or to his cup-bearer. This boundless charter is the right of genius. "No evil fate," said Beethoven, "can befall my music, and he to whom it is become intelligible must become free from all the paltriness which the others drag about with them."
We do not wish to strew sugar on bottled spiders, or try to make mystical divinity out of the Song of Solomon, much less out of the erotic and bacchanalian songs of Hafiz. Hafiz himself is determined to defy all such hypocritical interpretation, and tears off his turban and throws it at the head of the meddling dervis, and throws his glass after the turban. But the love or the wine of Hafiz is not to be confounded with vulgar debauch. It is the spirit in which the song is written that imports, and not the topics. Hafiz praises wine, roses, maidens, boys, birds, mornings, and music, to give vent to his immense hilarity and sympathy with every form of beauty and joy; and lays the emphasis on these to mark his scorn of sanctimony and base prudence. These are the natural topics and language of his wit and perception. But it is the play of wit and the joy of song that he loves; and if you mistake him for a low rioter, he turns short on you with verses which express the poverty of sensual joys, and to ejaculate with equal fire the most unpalatable affirmations of heroic sentiment and contempt for the world. Sometimes it is a glance from the height of thought, as thus:—"Bring wine; for, in the audience-hall of the soul's independence, what is sentinel or Sultan? what is the wise man or the intoxicated?"—and sometimes his feast, feasters, and world are only one pebble more in the eternal vortex and revolution of Fate:—
"I am: what I amMy dust will be again."
A saint might lend an ear to the riotous fun of Falstaff; for it is not created to excite the animal appetites, but to vent the joy of a supernal intelligence. In all poetry, Pindar's rule holds,—[Greek: sunetois phonei], it speaks to the intelligent; and Hafiz is a poet for poets, whether he write, as sometimes, with a parrot's, or, as at other times, with an eagle's quill.
Every song of Hafiz affords new proof of the unimportance of your subject to success, provided only the treatment be cordial. In general, what is more tedious than dedications or panegyrics addressed to grandees? Yet in the "Divan" you would not skip them, since his muse seldom supports him better.
"What lovelier forms things wear,Now that the Shah comes back!"
And again:—
"Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strikedown.Poises Arcturus aloft morning and eveninghis spear."
And again:—
"Mirza! where thy shadow falls,Beauty sits and Music calls;Where thy form and favor come,All good creatures have their home."
Here are a couple of stately compliments to his Shah, from the kindred genius of Enweri:—
"Not in their houses stand the stars,But o'er the pinnacles of thine!"
"From thy worth and weight the starsgravitate,And the equipoise of heaven is thy house'sequipoise!"
It is told of Hafiz, that, when he had written a compliment to a handsome youth,—
"Take my heart in thy hand, O beautiful boyof Schiraz!I would give for the mole on thy cheek Samarcandand Buchara!"—
the verses came to the ears of Timour in his palace. Timour taxed Hafiz with treating disrespectfully his two cities, to raise and adorn which he had conquered nations. Hafiz replied, "Alas, my lord, if I had not been so prodigal, I had not been so poor!"
The Persians had a mode of establishing copyright the most secure of any contrivance with which we are acquainted. The law of theghaselle, or shorter ode, requires that the poet insert his name in the last stanza. Almost every one of several hundreds of poems of Hafiz contains his name thus interwoven more or less closely with the subject of the piece. It is itself a test of skill, as this self-naming is not quite easy. We remember but two or three examples in English poetry: that of Chaucer, in the "House of Fame"; Jonson's epitaph on his son,—
"Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry";
and Cowley's,—
"The melancholy Cowley lay."
But it is easy to Hafiz. It gives him the opportunity of the most playful self-assertion, always gracefully, sometimes almost in the fun of Falstaff, sometimes with feminine delicacy. He tells us, "The angels in heaven were lately learning his last pieces." He says, "The fishes shed their pearls, out of desire and longing, as soon as the ship of Hafiz swims the deep."
"Out of the East, and out of the West,no man understands me;Oh, the happier I, who confide to none butthe wind!This morning heard I how the lyre of thestars resounded,'Sweeter tones have we heard from Hafiz!'"
Again,—
"I heard the harp of the planet Venus, and it said in the early morning, 'I am the disciple of the sweet-voiced Hafiz!'"
And again,—
"When Hafiz sings, the angels hearken, and Anaitis, the leader of the starry host, calls even the Messiah in heaven out to the dance."
"No one has unveiled thoughts like Hafiz, since the locks of the Word-bride were first curled."
"Only he despises the verse of Hafiz whois not himself by nature noble."
But we must try to give some of these poetic flourishes the metrical form which they seem to require:—
"Fit for the Pleiads' azure chordThe songs I sung, the pearls I bored."
Another:—
"I have no hoarded treasure,Yet have I rich content;The first from Allah to the Shah,The last to Hafiz went."
Another:—
"High heart, O Hafiz! though not thineFine gold and silver ore;More worth to thee the gift of song,And the clear insight more."
Again:—
"Thou foolish Hafiz! say, do churlsKnow the worth of Oman's pearls?Give the gem which dims the moonTo the noblest, or to none."
Again:—
"O Hafiz! speak not of thy need;Are not these verses thine?Then all the poets are agreed,No man can less repine."
He asserts his dignity as bard and inspired man of his people. To the vizier returning from Mecca he says,—
"Boast not rashly, prince of pilgrims, of thy fortune, Thou hast indeed seen the temple; but I, the Lord of the temple. Nor has any man inhaled from the musk-bladder of the merchant, or from the musky morning-wind, that sweet air which I am permitted to breathe every hour of the day."
And with still more vigor in the following lines:—
"Oft have I said, I say it once more,I, a wanderer, do not stray from myself.I am a kind of parrot; the mirror is holden to me;What the Eternal says, I stammering say again.Give me what you will; I eat thistles as roses,And according to my food I grow and I give.Scorn me not, but know I have the pearl,And am only seeking one to receive it."
And his claim has been admitted from the first. The muleteers and camel-drivers, on their way through the desert, sing snatches of his songs, not so much for the thought, as for their joyful temper and tone; and the cultivated Persians know his poems by heart. Yet Hafiz does not appear to have set any great value on his songs, since his scholars collected them for the first time after his death.
In the following poem the soul is figured as the Phoenix alighting on the Tree of Life:—
"My phoenix long ago securedHis nest in the sky-vault's cope;In the body's cage immured,He is weary of life's hope.
"Round and round this heap of ashesNow flies the bird amain,But in that odorous niche of heavenNestles the bird again.
"Once flies he upward, he will perchOn Tuba's golden bough;His home is on that fruited archWhich cools the blest below.
"If over this world of oursHis wings my phoenix spread,How gracious falls on land and seaThe soul refreshing shade!
"Either world inhabits he,Sees oft below him planets roll;His body is all of air compact,Of Allah's love his soul."
Here is an ode which is said to be a favorite with all educatedPersians:—
"Come!—the palace of heaven rests on aëry pillars,—Come, and bring me wine; our days are wind.I declare myself the slave of that masculine soulWhich ties and alliance on earth once forever renounces.Told I thee yester-morn how the Iris of heavenBrought to me in my cup a gospel of joy?O high-flying falcon! the Tree of Life is thy perch;This nook of grief fits thee ill for a nest.Hearken! they call to thee down from the ramparts of heaven;I cannot divine what holds thee here in a net.I, too, have a counsel for thee; oh, mark it and keep it,Since I received the same from the Master above:Seek not for faith or for truth in a world of light-minded girls;A thousand suitors reckons this dangerous bride.This jest [of the world], which tickles me, leave to my vagabond self.Accept whatever befalls; uncover thy brow from thy locks;Neither to me nor to thee was option imparted;Neither endurance nor truth belongs to the laugh of the rose.The loving nightingale mourns;—cause enow for mourning;—Why envies the bird the streaming verses of Hafiz?Know that a god bestowed on him eloquent speech."
Here is a little epitaph that might have come from Simonides:—
"Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jestMad Destiny this tender stripling played:For a warm breast of ivory to his breast,She laid a slab of marble on his head."
The cedar, the cypress, the palm, the olive, and fig-tree, and the birds that inhabit them, and the garden flowers, are never wanting in these musky verses, and are always named with effect. "The willows," he says, "bow themselves to every wind, out of shame for their unfruitfulness." We may open anywhere on a floral catalogue.
"By breath of beds of roses drawn,I found the grove in the morning pure,In the concert of the nightingalesMy drunken brain to cure.
"With unrelated glanceI looked the rose in the eye;The rose in the hour of gloamingFlamed like a lamp hard-by.
"She was of her beauty proud,And prouder of her youth,The while unto her flaming heartThe bulbul gave his truth.
"The sweet narcissus closedIts eye, with passion pressed;The tulips out of envy burnedMoles in their scarlet breast.
"The lilies white prolongedTheir sworded tongue to the smell;The clustering anemonesTheir pretty secrets tell."
Presently we have,—
——"All day the rainBathed the dark hyacinths in vain,The flood may pour from morn till nightNor wash the pretty Indians white."
And so onward, through many a page.
The following verse of Omar Chiam seems to belong to Hafiz:—
"Each spot where tulips prank their stateHas drunk the life-blood of the great;The violets yon fields which stainAre moles of beauties Time hath slain."
As might this picture of the first days of Spring, from Enweri:—
"O'er the garden water goes the wind aloneTo rasp and to polish the cheek of the wave;The fire is quenched on the dear hearth-stone,But it burns again on the tulips brave."
Friendship is a favorite topic of the Eastern poets, and they have matched on this head the absoluteness of Montaigne.
Hafiz says,—
"Thou learnest no secret until thou knowest friendship; since to the unsound no heavenly knowledge enters."
Ibn Jemin writes thus:—
"Whilst I disdain the populace,I find no peer in higher place.Friend is a word of royal tone,Friend is a poem all alone.Wisdom is like the elephant,Lofty and rare inhabitant:He dwells in deserts or in courts;With hucksters he has no resorts."
Dschami says,—
"A friend is he, who, hunted as a foe,So much the kindlier shows him than before;Throw stones at him, or ruder javelins throw,He builds with stone and steel a firmer floor."
Of the amatory poetry of Hafiz we must be very sparing in our citations, though it forms the staple of the "Divan." He has run through the whole gamut of passion,—from the sacred, to the borders, and over the borders, of the profane. The same confusion of high and low, the celerity of flight and allusion which our colder muses forbid, is habitual to him. From the plain text,—
"The chemist of loveWill this perishing mould,Were it made out of mire,Transmute into gold,"—
or, from another favorite legend of his chemistry,—
"They say, through patience, chalkBecomes a ruby stone;Ah, yes, but by the true heart's bloodThe chalk is crimson grown,"—
he proceeds to the celebration of his passion; and nothing in his religious or in his scientific traditions is too sacred or too remote to afford a token of his mistress. The Moon thought she knew her own orbit well enough; but when she saw the curve on Zuleika's cheek, she was at a loss:—
"And since round lines are drawnMy darling's lips about,The very Moon looks puzzled on,And hesitates in doubtIf the sweet curve that rounds thy mouthBe not her true way to the South."
His ingenuity never sleeps:—
"Ah, could I hide me in my song,To kiss thy lips from which it flows!"—
and plays in a thousand pretty courtesies:—
"Fair fall thy soft heart!A good work wilt thou do?Oh, pray for the deadWhom thine eyelashes slew!"
And what a nest has he found for his bonny bird to take up her abode in!—
"They strew in the path of kings and czarsJewels and gems of price;But for thy head I will pluck down stars,And pave thy way with eyes.
"I have sought for thee a costlier domeThan Mahmoud's palace high,And thou, returning, find thy homeIn the apple of Love's eye."
Nor shall Death snatch her from his pursuit:—
"If my darling should departAnd search the skies for prouder friends,God forbid my angry heartIn other love should seek amends!
"When the blue horizon's hoopMe a little pinches here,On the instant I will dieAnd go find thee in the sphere."
Then we have all degrees of passionate abandonment:—
"I know this perilous love-laneNo whither the traveller leads,Yet my fancy the sweet scent ofThy tangled tresses feeds.
"In the midnight of thy locks,I renounce the day;In the ring of thy rose-lips,My heart forgets to pray."
And sometimes his love rises to a religious sentiment:—
"Plunge in yon angry waves,Renouncing doubt and care;The flowing of the seven broad seasShall never wet thy hair.
"Is Allah's face on theeBending with love benign,And thou not less on Allah's eyeO fairest! turnest thine."
We add to these fragments of Hafiz a few specimens from other poets.
"In Farsistan the violet spreadsIts leaves to the rival sky,—I ask, How far is the Tigris flood,And the vine that grows thereby?
"Except the amber morning wind,Not one saluted me here;There is no man in all BagdadTo offer the exile cheer.
"I know that thou, O morning wind,O'er Kerman's meadow blowest,And thou, heart-warming nightingale,My father's orchard knowest.
"Oh, why did partial FortuneFrom that bright land banish me?So long as I wait in Bagdad,The Tigris is all I see.
"The merchant hath stuffs of price,And gems from the sea-washed strand,And princes offer me graceTo stay in the Syrian land:
"But what is gold for but for gifts?And dark without love is the day;And all that I see in BagdadIs the Tigris to float me away."
"While roses bloomed along the plain,The nightingale to the falcon said,'Why, of all birds, must thou be dumb?With closed mouth thou utterest,Though dying, no last word to man.Yet sitt'st thou on the hand of princes,And feedest on the grouse's breast,Whilst I, who hundred thousand jewelsSquander in a single tone,Lo! I feed myself with worms,And my dwelling is the thorn.'—The falcon answered, 'Be all ear:I, experienced in affairs,See fifty things, say never one;But thee the people prizes not,Who, doing nothing, say'st a thousand.To me, appointed to the chase,The king's hand gives the grouse's breast;Whilst a chatterer like theeMust gnaw worms in the thorn. Farewell!'"
The following passages exhibit the strong tendency of the Persian poets to contemplative and religious poetry and to allegory.
"A painter in China once painted a hall;—Such a web never hung on an emperor's wall;—One half from his brush with rich colors did run,The other he touched with a beam of the sun;So that all which delighted the eye in one side,The same, point for point, in the other replied.
"In thee, friend, that Tyrian chamber is found;Thine the star-pointing roof, and the base on the ground:Is one half depicted with colors less bright?Beware that the counterpart blazes with light!"
"I read on the porch of a palace boldIn a purple tablet letters cast,—'A house, though a million winters old,A house of earth comes down at last;Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,And build the dome that shall not fall.'"
"What need," cries the mystic Feisi, "of palaces and tapestry? What need even of a bed?
"The eternal Watcher, who doth wakeAll night in the body's earthen chest,Will of thine arms a pillow make,And a holster of thy breast."
A stanza of Hilali on a Flute is a luxury of idealism:—
"Hear what, now loud, now low, the pining flute complains,Without tongue, yellow-cheeked, full of winds that wail and sigh,Saying, 'Sweetheart, the old mystery remains,If I am I, thou thou, or thou art I.'"
Ferideddin Attar wrote the "Bird Conversations," a mystical tale, in which the birds, coming together to choose their king, resolve on a pilgrimage to Mount Kaf, to pay their homage to the Simorg. From this poem, written five hundred years ago, we cite the following passage, as a proof of the identity of mysticism in all periods. The tone is quite modern. In the fable, the birds were soon weary of the length and difficulties of the way, and at last almost all gave out. Three only persevered, and arrived before the throne of the Simorg.
"The bird-soul was ashamed;Their body was quite annihilated;They had cleaned themselves from the dust,And were by the light ensouled.What was, and was not,—the Past,—Was wiped out from their breast.The sun from near-by beamedClearest light into their soul;The resplendence of the Simorg beamedAs one back from all three.They knew not, amazed, if theyWere either this or that.They saw themselves all as Simorg,Themselves in the eternal Simorg.When to the Simorg up they looked,They beheld him among themselves;And when they looked on each other,They saw themselves in the Simorg.A single look grouped the two parties.The Simorg emerged, the Simorg vanished,This in that, and that in this,As the world has never heard.So remained they, sunk in wonder,Thoughtless in deepest thinking,And quite unconscious of themselves.Speechless prayed they to the HighestTo open this secret,And to unlockThouandWe.There came an answer without tongue.—'The Highest is a sun-mirror;Who comes to Him sees himself therein,Sees body and soul, and soul and body:When you came to the Simorg,Three therein appeared to you,And, had fifty of you come,So had you seen yourselves as many.Him has none of us yet seen.Ants see not the Pleiades.Can the gnat grasp with his teethThe body of the elephant?What you see is He not;What you hear is He not.The valleys which you traverse,The actions which you perform,They lie under our treatmentAnd among our properties.You as three birds are amazed,Impatient, heartless, confused:Far over you am I raised,Since I am in act Simorg.Ye blot out my highest being,That ye may find yourselves on my throne;Forever ye blot out yourselves,As shadows in the sun. Farewell!'"
Among the religious customs of the dervises, it seems, is an astronomical dance, in which the dervis imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies by spinning on his own axis, whilst, at the same time, he revolves round the sheikh in the centre, representing the sun; and as he spins, he sings the song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan:—
"Spin the ball! I reel, I hum,Nor head from foot can I discern,Nor my heart from love of mine,Nor the wine-cup from the wine.All my doing, all my leaving,Reaches not to my perceiving.Lost in whirling spheres I rove,And know only that I love.
"I am seeker of the stone,Living gem of Solomon;From the shore of souls arrived,In the sea of sense I dived;But what is land, or what is wave,To me who only jewel crave?Love's the air-fed fire intense,My heart is the frankincense;As the rich aloes flames, I glow,Yet the censer cannot know.I'm all-knowing, yet unknowing;Stand not, pause not, in my going.
"Ask not me, as Muftis canTo recite the Alcoran;Well I love the meaning sweet,—I tread the book beneath my feet.
"Lo! the God's love blazes higher,Till all difference expire.What are Moslems? what are Giaours?All are Love's, and all are ours.I embrace the true believers,But I reck not of deceivers.Firm to heaven my bosom clings,Heedless of inferior things;Down on earth there, underfoot,What men chatter know I not."
* * * * *
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
——I think, Sir,—said the divinity-student,—you must intend that for one of the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Boston you were speaking of the other day.
I thank you, my young friend,—was my reply,—but I must say something better than that, before I could pretend to fill out the number.
——The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of these sayings there were on record, and what, and by whom said.
——Why, let us see,—there is that one of Benjamin Franklin, "the great Bostonian," after whom this lad was named. To be sure, he said a great many wise things,—and I don't feel sure he didn't borrow this,—he speaks as if it were old. But then he applied it so neatly!—
"He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged."
Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my friend, theHistorian, in one of his flashing moments:—
"Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries."
To these must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men:—
"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris."
——The divinity-student looked grave at this, but said nothing.
The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't think the wit meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after New York or Boston.
A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they call John,—evidently a stranger,—said there was one more wise man's saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he didn't know who said it.—A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner,Shall I tell it?To which the answer was,Go ahead!—Well,—he said,—this was what I heard:—