p632-022 I. THE AMBITIOUS YOUNG MAN.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM, the Seer of New Jersey,
was sitting one morning in front of his tent,
meditating, as was his wont, when a young man of
prepossessing appearance and good address, but whose
travel-stained habiliments bespoke a long distance
travelled, appeared before him.

“Do I stand before Abou ben Adhem, the Seer,
whose fame has extended even unto the northern
counties, where I do dwell, and whose name all
men pronounce with awe and fear and respect, and
such?” asked the ingenuous youth.

“I am Abou ben Adhem,” replied the original
modestly. “What wouldst thou with me?”

“Mighty Abou,” returned the youth, bowing three
times till his nose clave the sand, as is the custom of
the Orientals, “I have walked many weary miles to
crave a boon.”

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“Speak on. The tongue of the suppliant never
wags to me in vain.”

“Mighty Abou, I have wasted my life thus far,
selling goods in a country store; but I have a soul
that loathes calico, and soars above molasses and
mackerel. I would be great! All things are
easy to thee: put me, I pray thee, in the way to
achieve fame.”

“Fame! My son, you are to be pitied. Take my
advice, go home to your calico and molasses, and be
content. Fame is a delusion. He is happiest who
knows the least and is the least known. The wise
man hates himself, because he only knows what a
consummate ass he is, — which is not cheerful for him.
I have been powerful and mighty; I did once own
the cattle on a thousand hills; I owned half the
stock of the Ispahan and Cashmere Railway; I was
thrice in the Legislature of my State, and enjoyed all
that belonged to a legitimate Persian ambition, but it
was hollow! hollow! hollow! At the time I was at
the height of my grandeur I would have exchanged
it all for gross ignorance; gladly would I have been
an Ethiop, who is made happy by the undisputed
possession of a warm fence-corner and a bottle of
the strong waters of the Franks, that can be procured
for a dirhem. Tell me, into what particularly thorny
path does your ambition lead you? Wouldst be
poet, politician, or conqueror?”

“Mighty Abou, I would be a politician. I would
mix in public affairs, and leave a name to posterity.”

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“Posterity!” said Abou, bitterly. “Would being
governor satisfy your ambition?”

“Governor! Great heavens! That 's higher than
my wildest hopes reach.”

“Are you a young man of ordinary intelligence?
Did your parents take their county newspaper?”

“Yes, great prophet.”

“How many governors of New Jersey canst name
to me?”

“All of them, great Sage. There 's Governor Parker,
who is governor now, and before him was —
that is — Governor — what 's his name — Governor—”

“Young man, you see what fame is. In two years
you will forget the name of the present governor.
It would take five volumes to write the biography of
Gen. Grant at this time; in twenty years one
volume will answer; in a hundred, one volume will
do for all the generals of that unpleasantness, on
both sides; and in three hundred, there will be a
couple of lines in an encyclopedia in which Grant's
name will be spelled wrong, and he will be put down
as having been born in New York instead of Ohio.”

Abou paused, and took a draught of sherbet.

“Listen to me, young man. You are not the first
who has preferred this request, nor will you be the
last. Four centuries ago a young man came to me,
as you have done, and asked of me what you have
asked. I determined to grant his request, for methought
he would be taught only by experience. I
passed my magic wand three times over his head, and

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his whole appearance changed; his voice became
pompous, his eyes sank back into his head, his eyebrows
became bushy, his lips became thick, and his
abdomen increased in size. He departed and I was
alone.

“Five years elapsed, and again he stood before
me.

“`Mighty Abou,' said the ambitious youth, `thy
work was well done. I have been member of the
council and governor of my province, and still
further promotion is before me. But I am not satisfied:
I see men wield with money a power which I
cannot with the arts of the politician, and they seem
to find in that a happiness which I cannot in my
pursuits. Great Abou, make me a money-king like
Dan-el-droo, or Ja-Goold, or Stoo-art, or Tomscot,
or any of those mighty men.'

“Once again I waved my wand over him, saying,
`Again I grant thee thy absurd request. Go, and
bother me no more.'

“And again the young man changed: his eyes
turned to a cold gray; his head became narrow and
long, his lips thin and bloodless, and his fingers
long and constantly clasping at something.

“Five years rolled by, and the young man stood
before me again.

“`Mighty Abou, I have realized all that I hoped
for and more. Everything I have touched has prospered
with me. I went into stock-raising: my
cows took premiums at state and county fairs. I
married the only child of a retired physician whose

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sands of life had nearly run out; and he was accommodating
enough to die a month thereafter, making
me his sole executor. I was elected treasurer of a
life insurance company. I speculated in oil stocks,
and sold out when they were 200. I bought oil
lands, and my wells always flowed. I was appointed
executor of no less than nine large estates, the heirs
to which were all infant females. I speculated in
gold and railroad stocks. I busted the Ispahan
wheat operators, and am to-day counted the coming
man; but —'

“`But what?' I said. `Art not satisfied?'

“`Satisfied? Alas, no! After all, what is wealth?
What are stocks and lands and tenements? Nothing.
My soul yearns for something higher.'

“`What wouldst thou be? What is thy next
whim?'

“`I would be famous in literature. I would write
for the newspapers and magazines. I would have
my name on the dead walls in big letters and
in many colors. I would have the populace
say, “There goes the author of — say, `The Rival
Plug Uglies.'” I would — but you know what I
would.'

“Again I gratified him. I passed my wand over
his head four times, — it takes one more pass to
transform a man into a littérateur than it does for
anything else, — and he went out from the presence in
a seedy black coat, with an expansive forehead and
dreamy eyes, and a turn-over collar, smoking a
meerschaum in an abstracted manner.

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“Five years rolled around, and again the young
man appeared.

“`What!' said I, `you here again? What wouldst
thou now? Three times have I granted thy wishes;
three times have I given thee the means to make
thyself happy, as thou supposedst. Art satisfied?
dost thy yearning soul still yearn? Speak! or forever
hold thy peace.'

“`Mighty Abou! I would crave something, but I
know not what. I have been successful in literature,
as I was in politics and money. I have made myself a
name and fame. I have won distinction and worn it.
My poems are pronounced sweet; my plays are acted,
and draw houses; my novels are read from Greenland's
icy mountains to India's coral strand, and my
histories are text-books. But what of it? Each
step I took I felt an inward dissatisfaction with what
I left behind; my increase in knowledge was just
sufficient to show me what an egregious ass I was;
and if I gained a step in the appreciation of the
Beautiful, the satisfaction was poisoned by the
thought that there were heights I could not climb
and depths I could not sound. I pined for immortality,
and once methought I had attained it, and I
would cease my labors and rest on my laurels. For
a month I did nothing, and the public promptly forgot
that there ever had been such a person. The
bill-poster went blithely forth, and over the posters
which had my name on them, he plastered others
announcing a new name. I was buried alive. What,
thought I, is fame, when it 's at the mercy of a

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billsticker? And when in the zenith of my glory, it was
gilded misery. I opened letters by the bushel, from
the Lord knows who, inviting me to lecture for the
benefit of the Lord knows what, and they did not
enclose postage-stamps to prepay replies. I spent
one half my time in sending autographs to my admirers;
and the other half and all my money in sending
photographs to people who have shoved them out
of their albums long since to make room for the next
famous man. And this is fame! Ha! ha!'

“And the young man stamped his feet, and tore
several large handsful of hair from his head, which
he should not have done, for severe labor and bad
habits had made him nearly bald already.

“Then I spoke and said,—

“`My son, I knew in advance what would come
of the favors I have granted thee. Wealth, political
preferment, and literary fame are three of the most
unsatisfactory styles of lunacy mankind is afflicted
with. Had I been angry with you, I should have
married you to an old widow with money; but I
chose, rather, to let you run the several courses you
selected. All men, my son, are on a road which
begins with the cradle and ends with the grave. In
most instances, the world would be the better were
the distance between the two shorter; but I waive
that. Flitting before us is a parcel of butterflies,
which, observed from the youth-end of the road are
gorgeous insects. We are at infinite pains and
trouble to catch them, and we succeed; but alas!
the getting of them knocks off the gold and crimson,

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and we are disgusted at their unsatisfactory appearance.
They are valueless the moment we grasp them.
I have lived something over four thousand years, and
know whereof I speak. Wealth! it is good just
as far as you can make use of it. Politics! I
never knew but one man who ever saw any good in
it; he remarked that he liked it, because, next to
counterfeiting and bigamy, — two things he doted
on, — there was in it the grandest opportunity for
developing dormant rascality. And literary fame!
My young friend, bottled moonshine is granite for
solidity beside it. Shakespeare was supposed to
be entitled to a permanent place in the memory of
man; but there are those in each generation who
write books to show that it was not Shakespeare but
some other fellow who wrote his plays and things.
And at the Shah's Theatre, the “Blak Krook” fills
it, while “Julius Cæsar” is played to thin houses.

“Then, again, the fame that men yearn after and
strive for is not satisfactory after they get it. If a
man, from love of his kind, or from a desire to do
something for his associates in misery, or from a sheer
love of his work, does a large thing, the world applauds,
but such an one cares nothing for the applause.
Applause was not the motive and consequently is
not the reward.

“That eminent Switzer, Winkelried, when he rushed
upon the Austrian spears with the remark, `Make way
for liberty!' had no idea that school-children would
declaim it all over Persia, as they have done ever
since, or he would not have done it. Winkelried

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was not caring for posthumous fame: it was the Swiss
of that identical day for whom he took into his bowels
more spears than were comfortable. Had he thought
of posterity, had he been figuring for a reputation,
and waited before making his grand rush till he could
decide upon appropriate last words which would
sound well in history, he would either have changed
his mind or lost the opportunity. So it was with
that other Swiss, William Tell, and others whom I
could name were I so disposed.

“`But on the other hand, look at the men who labored
for reputation. Aaron Burr tried to make
fame; Bonaparte was working for a reputation: but
they both went under and died miserably, — a warning
to all after them. If I should desire fame I should
do a big thing, and, while I was feeling good over
it, die immediately with neatness and dispatch.

“And I disenchanted the man by passing my
wand over his head three times in the opposite
direction.

“Son of New Jersey, take warning by him. Go
back to Sussex County and get into your little store
again. Never long for fame again. Go to singing-schools;
play checkers with your customers; marry
an auburn-haired young lady in book-muslin with a
blue sash about her waist; take your county paper;
be Squire; have not less than ten children, half like
you and half like their mother; and finally, when your
time comes, and the grim messenger taps you on the
shoulder, lie down like a man, and thank the Lord that
your lot was cast in New Jersey, a country from which

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a man can go without a regret, perfectly sure that
whatever other worlds he finds he cannot get into a
worse one. Go, my son! Draw molasses and be
happy.”

The young man turned away sorrowfully, and Abou
went in to his breakfast, remarking to me that if the
publication of this conversation would keep one young
man from ruining himself in Wall Street, one young
man from making himself a nuisance by mixing in
politics, or one young man from imagining he was a
poet, he would give it to a family newspaper, for two
hundred dollars. This he would do for the good of
humanity, and add one more to the many obligations
he had already piled upon an unappreciative world.

p632-032 II. THE FAITHLESSNESS OF WOMAN.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was bothered more by disappointed
lovers than by any other class of people.
Every day he was called upon to apply the
salve of wisdom to the burns inflicted by love.

One morning a young man came to him with a
pitiful story of cruel disappointment. He loved a
beautiful girl in Hackensack, who had imposed conditions
upon him which, one after another, he had
fulfilled, only to behold her marry another man after
all. What should he do?

“Listen,” said Abou, “to the story of my life.

“I too have loved, — I too have been disappointed.”

“For a time life had no charms for me, for I lost
faith in humanity.

“My pitcher went to the well once, — it was broken,
and it seemed to me that it never could be
mended.

“Life was to me an empty egg-shell.

“Some centuries ago I was a gushing youth of
twenty-two. I loved a vest of many colors, I

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doted on perfumery, and a tooth-brush was my
`young man's best companion.' I do not, I cannot,
inveigh against tooth-brushes, but only against
the motive for using them. It was appearance, in
my case, not cleanliness. I suffered in No. 7 boots,
when comfort and private good demanded No. 10s.
Corns now remind me of my folly. So true it is
that the excesses of our youth are merely drafts upon
our old age. I wore linen of the whitest, coats most
faultless, — I was, in short, young and a fool. Alas,
that one never discovers that he is a fool till it is too
late to avert the consequences thereof!

“Of course I was in love; no young men of the
style I have indicated are ever out of it. Love
prompted the flaming vests, the snowy linen, the
tooth-brush, and the tight boots.

“Her name was Zara. She was beautiful as an
houri and as skittish as a young colt. `Skittish'
is not an elegant word, but it is expressive, and I use
it. In my youth I sacrificed utility to elegance:
I reverse the order in my old age. She was skittish.
She flirted with all the young men in the neighborhood.
Her father was rich, and consequently all the young
men in the neighborhood were in love with her.
They all longed to revel in her charms, and to revel
in the old gentleman's money, when Death, that hard-hitter,
should finally send him to grass. She played
her cards so skilfully that she had twenty of us, all
wearing tight boots, each fixed in the belief that he
was the favored man. Each looked upon the old
gentleman's acres with a proprietary look, and

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became interested in his cough. I was an intimate
friend of the village druggist. I took a cheerful
satisfaction in looking over her father's drug account
from day to day. I was melancholy only when it
was running light.

“I proposed to Zara and was accepted, — that is,
conditionally. She told me she loved me, but that
filial love was, with her, above any other variety of
the article. There was an obstacle. `My Pa would
never consent,' said she, `to my marrying you, as
poor as you are at date. Go and accumulate ducats;
return and claim me.'

“`Wilt be faithful, wilt wait for me till I return?'
said I.

“`Faithful forever!' said she.

“I rushed from her presence frantically. It was
eight o'clock in the evening. I did not see Agha
ben Dad ride up and dismount, just as I mounted
and rode away. So closely run the threads of life.

“I tossed in my bed all night. Various schemes
of lucre-gathering suggested themselves to my fevered
mind. I thought of highway robbery, of
patent-right business, of forgery, of life insurance,
of writing for magazines, and of a dozen other quick
roads to fortune, but I rejected all of them. Hindostan!
That was the correct thing. I would go to
the land of gold. I would turn up shining nuggets.
I would say as I pouched them, `Zara,' and so forth.

“I read yellow-covered novels in those days. Alas
that I cannot now believe that they were tales of real
life!

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“I packed my valise and was at the station next
morning. I met Agha ben Dan also with a valise.
I asked him where he was journeying. He answered
me. He had tired of the farm, and his soul loathed
the country store. He was for Hindostan and gold!

“Fool that I was! I told him likewise, and we
agreed to go together, work together, and be partners
in all things. I did know that Zara — but I anticipate.

“We started together, we were sea-sick together,
we recovered together, we arrived together. We
made our way to the mines, and set to work at once.

“We each noticed that a great change had come
over the other. At home we had been great spendthrifts.
No one had squandered the hard-earned sixpence
on the quarter section of moist gingerbread,
on training days, with more freedom than had Agha,
and no one for the yeasty cider had paid his three-pence
more like a man than had I. We had been, at
home, roysterers; and aged crones had wagged wisely
their heads, and predicted that nothing good could
come of such spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels.

“But here it was different. Every cent was saved.
We did not even buy clothing. We were not like
the lilies of the field, for we did toil, and if the lilies
were not arrayed better than we, they were a shabby
set. A rear view of Agha's pantaloons, when he
stooped over his work, was far from pleasant, and I
was very like him.

“One day at noon — shall I ever forget that day?—
while we were pensively eating our fried pork, I

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happened to ask him why he ever came to that Godforsaken
country. His answer is printed on my soul
as though it had been branded with an iron heated to
a red heat: —

“`My girl would not marry me till I had made
money. I am here to make it — to go back and
marry her.'

“`Shake!' I replied. `Singular, but I too am
here under the same circumstances. It is a coincidence.
Shake!'

“It was more of a coincidence than I supposed.
Agha took my hand fervently, remarking, —

“`It is a coincidence. Let us to our labor. Let
us make our pile and get out of this. Let us go
back, you marry your girl, I 'll marry Zara, and —'

“`Zara!' shrieked I, `Zara who?'

“`Why, Zara the daughter of Musteef the bellows-mender.
Who else?'

“We understood each other. From that moment
we hated each other. In quest of Cupid's gold, we
had jumped each other's claim. We were each prospecting
on ground claimed by the other. We scowled
at each other as young Persian tragedians always
do when they wish to express loathing, hate, and
scorn.

“I am a man quick of action. Hastily gathering
up all I could lay my hands upon, I took advantage
of Agha's going up the mountain after a valuable deposit
we had there, to spring upon the partnership
mule and hie me to Kuldud. Little cared I for gold
or deposits of any kind. Zara was my gold-mine,

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and to get back to her and claim the fulfilment of
her promise was my only thought.

“I hoped I had stolen a march upon him, for we
had but one mule. He, too, was a quick man. He
promptly stole another mule of a neighboring camp
and followed. We arrived together. A steamer
was just on the point of sailing. We embarked on
her.

“Twice on that horrible passage I attempted to
throw him overboard. I would have committed murder.
His superior strength thwarted my kind intentions.
He threw me overboard, and regularly
the sailors interposed and restored me to life and
misery.

“Why did they, ah! why? Life is a mystery.
Will it ever be solved? If not, why not?

“At Ispahan we took the river boat. It burned
at Mahrout, but, woe to me! we were saved. Fate
again. Escaping the perils of the hotels there, we
made our way to Baklon, and, utterly reckless of
life, took passage on the Bulbul Road, which was
then strap-rail and given to indulging in snake-heads.
I cared naught for snake-heads. I would laugh sardonically
as they would rip open the bottom of the
car, grazing my leg. They did not mash me. It was
written that I should be spared for something worse.
I was to fulfil my fate. I was doomed to drain the
cup to its dregs. We were in the same car. We
came to the station nearest our village. Springing
from the car we made our way to the livery stable.
There were two teams in, and we engaged them. We

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started from the stable together. Our driving was
furious. The prize at the end of the race was Zara.
What cared we for horse-flesh?

“We drew near the mansion of Musteef. It was
9 P. M. For what was the venerable mansion so
brilliantly illuminated? Why that array of wagons
and horses tied to the fence in front? We sprang to
the door, our right hands grasped the knob.

“`She is mine!' hissed I.

“`She is mine!' hissed he.

“We grappled in a fierce embrace. Down I went
as usual. It was written that I should always go
down. I fell against the door, bumping it open.
We lay in a death-grapple, half our bodies inside the
room.

“What did our eyes behold?

“A great company assembled. On the floor of
the square room was a maiden in white, by her side
a young man in black, and in front of them a mufti,
who was pronouncing these words, —

“`Whom God hath joined together let no man put
asunder.'

“As we heard those words, Agha relaxed his hold
upon my throat, and, not to be outdone in generosity,
I took my hair out of his left hand.

“`She is not mine!' said he.

“`She is not mine!' said I.

“`She is not either of ours!' said we both in
chorus.

“And we added objurgations, at which she laughed.

“Need I say that the maiden in white was Zara?

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Need I relate that the young man in black was the
tax-gatherer at the village?

“Need I relate what Agha told me, that within an
hour after Zara had plighted her troth to me, conditioned
upon my acquiring filthy lucre, she did the
same thing to him? Need I narrate how she had
done the same thing with a dozen others? No! I
need not.

“For a time the world looked very dark to me. I
thought I was a broken man, and said, `If I ever
marry, it will be for a nurse in my old age.' It
seemed to me that on the garden of my love Untruth
had sown salt.

“I was despondent for an age, — that is, for four
days. But by degrees the aspect of things changed.
I concluded that I would not die, but that I would
live, and work my way to such a height of grandeur
that Zara would never cease to regret that she jilted
me. In two weeks I found myself totally indifferent
to her, and in a month I was rejoiced that I had
escaped her; for her husband discovered that she
had a tongue, and, to use an Orientalism, she made
it warm for him.

“What shall you do? By the bones of the prophet,
do nothing! It is one of those things that, be chesm,
do themselves. Your lost love is neither the beginning
nor the ending of life. Several things remain
to you. She is false, and you are the victim. Very
good. Nature is not going into bankruptcy. The
sun will rise and set just the same; corn will grow,
birds will sing, and rain will fall as before. My

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experience is that it 's a toss-up that you are not the
better off without her; and, doubtless, it 's a toss-up
if she be not better off without you. Everything is
right as it is, my son.

“Go about your business. Philosophy is the pill
for your mental system, and labor is the tonic to
follow it. These two will restore you to your normal
condition. Go, my son, and be as happy as
possible. Go.”

p632-041 III. A PERSIAN IN THE GOVERNMENT.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was not in good humor.
Ardent summer had given place to voluptuous
autumn, which in turn had been scourged out of the
world by the fierce blasts of winter. He was always
unhappy in the winter, for he shivered, — sighing, as
he shivered, for the balmy breezes of Ispahan; and
he had mental as well as physical troubles to contend
with. He had deposited a large sum of money in a
bank in New York, which bank had suspended, in
consequence of the strong desire of the cashier
thereof to view the antiquities of the Old World. As
the cashier had conducted the bank without consultation
with, or instructions from, the directors or stockholders,
the fact that he took with him, merely to bear
expenses, something over half a million of dollars,
was not to be wondered at. The bank, of course,
suspended, the directors were very sorry, but Abou's
money was non est. He was not in good humor.

While in this state of physical and mental discomfort,
a man from Albany approached, bowing profoundly
three times.

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“Mighty Abou,” said he, “I am a member of the
New York Legislature.”

“Away, man! Avaunt, fiend! I have no job to
put through; I have no need of votes; I have no
money to spend. I have no desire to be severe;
but, sir, whenever I see a member of a Legislature,
I promptly think that Nature is not economical.
There is a great deal of lightning wasted. Away!”

“Mighty Abou, you mistake me. I am, it is true,
a member of that Legislature; but I am an honest
man. If you will take the trouble to remember, you
will recall the fact that there were two or three such.”

Abou regarded him with a long stare of painful
astonishment, ending with a prolonged whistle of
expressive incredulity.

“I am an honest member of the Legislature of the
State of New York,” continued this man, “and I
desire advice and enlightenment that I may be of
some use to my fellow-men. Tell me, O Sage!
tell me, what can we do in the way of law-making
that will roll back the flood of crime that is sweeping
over the country? Is there no cure for it? Is
there no balm in Gilead?”

Abou regarded him closely.

“I will trust you,” he said, at the conclusion of his
prolonged scrutiny. “I will believe that you are an
honest man, despite the position you are in; and I
will give you the information you desire.

“Sweet sir,” continued Abou, “three centuries ago
there was a kingdom to the north of what is now
Persia, — the inhabitants of which were of the same

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race with the present Persians, — in which these things
of which you complain very seldom occurred. In
that blessed land there was no crime to speak of —
no accidents, no mistakes, no nothing. Life there
was like a calmly-flowing river; the people lived
happily and died regretfully, disliking very much to
leave, — which is quite different here. I helped to
organize that community. I was the author of the
system that brought it about. I —”

“Three centuries ago?” queried the stranger.

“Three centuries ago, — did I not say so?”

“I beg your pardon; but, O Sage antediluvian,
give me, oh give me, the system by which this most
desirable state of things was worked.”

“I will. We had in Koamud, which was the
name of the kingdom, no penitentiaries, no reformschools,
no civil-service examinations, no Boards of
any kind, — nothing of the sort. If the Government
wanted a postmaster, we will say, it did not go blathering
about qualifications or anything of that sort.
It simply posted up on the door of the vacant postoffice
a printed statement of what would be required
of the postmaster. Then the first man who said he
wanted the place was appointed.”

“Were not bonds required of him?”

“No. He took the place, and went on with his
duties.”

“But suppose he proved a defaulter?”

“He was immediately caught and hanged.”

“Hung for a defalcation?”

“Certainly, and for a mistake as well. If there

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

was an error in his accounts, by so much as a pound
of wrapping-twine, he was hung out of hand.”

“But suppose his irregularities were the result of
bad business qualities?”

“Then he was hung for being a bad business man.
What we wanted was honesty and capacity; and as
we did with postmasters, we did with everybody
else. Suppose a railroad train ran off the track, — a
coroner's jury was convened over the bodies of the
killed. Suppose they discovered the fact that a rail
was out of order, or that the road was not properly
patrolled, we hung the president, directors, and
superintendent. If the accident was caused by any
slip on the part of the conductor, he was hung; and
so on. Once we hung all the officials of the Teheran
and Ispahan Road, and from that time there were no
accidents on that line. Their successors were tolerably
careful; the superintendent slept very little;
and the company hung up a miniature gallows in the
cab of every locomotive to remind the engineer of
his certain fate in the event of trouble.

“Then we carried the same rule into everything.
The people deposited with the First National Bank
of Picalilly. Very good. The bank suspended one
morning. Exactly. The authorities took the president,
cashier, and board of directors all out and
hung them, because they had been guilty of suspension.

“`I did n't steal a dollar of this money,' said the
president. `It was lost in speculating in Persian
Gulf Mail.'

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

“`Divil a difference,' said the judge, `where it was
lost. Ye have n't got it.'

“`But you won't hang a man who has not stolen,
will you?' says the president.

“`I will hang you, my jooel, for bein' an idiot.
I shall hang you for riskin' money that was not yours
to risk.'

“And up he went.

“In fact, they hung them more mercilessly for
being fools than for any other crime. If a man said,
`I stole it,' they felt a sort of pity for him. If he
said, `I lost it,' they felt none at all, and strung him
up in a minute.”

“Did they hang always for murder?”

“Certainly; all they wanted to know was that the
killing took place.”

“Did they never admit the plea of insanity?”

“Not any of that. If a man put in that plea,
they hung him for being insane. They were wont
to remark that it was not safe to have insane men
running about loose with revolvers and clubs and
such things, so they hung them for fear they might
endanger some one else's life.”

“What, pray, was the effect of this vigorous
hanging on things in general?”

“Splendid. Bank officials made no mistakes in
their figures and none in their business. The officers
of the Government were rather careful about their
accounts, for they were hung for mistakes as well as
for thieving. The presidents and directors of railroads
kept their tracks up, and a more watchful and

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

careful set of men than the conductors, engineers, and
switchmen you never saw. There being no plea
of any kind permitted, the fact being all that was
considered, there was a wholesome care used in all
departments of life.

“The effect was good in another way. This system
reduced the population terribly, but it made a
magnificent race of men and women. You see, the
vicious and the careless — which is to say, the naturally
depraved and the weak-minded — were all
hung, leaving only the industrious and clear-headed
to live and perpetuate the species. Consequently it
was a splendid people. I am, perhaps, a fair specimen.
There were no lunatics, idiots, triflers, or dishonest
men left to spread mischief and danger. The
population was sorted and sifted.”

“Is that Government still in existence?”

“Alas! no. There sprang up a class of people
who got to pitying criminals. They got into a way
of visiting them just before they were stretched, and
sending them bouquets, and begging the governor to
pardon them; they got up sympathy for them, and
finally some escaped. Then the game was up. The
moment there was any doubt as to the certainty of
punishment, men became almost as bad as they are
here. Then I left the country.

“Go to Albany, my friend, and make but one
penalty — hanging — for all crimes or blunders, in
public or private. True, it would entail a heavy
expense on each county for a gallows; it would probably
make New York one of the smallest cities, in

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

point of population, in the country, and in a week
you probably could n't get a quorum in the New York
Legislature; but the ultimate effect would be splendid.
The next generation would be fifty per cent better
than this, and the improvement would go on and on
to the end of time. I have said. Leave me, for I
am weary.”

And Abou went into his inner chamber and got
into bed that he might be warm. The stranger went
away sorrowful.

“The idea is good,” said he to himself, “but I dare
not urge it. Were hanging the rule for crimes or
blunders, how long would my children have a
father?”

p632-048 IV. THE VALUE OF A LIFE.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM, the magician, was sitting
under his own vine and fig-tree, in front of
his tent, in New Jersey, one bright morning in May.
He was in an admirable frame of mind. He had
killed two life-insurance solicitors the day before;
he had subscribed for the last book that had been put
in the hands of canvassers; he had his hired man,
armed with a double-barrelled shot-gun, at the gate
on the main road lying for patent gate and lightning-rod
men, so he had a fair prospect for a quiet day.
He was musing on life, and trying to solve that great
problem, wherein he was doing a most foolish thing;
for life is a riddle which will solve itself, if you wait
long enough. Death is the great solver.

The solution can be hastened somewhat by late
suppers and whiskey, but it will come to all, sooner
or later, without these or any other aids. Wise as
Abou was, it never occurred to him that if there be a
future he would know all about it in time; and if
there should not be one, the matter would not bother
him much after he had got through with the

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

present. In dwelling on this subject, the summit of
Abou's physical structure was not horizontal. But
all great men have their weaknesses. The editor
hereof presumes that a critical examination of himself
would develop some trifling faults.

But Abou's dream of an entirely quiet day was not
to be realized. He was just smoking his second pipe,
when a young man, whose intellectual face was overspread
with deep concern, appeared to him.

“What wouldst thou with me?” said Abou, haughtily.
“Speak, man, speak!”

“Mighty Abou, I need thy help. I am dying,
Egypt, dying. I have a cough which is tearing me
to pieces; I have also dyspepsia, liver complaint,
bronchitis, asthma, consumption, Bright's disease
of the kidneys, and neuralgia, with a few other diseases
too tedious to mention, and they are all growing
worse daily.”

“Hast tried the regular physicians?”

“I have.”

“The irregulars?”

“Verily.”

“The patent medicines?”

“All of them.”

“The retired physician whose sands of life have
nearly run out?”

“Yes.”

“Then go home in peace. If you have tried all
these and still live, I know of nothing that can kill
you.”

“But, mighty Abou, I am dying nevertheless.”

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

“Well, why not die then, without bothering me?
I am no balm in Gilead, nor am I a healing balsam.
I have power, it is true —”

“Mighty Abou, I know you have, and that power
exert for me. I care not to live for myself, but for
my fellows. I am the leading man in my native village.
I edit the weekly paper; I am mayor; I
run the Church and am president of the School Board.
If I should die, New Athens would go as straight to
ruin as a pigeon could fly. It would not survive me.”

Abou had him now. He had an opportunity to
moralize, and in good square moralizing Abou was
equalled by few and excelled by none. It was his
best hold, and he never missed an opportunity. So
he lighted a fresh pipe and went for the young man.

“My young friend, you fancy that, should you die,
New Athens would go to ruin. Listen.

“Long ago, in the dim years before the flood, I
was sailing on the Persian Gulf in the stanch A 1
clipper ship, the `Mary Ann.' Suddenly there arose a
terrible storm. The winds howled like an Irish riot,
the lightnings flashed with a vividness which was
appalling, and the thunders rolled as though the
demons of the air were playing continuous games of
ten-pins. It was a fearsome night. The darkness
was so intense that the lights on the headlands
showed not, and we were plunging through it, helpless,
in the power of the tempest, on a pitiless coast.
The captain — Perkins was his name — had lost his
reckoning, and the `Mary Ann,' uncontrolled and
uncontrollable, was speeding on to her doom.

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

“Captain Perkins stood at his post calm and self-possessed.
`So long ez we hev sea-room,' said he,
in his marked Afghanistan dialect, `so long ez we
hev sea-room and kin keep shet uv the pesky rocks
we 're all right. The `Mary Ann' can't be swamped
nohow. But this is an ugly coast. And Captain
Perkins took a fresh chew of tobacco, and peered
anxiously into the darkness.

“Just then the passengers began to learn of the
danger they were in, and came rushing up the aft
binnacle quarter-deck, in wild confusion.

“`Captain,' shrieked one, `save the vessel! save
her! I am the editor of the “Ispahan Morning Herald,”
which has the largest circulation of any paper
in Persia. If I perish, the “Herald” perishes with
me. Save me for the sake of Ispahan!'

“`Go to!' outspoke the bold captain. `You bet
I 'll save the vessel — for my own sake. Be chesm,
on my head be it. Rest easy.'

“`Save the ship!' shrieked another. `I am the
governor of a province. If I perish, who shall rule
it? Anarchy and confusion ensue, and wide-spread
woe follows. For the sake of the province save the
ship!'

“`Save the ship!' shrieked a third. `I am the
president of the First National Bank of Ispahan; if
I perish, down goes the bank.'

“`Save the ship!' yelled a fourth. `I am the president
of the Cashmere and Bulbul Railway Company.
If I go down, who can manage that great corporation?
'

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

“`Save the ship!' cried a fifth. `I am president
of the Everlasting, Equal Benefit, Remunerative,
Life and Trust Insurance Company, Who can run
that machine if I am taken?'

“And these excited Orientals howled to the captain
as to the terrible consequences of their untimely
taking-off to that degree that they actually impressed
me. I felt that never vessel carried so much greatness,
and that if it should be lost, with its passengers,
Persia would be ruined.

“The vessel was lost, nevertheless. The `Mary
Ann' was on a dangerous coast, and Captain Perkins
knew it, but went to his state-room to sleep. She
struck, and I was the only one saved, thanks to my
magic art — and a hen-coop. I swam ashore safe,
but somewhat damp.

“I made my way to Ispahan, but I could not stay
there. As these men had all perished, I supposed,
of course, that ruin, wide-spread, would ensue. I
supposed the `Herald' would — to use a vulgarism
which I detest — peg out, that the bank would (to
use another) bust, that the Railroad and Insurance
Company would stop, and that rebellion would break
out in the provinces; so, before the news got about,
I sold my property and came to New Jersey.

“My son, the moral is coming now, so wake up.
I had been here six months when I got letters from
Ispahan. There was n't ruin to any alarming extent
in Persia; things seemed to go on about as usual. A
new governor was appointed over the province, and
the province fared better than ever. There was less

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

plundering than before, for the new governor was
vigilant; he refused to let the members of the provincial
legislature vote themselves back-pay, and he
squelched two Credit Mobiliers. As he was rich when
he was appointed, it was not necessary for him to
steal much, and he had no relatives. The stockholders
of the `Herald' elected a new editor, and the paper
was better than ever; the new man was the first to introduce
interviewing into Ispahan, and he organized
an expedition to find Livingstone. The Railroad Company
elected a new president, who put on palace and
sleeping cars, and actually made the line pay a dividend;
and as for the bank, bless you, the drowned
president was diminutive tubers compared with his
successor. He brought the concern to a smash-up in
half the time it would have taken the old one, which
enabled the stockholders to retire with fortunes in
middle life. The new life-insurance president was a
vast improvement on his predecessor. He was a man
of broad views. He devised the brilliant idea of
arming his solicitors with Derringer pistols.

“So you see, my friend, things went on the better
for the drowning of these important men. Indeed,
the people of Ispahan swore that if they could
be sure of so great an improvement every time, they
would like more shipwrecks; and they got into a
habit of praying Allah for high winds every time the
dignitaries of Ispahan went out on the Gulf on an
excursion.

“Young man, go home. If your life is of any
use to yourself, save it; but if you are trying to save

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

it out of regard for your fellows, spare yourself the
trouble. There were men in New Athens before
your time, and there will be after.

“When you are as old and as wise as I am, you
will know that one man is of very little account
in this world, no matter who he is. Do you doubt
this? If so, die, and as you look down, or up, as
the case may be, from your spirit-abiding place, you
will realize the humiliating fact that in a week no one
will realize that you are gone; in three weeks the
few who do remember the event will probably be
glad of it, and will be sorry you did not die sooner.
Go to, young man, go to!”

And Abou waved him off haughtily, and went in
to his dinner.

p632-055 V. THE YOUNG MAN OF CAIRO.

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was approached one evening
by a young man who propounded to him an
unusual question.

“Great Abou, is there any such thing as everlasting
constancy in woman?”

Abou was comfortable. The night was beautiful,
overhead the stars shone brightly, the air was balmy,
and his chibouque was smoking freely and the tobacco
suited him.

“Young man,” said he, “I will answer thy interrogatory
after the manner of the great and genial
Lincoln, whom may Allah ever have in his keeping!
I will tell thee a story of real life.

“The scene is laid in a deep grotto in the garden
of the proud merchant of Cairo, Ebn Becar. Nature
had spread herself in fixing up this identical spot for a
garden, and when Nature had run out of material and
patience, Art stepped in and completed the job. The
orange and the spruce mingled their leafy boughs,
while the fragrant date, the whispering pine, the umbrageous
palm, and the wide-spreading fir added to

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

the beauty of this Paradise in miniature. Hanging
on the boughs of these trees, the turtle-dove, the
nightingale, and the bulbul answered the lute with
which Zara, the daughter of Ebn Becar, the Wealthy,
accompanied her sweet voice. The nightingale sang
one strain and subsided into silence. `What is my
voice to hers?' sighed the bulbul, as he sadly cut
short a roulade and listened. And the nightingale
turned green with envy as he heard her.

“But sweet as was the voice of Zara, sweeter was
her person. Peerless in beauty was she. Nature
ne'er before had made a face so sweet or a form so
fair; never, combined in one young female person,
had there been such eyes, such hair, such teeth, such
complexion, et cetera.

“`Wilt thou love me now as then?' sang she;
when a manly voice exclaimed, `You bet!' and
Yusef Thaher, bounding from the thick foliage which
surrounded the grotto, stood before her.

“`Yusef!' exclaimed she, dropping her lute.

“`Zara!' retorted he, pressing her to his manly
bosom.

“And with their lips glued together, he drinking
in the sweetness of her breath and she drinking in
the sweetness of his breath (he had joined the Band
of Hope in his infancy, and had never used tobacco
in any form), they stood for several minutes.

“Yusef Thaher was the only son of a widow, living
in the suburbs of Cairo. The mother of Yusef
was a noble dame, who had seen better days. Her
husband had been formerly an officer in the

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

Janissaries, but he was n't at the time I speak of. Some
years before he had embarked in a little conspiracy
against the reigning caliph, which, being prematurely
discovered, left him short a head, and he retired from
active life to a cemetery, where he remained cool and
quiet. His possessions were confiscated by the
caliph, as is the custom of the country; his wife was
bastinadoed, which destroyed all of her beauty; and
as with neither beauty nor money she could not
marry again, she drowned her sorrows in a washtub,
out of which vessel she extracted her daily
bread.

“Yusef resembled his lamented father to a degree
quite complimentary to the virtue of his mother.
He was a youth of genius, and consequently despised
labor; and spent all his time, and as much of his
mother's hard-earned money as he could coax out of
her, in idling with the gay gallants of Cairo. His
clothes were always of the latest style and of the best
material. They were not always paid for, — in fact,
several tailors had gone into premature bankruptcy by
having too much of his patronage. But it was ever
thus! Genius is expensive to somebody. At theatre
and concert, at nigger minstrels and balls, Yusef was
always to be seen, and his merry laugh was always
heard above that of his companions. He was having
a good time.

“At a lecture of the Mercantile Library Course,
Yusef first beheld Zara. He had reserved seat B 22,
which cost him seventy-five cents (which money his
mother had given him to buy soap with), and Zara

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

had the seat immediately behind him. She was struck
with the exactitude of the parting of his back hair,
and from that moment she loved madly, devotedly.
She coughed a small, faint cough, he turned, their
eyes met, and the work was done. Cupid had shot
his sharpest arrow, and two young, fresh, virgin
hearts were transfixed.

“Little did they heed that hapless lecturer. So far
as they were concerned, he might have been discussing
the Kansas question, or the tariff; he might have
been reciting Thanatopsis or singing Joe Bowers:
they heard him not. Happy would the average
lyceum lecturer be, could his audiences be always
made up wholly of people affected as were they!
He would be invariably invited to return the next
winter, and the committee would not ask an abatement
of his fee.

“While the lecturer was droning on, through her
mind floated visions of a life-time with a man whose
back hair parted straight, and whose clothes were
always a fit. Poor dreamer! She did not realize—
youth never does — that hair turns gray and disappears,
that age shrinks limbs and humps backs,
that Time sets the tailor at defiance, and makes futile
his best efforts.

“He was dreaming of something more substantial.
He dwelt on her beautiful face, but his principal
thought was of ducats, and an eminently wealthy
father-in-law, stricken in years, who must shortly be
gathered to his fathers. The beautiful face was a
luxury, the rich father-in-law a necessity.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“At the close of the lecture he followed her to the
street, pressing her hand on the stairs, and for fear
she would escape him he hung on behind her carriage,
and on its arrival at the proud ducal mansion of her
father, he put down street and number in his memorandum
book. Clandestine meetings took place in the
garden, and love, madness, and desperation followed
suit as a matter of course.

“That is how Yusef Thaher happened to be in the
garden of Ebn Becar, the rich merchant of Cairo.

“`What happiness!' muttered he. `Ah! my
heart's idol, my soul's delight,' said he, speaking in
the flowery style of the dreamy East, `wilt ever
love thy Yusef, eh? If cruel fate should tear thee
from me, or me from thee, which it would n't make
any difference, wouldst love me still the same? If
I should by any unforeseen calamity be histed out of
this, and should be gone ten or twenty, or forty or
fifty years, and should come back old and decrepit
and gray-haired, would I find my Zara here, waiting
and trusting? Would I?'

“`Yusef,' said she reproachfully, `canst doubt me?
Didst never read in novels of true love? Are n't you
aware that, like base-burning stoves, love never
goes out? Ah, Yusef! when the stars grow dim and
fade out of the heavens; when the moon sinks out of
the sky, and the sun refuses to shine; when water
will not run and grass not grow, then will I cease to
love thee; but not till then!'

“And overcome with emotion, Zara laid off her
bonnet and fainted in his arms. She was from her

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

earliest infancy a thoughtful and prudent girl, and
very careful of her clothes.

“`Zara! I doubt thee not, but swear it. Swear
that through good and evil report, for time and eternity,
thou art mine! Swear that you love me now,
and that, with me or away from me, thou wilt love
me forever!'

“`I swear!' returned Zara, `forever and forever.'

“And they fell into each other's arms, and wept
glad tears of joy down each other's backs.

“Yusef was straining her to his manly bosom, and
was figuring in his mind whether he had n't better
swear her again that they might again fall into each
other's arms, when he was aroused from his dream by
a touch upon the shoulder. He turned fiercely on
the intruder, and immediately turned back, not so
fiercely. It was an officer, a shoulder-strapped hireling
in military clothes, who held a paper in his
hands.

“`Art Yusef Thaher?' said this oppressor.

“`I am,' proudly said the youth; at which Zara,
who had come to the conclusion that she had been
fainting long enough, awoke with a sigh.

“`I have been searching for you, my buck, high
and low,' said he. `You 're drafted, and must go
where glory waits you!'

“`Wretch!' retorted Yusef, `thou liest! The quota
of our ward was made up a week ago.'

“`Ha! ha!' sneered the hireling, `not so fast. In
truth, you thought so, and faith so did I, but we
want more men, and the caliph revised the figures

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

for a dozen of the wards, this among the others. The
draft was drawn this morning, and you were hit.'

“`Why this haste?' said Yusef. `Canst not wait
till thou hast the evening paper? Perchance he will
figure again and let us out.'

“`It won't do,' said the officer, `we can't wait. We
must have men. Come!'

“`But I am physically unfit. I am —'

“`I know what you are going to say. You are
ruptured, have a cough, have varicose veins, and are
near-sighted, etc. It won't do. We have reduced
the causes of exemption to barely one.'

“`And that is —'

“`Death before draft.'

“`Is there no escape?'

“`Nary. There is n't time to get substitutes, and
if there was —'

“`I have n't got the stamps, you would say, but
delicacy prevents you. True, too true!'

“`Here!' shrieked Zara, tearing the massive jewelry
from her ears and fingers, and arms and bosom,
`take these glittering gauds, and give me back my
Yusef!'

“The officer looked at them, and returned them
with a perceptible sneer on his finely-chiselled features,
with the significant remark, `Dollar store!'

“All hope was gone!

“`At least,' said Zara, `let 's do the regular thing.'

“`Yusef!'

“`Zara!'

And they fell into each other's arms, mutually

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

assuring each other that, through weal and woe, they
would be true to each other, forever and forever.

“In the course of four minutes Yusef Thaher was
on his way to join his regiment, leaving Zara fainting
on the sward.

“Did she remain true to him? We shall see.

“One year elapsed. A gallant soldier was standing
at the door of an humble cottage. 'T was Yusef.
He had returned unscathed by bullet, bayonet, or
shell. He had been in the commissary department,
and had snuffed the battle afar off.

“`Mother!' hissed he, `tell me, Zara —'

“`Was married precisely eleven months ago, my
son, to one of the first gentlemen of Cairo, who made
a big thing out of an army contract.'

“`Married!' hissed he, through his clenched teeth,
and smiting himself twice on the forehead, `Married!'

“`Certainly, my son,' replied the mother, wringing
out a shirt calmly, `about a month after you were
drafted.'

“`Tell me, did her paternal parent on her father's
side compel her thus to sacrifice her youth and
beauty, thus to break her plighted troth, thus to go
back on herself and me?'

“`No.'

“`Did not her father speculate in pork, and get
caught on a falling market? Were not his notes going
to protest, and did not this rich villain offer her
the dread alternative of her father's ruin or her
hand?'

“`Nary. She laid for him until she gobbled him.'

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

“`Did she never speak of me? Has she grown
pale and wan, and so on?'

“`Not a wan. She 's as fresh as a peach and the
gayest of the gay. The bulbul sings not more
sweetly nor the nightingale more frequently,' replied
the old lady, putting more soap on a dirty
wristband. `She flaunts at the opera, while I wash
shirts at fifty cents a dozen. Bismallah! Such is
life.'

“`Destruction!' muttered Yusef. `I will meet
her. I will confront her, and taunt her with her
faithlessness, and then —' And uttering a despairing
shriek he flung himself from the house.

“`There was a sound of revelry by night!' There
was a ball in progress at the Spread Eagle Hotel, at
which were all the élite and bon ton of Cairo. That
none but the elitest of society should be there, the
managers had put the tickets at twenty shillings.

“Zara was there, in the highest spirits. Her baby
had been dosed with soothing syrup to keep it sleeping;
and relieved of care on its account, she was
rushing things. She had just finished a waltz, and
was waiting, panting, while her cavalier was bringing
her a goblet of water, when a manly form approached.
He was clad in blue, but his features
were hid by a slouched hat drawn low down, and an
immense military overcoat, which he kept over his
face, as Claude Melnotte does in Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton's justly celebrated play of the `Lady of
Lyons.'

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

“`Zara!' hissed this singular figure.

“`Who calls me by that name?' said she, drawing
herself up to her full height.

“`Zara, dost remember the garden, — the orange
grove in which the bulbul sang and the fountain
squirted?'

“`Ah, sir, whoever you are, my papa has such a
garden, but the fountain squirts no more. The
hydraulic ram is busted!'

“`Like my hope!' hissed Yusef, in a fierce whisper.
`That hydraulic ram the patentee warranted to endure,
like your love, forever and forever. Dost remember
me?' said he, seizing her by the arm, and
throwing off the cloak, and striking an attitude.

“`You! Pardon me. It strikes me as though,
some time, I had seen your face somewhere; where, I
can't recollect. Your name, sir?'

“She was as cool as condensed cucumber. Not
an emotion was visible on her countenance.

“Yusef had supposed that coming at her in this
melodramatic shape would wring her bosom; but it
did n't wring. The poor wretch looked with a puzzled
expression at her face, as beautiful as ever, but
which had in its lines no love for him. You see, he
had believed what she had said to him a year before
about her love enduring forever and forever, and it
rather astonished him to have her ask his name, and
remark that she rather thought she had seen him, but
where she could n't recollect. Besides, he was in
debt and had counted on marrying her. All in all,
it was a staggerer.

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

“He uttered one exclamation of despair.

“`Lost! lost!' he shrieked, and disgusted he left
the hall precipitately. The doorkeeper offered him a
check, but he hustled him aside. `Check? Ha! ha!
I 've had one to-night that 'll do me. Make way!'
he cried, `Make way!' and he rushed out of the hall.
Baring his head to the wind, he rushed on and on.
Pedestrians turned to see the desperate man, with
madness in his eye, dart by them; the policemen
would have arrested him, but he dodged them. On
and on! The river-bank was gained,—the wharf-boat;
two vigorous jumps achieved its deck. He turned, and
shaking his clenched hand in the direction of the
Spread Eagle Hotel, whose lights he could see, and
the sound of whose revelry floated to him through
the ague-laden air, he shrieked `Zara! lost, lost!'
with some other remarks which the reporter did n't
catch, and sprang into the boiling waves. There
was a splash, a gurgle, and the water ran as swiftly
as before. The cat-fish caught in that vicinity were
extraordinarily fat for a week. Zara lived on comfortably
all her life, growing fatter and fatter as each
succeeding year rolled on. Her appetite was always
good.

“This, my young friend, is the end of the story, and
it contains a full and explicit answer to your question.
The tale will do as well for the Occident as
for the Orient. I have narrated it in the Oriental
style, for I cannot help hurling the flowers of Eastern
imagery over the dry skeleton of instruction; but it
makes no difference.

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

“Instead of Cairo, Egypt, make it Cairo, Illinois.

“Change Yusef Thaher to Joseph Thayer.

“Change Ebn Becar to Eben Baker.

“Change Zara to Sarah,

“And it will do just as well for New Jersey as for
Egypt. It 's all one; men and women are precisely
the same the world over. What happened them a
thousand years ago, when I was younger, is happening
now, there and here.

“And sex has nothing to do with constancy. Had
Zara gone away and had Yusef found a richer and
fairer female on whom he could have fixed his love,
he would have gone back on Zara, and she would have
found him at a ball on her return, and would have
been the drowned party.

“Go, my young friend. Humanity is humanity,
and a precious weak article it is. Go to, I would
sleep.”

p632-067 VI. THE TENACITY OF LOVE.

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM, the wise magician, does
not leave his home in New Jersey to go off to
watering-places in the summer, for the reason that
life is uncertain. Should death overtake him where
there was anything to make life worth preserving, he
thinks it would annoy him to go into the dim hereafter;
hence he remains in his tent philosophizing on
life, and making life entirely undesirable by giving
audience to his neighbors who hunger for advice, —
which, as is the custom of mankind, they go to great
trouble to get, but never regard. Bothered as he is
by these seekers after wisdom, he is kept continually
in a frame of mind that causes him to regard Death
as a rather pleasant deliverer.

One morning in May, just before the mosquitoes
drive all of New Jersey in-doors, a man, dusty and
travel-stained, rode up to his hospitable door. Abou
was sitting outside his tent, and had been solacing
himself with the Elixir of Life. With great presence
of mind he put the bottle behind his chair, before it
could have been observed, that expectations which

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

were not to be realized should not be awakened in
the mind of the stranger, and with great skill assumed
the thoughtful expression that is always seen in photographs
of young ministers and lawyers.

“Great Abou,” said the stranger, “I want advice.”

“State your case,” replied Abou, blandly. “You
have come to the right shop. Advice is my best
hold. As an adviser I am equalled by few and excelled
by none.”

“I have a daughter,” said the stranger, “who is
passing fair. Her hair is like silk, her eyes are blue
as yon arch that bends above us; the gazelle is not
more graceful in movement; in shape —”

“Cut it short,” said Abou, impatiently. “I know
all about it. I have read novels. Your girl is pretty,
I presume. I will concede it. To the point, garrulous
man, to the point!”

“I am rich, I am a bloated aristocrat. I have
blood, and Keturah Jane, my daughter, is entitled
to mate with the highest and per-roudest. But,
great Abou, a dry-goods clerk — a nameles counterjumper,
on a salary of $500 a year — has lifted his
presumptuous eyes to Keturah Jane —”

“And she?”

“She lowers herself to him. He has black hair
which he parts in the middle; he has a broad white
forehead, white teeth, and he wears No. 5 boots,
which are always of patent leather; he brushes his
teeth regularly, has always a white shirt-front,
and —”

“What a tiresome ass thou art!” interrupted Abou

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

impatiently. “By the bones of the Prophet! man,
dost think I know not the fellow? Be chesm, say at
once he is a village fop; say he is a clerk in a dry-goods
store, a photographer, a dancing-master or writing
teacher or that he runs a singing-school, and shall
I not know all about him? If thou sayest to me `My
cow is a Durham,' must you go on and tell me of her
hair and horns? Mankind, O most stupid! runs in
kinds, as do cows. Say to me of a man, `He is a
New York ward politician,' and do I not at once know
that he has a bottle-nose, a diamond pin, a prominent
abdomen, a revolver, and a broken nose on a
face which is a record of broken commandments?
Say of another, `Lo, he is a member of Congress
and is popular with the masses,' and do I not know
he weareth a perpetual smile, and that his hand hath
two motions — one as if shaking the hand of another,
the other as if patting a baby on the head? Do
not nature and education put on all men their stamp,
which he who runs may read if he has eyes? By the
dust of my ancestors! you tire me. He is a dry-goods
clerk. Go on.”

“Mighty Abou, I bow in the dust before thee!
Pardon the stupidity of thy obtuse slave. Truly,
wisdom cometh not with money, nor acuteness with
lands and herds. But Keturah Jane fancieth this
man, and will not wed Jenkins, whom I prefer. She
will hear of no one else but this dry-goods clerk, and
because I forbade him the house and hoisted him off
my front doorstep with the toe of my boot, and set
my dogs at him, and shot at him with a

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

double-barrelled shot-gun, loaded with bird-shot, she mourneth
and refuseth to be comforted.”

“And the man?”

“Like a tick sticketh he. The mosquito of our
beloved New Jersey is not more persistent. Bludgeons,
shot-guns, and bull-dogs have no effect upon
him. He lurks about my dwelling by day, and maketh
my nights hideous with serenades. Mighty Abou, he
sings tenor, and knows but one song, which is `Ever of
Thee.' Eighty-two nights in succession has he sung
that song under her window. Life is in consequence
a burden to me.”

“Listen,” said Abou, lighting his pipe, and fixing
the unfortunate man with his eye. “In the dim years
long since fled, I, too, had a daughter. No damsel
in Persia was fairer; Ispahan could boast no lovelier.
Her voice was that of the bulbul, her form
was as slender and graceful as the young cypress,
she was as round as the apple; her eyes, by the
bones of the Prophet! the sloe was not blacker, and
her hair —'

“Mighty Abou, — ahem! — do not girls run in
classes, as do cattle? Say she was a pretty girl, and
I shall know all about her.”

“Wretch! is there no difference between the description
of a describer, and that of a clod like you?
Go to! Am I talking, or are you? I was rich as
are you. I had been in Congress twelve years and
we had voted ourselves back-pay every session; we
had a mighty nice slice out of the Bulbul and Cashmere
Railroad, to say nothing of the dip we had in

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

the Ispahan Navigation Company. I was, I may
say, the Oakes Ames of Persia.

“My daughter loved and was loved by a youth of
Ispahan, who was a mere seller of shawls. He stood
in the bazaar on a small salary, with chance to
steal but little, and was therefore poor. His master,
a Jew from Cairo, paid him but four dirhems per
month, which hardly kept him in kirboshes. He
kept up style, however, by bilking his landlady
and borrowing. His capital was cheek. The immorality
and dishonesty of the lower classes is something
terrible. Baba, my daughter, loved him nevertheless.
She would steal out into the garden at night
to meet him; she would go to the mosque to meet
him; and he even, once, penetrated to her chamber.

“I remonstrated with the young fellow, but to no
purpose. I desired Baba to wed with Hassan, the
rich merchant; but he was old and ugly, and she preferred
the penniless young man. I pointed out to
her the probability of Hassan's dying and leaving her
a rich widow, but she was immovable.

“`Papa,' said she, `I will never desert Ilderim till
he deserts me, which he never will. I can die, but
what is death? It is merely a change: the body
moulders in the silent tomb; but the Spirit, the
Eternal Essence, returns to, and becomes a part of
the Supreme Entity from which it originally sprang.
Your cruelty may drive me to an immediate return to
my native heaven, but as for marrying Hassan — not
for Joe.'

“I was determined that she should not wed with

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

Ilderim, but did not resort to bludgeons, and double-barrelled
shot-guns, and bull-dogs, and things of that
unpleasant nature. Not any. I was an astute old gentleman,
whose eye-teeth had been cut. I met Ilderim
cordially the next day; I invited him to my
house; I said to him, `Take Baba to the minstrels
and to the Young Men's Christian Association Lectures,
and other places of cheerful amusement,' and I
slapped him on the back and remarked that I liked
young men of spirit.

“But just at that time a story got into circulation
that I had been speculating in stocks; that I had
been led into trouble by Jimfisque and Jagould, —
two railroad financiers of that day, who could clean
out an honest man in less time than it would take
him to write an assignment; that I had confided in
Da Neldroo; and, in short, that I was busted. And
the next time that Ilderim came there were officers
of the cadi in the house, who were, as he entered,
appraising Baba's Steinway piano. I fell on his neck
and wept, and told him I was ruined, and asked him
to see if he could not get me a place as a scribe for
his master, for I was now poorer than he.

“I need not dwell on this painful theme. I was
surprised to observe Ilderim's vacant look, as he
remarked, `It is a queer go!' and pained to see him
absent himself without even asking for Baba. And
two days after I heard Baba speak of him as `a heartless
wretch,' which remark she made just after seeing
him promenading gayly with Zobeide, the daughter
of Zamroud, the rich candle-maker. Baba married

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

Hassan the next week. Ilderim was disgusted when
he discovered that I had not lost my shekels, — that
not a dirhem had left my pouch, and that the officers
he saw in my house were my own slaves in disguise;
and he accused Hassan and myself of having `put it
up on him,' as he expressed it. Possibly we did.
Mind is stronger than muscle; the cunning dwarf
can do more than the stupid giant. Management
will accomplish what kicks and bludgeons cannot.
Kicks never reach the seat of reason.

“Go home, fond father, go home. Spread the
report of your failure; get it noised about that you
have been a week in Wall Street, and see how long it
will take your dry-goods clerk to jilt Keturah Jane.
Then will Keturah Jane wed whomsoever you will.
Her head is set on matrimony and she must marry
somebody. The moment her present young man
goes back on her (to use a phrase of the ancients)
you may nominate his successor; for marry somebody
she will, if for no other reason than to spite the man
who jilted her. Once set on matrimony they marry.
The flame of Hymen in a girl's bosom never goes
out, never. Follow my advice and she will be Mrs.
Jenkins in a week. Away, dotard, away!

And Abou ben Adhem gathered up his pipe and
bottle, and went into his tent for his siesta.

p632-074 VII. THE DISCONTENTED PEASANT.

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

NO philosopher or sage in any period of the world's
history enjoyed a better or more wide-spread
reputation than did Abou ben Adhem. From the
frozen North, even beyond the Skowhegan, men
came to him for counsel and aid, likewise from the
sunny South and boundless West; and no worthy
applicant ever went away without receiving what he
came for. True, he was besieged by “dead beats”
(as the Orientals in their flowery and figurative style
characterize impostors); but as as he never gave
anything to any one but advice, they got very little
the better of him.

One bright morning in leafy June, Abou was
standing in front of his tent, musing, as was his wont,
upon the mutability of human affairs. He was in a
comfortable arm-chair, with his feet upon a wooden
bench, and the smoke of his clay pipe floated off
lazily in little clouds which hung in the air a moment
and then faded into the elements.

About always smoked a clay pipe. He was wealthy

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

and could have afforded a meerschaum, but he preferred
the simple and inexpensive clay. He was not
a bloated aristocrat and pampered son of luxury.

“How like life!” he said, as he watched the constantly
ascending and constantly fading smoke-wreaths.
“How like life! The cloud has an appearance of
solidity at the beginning, but when we grasp it, we
find we have nothing in our hands. There is a strong
smell, a color, and the elements absorb it, — it is
nothing. Be chesm, it is like the work of a Congressional
investigating committee. Is it to be ever
thus? It is a conundrum which can only be solved
by the end-man of the celestial minstrels. I give
it up. — How now? Who art thou, and what wouldst
thou with me?”

The concluding sentence was hurled at a young
man, who had approached so silently that Abou had
not noticed him until he stood in front of him.

“Art thou Abou ben Adhem?” interrogated the
stranger.

“So men call me,” replied Abou. “Thy business?”

“Behold in me one who is dissatisfied with his
lot,” replied the intelligent and ingenuous youth.

“All men are so, my son,” replied Abou, promptly;
for he saw that the young man did not want to
borrow money. “You can see such in any grocery.
One wants riches, another fame; some chase one
fleeting shadow, some another; but discontent is the
accompanying fiend of all. We hie us to Wall
Street and invest in Harlem. Harlem goes down, —
we lose, and curse our fate: it goes up, we double

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

our money, and we repine that we did not go into
oil and treble it. But what wouldst thou with me?
Wouldst be president, poet, or what?”

“Mighty Abou, I cannot be President, for I am
not available as a nominee. I was not born in a log
cabin; I did not study arithmetic by the light of a
pine knot; neither did I wade ten miles through deep
snow, without shoes, to borrow `Plutarch's Lives.'
I had the misfortune to be born in a good house, of
parents fairly off, and was given a good education.
I am not a self-made man, so you see the stump
orators would be at a loss as to what to say of me.
`My name is Norval; on the Grampian Hills my
father fed his flocks, — a frugal swain.' A year ago
he died and left these flocks to me, — his only son.
I put up a monument to his memory, and on the
enduring stone his virtues did I carve. Being a truthful
man, and having been well acquainted with the
old gentleman, the inscription took but little space,
and — but this is a digression. I shear those sheep,
wash the wool, and card it into rolls, and spin it,
and weave it into cloth, and of that make garments.
Why all these processes? If the sheep could produce
wool in the form of rolls, it would save me
much trouble and labor. I could have more time to
play billiards — that is to say, to improve my mind,
and I could have more means to keep trot — or rather,
I mean — that is — to devote to charitable works, and
in short —”

“I understand you,” said Abou. “Your request
is a singular one. Sheep with nicely-carded rolls

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

on their backs instead of matted wool would be a
convenience. The breed would be valuable, and
would take diplomas at agricultural fairs, — yes, and
possibly cash premiums, if enough remained after
paying purses to trotting horses. Go thy way.
I grant thee thy request. Henceforth thy sheep shall
grow rolls instead of plain wool. Go, my son, and
be happy.”

The young man sprang gayly away, and Abou
filled his pipe again, and settled back again into his
chair in a dreamy reverie.

A week passed by, and Abou had nigh forgotten
the young man; when one morning, to his surprise,
the bucolic youth made his appearance before
him.

“What now?” ejaculated Abou. “Was not thy
wish gratified?”

“Verily it was,” replied the high-minded citizen.
“When I reached my humble home in the vales of
Sussex, I found my sheep with beautiful rolls on their
backs; all I had to do was to cut those rolls and spin
them.”

“Well, then, what more wouldst thou have?”

“Great Abou,” and the young man bowed three
times before the great magician, “I have an improvement
to suggest. If the sheep can grow wool in
rolls, why not wool in yarns as well? While Nature
is about it, why can't she spread herself over a trifle
more ground? Think what an advantage it would be
to have sheep with yarn on them, all nicely tied
in hanks.”

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

Abou put his finger to his left temple, as though he
were sitting for a photograph, and thought for a
moment.

“Young man, after careful consideration and mature
deliberation, I have decided to grant this, thy
second request. Go to thy native mountains. Thy
sheep shall grow fine yarn of many colors. Go and
leave me.”

One week after the date of the last interview Abou
was aroused from his slumbers in the morning by
vociferous knocking. Looking out of his window,
his affrighted eyes beheld the young man from
Sussex.

“Again here!” said Abou. “Young man, thou
art as importunate as a life-insurance agent, or a
lightning-rod man, or a man who sells farm rights
for a patent gate. I would let loose my bull-dog on
thee, but for the fact that I have had him but
two weeks, and alas! he is trained only to kill
life-insurance solicitors. Wert thou a missionary,
whose duty it was to call a sinful world to repentance,
and shouldst thou be as persistent in that calling as
thou art at worrying me, the enemy of mankind would
throw up the sponge, and howl in baffled rage. Once
for all, what wantest thou?”

“Mighty Abou, I bow in the dust before thee!
All things are as easy to thee as turning jack from
the bottom of the pack was to me in my unregenerate
days. You ordered my sheep to grow yarn: they
do it, and good yarn it is. But why stop at yarn?
If they can grow yarn, why not grow cloth? Ah!

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

then it would be good indeed. I should but have to
strip it off, and cut it, and sew it into garments; and
think how much labor it would save me. Mighty
Abou, grant me but this!

“Be it so,” replied Abou, “but bother me no more.
Come here again at thy peril. I am chairman of
the Executive Committee of my ward, and the election
is but three weeks off. Go thy ways, cloth it is.
Git!”

And Abou shut down the window and returned to
his slumbers, happy in the thought that he was rid of
that nuisance forever. But he was mistaken. Just
one week from date the young man turned up again,
with a front of brass and cheeks unblushing.

“Mighty Abou —”

A shoe-brush hurled with terrific force was the
answer.

Calmly dodging the missile, the young man resumed: —

“Mighty Abou —”

“Young man,” said Abou impressively, “you have
no sense of delicacy — not a sense. I presume that
during my natural life I shall see you once a week.
When my last moment comes, when Azrael is waving
his black pinions over me, when my friends are
weeping, and calculating mentally how my estate will
pan out, I suppose I shall be called to life for a
moment by the familiar words, `Mighty Abou.'
Three times have I given you what you desired, but
you are here again. Well, say it, and be quick
about it.”

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

“Mighty Abou, at thy bidding my Merinos, which
I imported from Vermont, have yielded, first rolls,
then yarn, then cloth. So far, so good. But the
same power that made them do this can make them
do more. Why stop at cloth? Why, O Abou,
should they not grow — ”

“What?” shrieked Abou, bewildered at the young
man's impudence.

The young man was not bewildered, or dashed, or
in any way moved. He was as calm as a summer's
morning. Taking Abou by the button-hole that he
might not escape him, he fixed him with his eye, and
proceeded, —

“Why should they not as well grow ready-made
clothing, with an American watch in the vest-pocket,
with a pocket-book filled with greenbacks and a plug
of Cavendish tobacco handy in the trousers pocket?
This is what I now want. Grant me this, and be
chesm, I swear by Bismallah —”

“Away, ungrateful dog, and let me see thy face
no more!” shrieked the indignant Abou, his eyes
glowing fiercely, like the head-light of a locomotive.
“Three times have I granted thy absurd wishes knowing
full well that it would come to this. I yielded to
thy importunities solely and entirely for the purpose
of teaching thee a lesson, — one that every young man
must learn before he can be happy.

“Nature, wretched man, did for us, at the beginning,
all that was needed, — all that our imperfect
being could endure. She gave us the raw material to
work on, and the ability to work on it, and then very

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

properly let us alone. She gave us stomachs, but
did not stop there. She gave us cattle, and wheat,
and things of that character. I suppose she could
have put up cattle ready roasted; she might have had
sirloin roasts on four legs rambling pensively on the
hills, waiting to be eaten; and each stalk of wheat
might have had a French roll on its head, and so on:
but she knew better than that. It is our business to
utilize her gifts. Nature provides corn: it is for us
to convert that corn into bread and such other products
as go to sustain life.

“Suppose, O miserable! for instance, that I had
given you all you asked: what would you have had
to do, and how would you have done it? You would
have become lazy and worthless; you would have
frequented groceries; you would have intensified
your taste for intoxicating beverages; to kill time
you would have resorted to faro and keno, two sinful
games that will floor a man quicker than anything in
this world, as I know ever since I made the last trip
to Trenton, where I lost — but no matter; you
would have mixed in politics and become a nuisance
to yourself and a pest to your friends.

“Labor, wretched man, is Heaven's first law and
its kindest. The curse of Adam was no curse at
all. A busy man has not the time on his hands to
contemplate himself; he never realizes what a
miserable insect he is, which reflection would lead
inevitably to suicide.

“Go thy way. Your sheep are, from this moment,
divested of the qualities I gave them, and grow

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

common wool again. Shear, wash, spin, weave, cut
and sew, and be happy. Avaunt!”

And Abou went into his tent with the remark
that it was not impossible that somewhere there
might be found a more unreasonable man, but he
doubted it.

p632-083 VIII. THE LOST MAIDEN OF ISPAHAN.

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

ABOU, the Sage, was discussing with me, one
morning, the question of beauty. I held that a
sensible woman cared nothing for beauty, but concerned
herself more about the symmetry of her mind
than about her face and figure.

Abou replied that this kind of talk was, to use a
Persian phrase, bosh. “There is nothing,” he remarked,
“that a homely woman will not do to be handsome,
and nothing that a handsome woman will not
do to avoid becoming homely. Listen to a story of
real life in Persia, which illustrates this point.”

And putting his slippered feet on an easy-chair,
Abou narrated as follows: —

“It was midnight in Ispahan! A wild storm raged
violently over that city, a thing which often occurs
in the fall of the year. In a neat but unpretending
boarding-house on a secluded street, sat, in a room on
the second floor in the rear of the house, a maiden,
o'er whose head had flown thirty-eight summers.
Time had not touched her lightly. Her cheeks were
sunken, wrinkles yawned hideously across her

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

forehead and lurked maliciously just at the corners of her
mouth; her hair was scanty and thin, the pale red
contrasting unfavorably with the white skin of the
scalp, which shone through pretty generally; her neck
was like the swan's — not much; and her arms were
skinny and her shoulders scraggy. The only handsome
point about her was her teeth, and those were
good. She had good taste in teeth, and bought the
best she could find; they cost her forty-two dollars
and a half, on which she had at different times expended
twelve dollars in repairs; so they were as
good as new.

“Zobeide was a high-minded seamstress; and whoever
said she was handsome lied in his throat, like a
base, false-hearted traitor as he was, and in his mouth
likewise. She was originally homely. In her infancy
she was said to have been the homeliest child in the
village in which she was born; in her girlhood her
vital energies were all expended in her hands and feet;
and in womanhood she had grown thinner and thinner
where she ought to have grown thicker and thicker,
and vice versa, which is Latin for otherwise. In addition
to these charms, she had acquired a habit of
squinting, and was afflicted with a perpetual cold.

“Zobeide was sewing, which she continually did
for a living; and, as she plied the needle, a bitter tear
fell on the garment which she was making. Something
was wrong with her. Some great grief was
preying on her, some untold woe, some desire unattainable, —
something ailed her. The faster she
plied her needle, the faster the tears fell, — as though

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

she was a thin pump, and her right arm the handle
thereof.

“At this critical point, while her tears were flowing
faster than ever, there was a terrible peal of
thunder, and as she started in terror from her seat,
she observed sitting in front of her, on the other side
of the table — A MAN! She would have shrieked,
but terror tied her tongue. How did he get there?
No door had opened, and of his presence she was unaware
until he had dawned on her sight. What was he
there for? No human being wearing pantaloons had
ever sought her presence before; and unable to solve
such a staggerer, she sank back on her seat and
sobbed more violent than ever.

“The mysterious intruder was a pleasant-looking,
middle-aged gentleman, dressed scrupulously in
black, with patent-leather boots and a white vest, and
a white hat with crape on it, and a gold chain that
hung over his vest, and a cane which he carried rather
jauntily than otherwise. His countenance, to use a
mercantile phrase, was `fair to middling.' It was undeniably
handsome, though his eye glittered cruelly,
something like a frozen mill-pond in winter. Such
eyes, by the way, always indicate disagreeable death
under them. His lips, too thin for genuine good
humor, kept wreathing themselves into a smile which
had nothing in it, — such as a rattlesnake might smile
as he charms a bird, or a tiger indulge in when he is
satisfied he has a sure thing on the unsuspecting gentle
gazelle which is approaching his lair. And had Zobeide
been behind him, she would have observed that he was

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

at great pains to keep curled up under his coat-skirt
a genuine tail, with a barb on it, and that his boots
were not just as they ought to be.

“`Maiden,' said he, in a gentle, winning voice,
at which word she started, for that was the secret
of her trouble; `maiden, I know what grieves
thee.'

“She spake not, but looked at him fixedly.

“`I know what grief consumes thee,' — and he
added to himself, `and it has n't much more to prey
on except hands and feet.' `I know why thou
weepest.'

“`Speak on,' said she.

“`Thou wouldst have beauty, thou wouldst be even
as other maidens are, fair to look upon; thou wouldst
have thy hair as black as the raven's wing, without
buying dye, which thou canst not afford at the present
price of making shirts; thou wouldst have a
plump face and a general plumpness all over; thou
wouldst have thy feet reduced, and the material wasted
in them placed where it would show to better advantage;
thou wouldst lose those freckles, which are
neither useful nor ornamental; thou wouldst have
youth, and gay attire to adorn thy youth, and gold
galore, and silver and precious stones, et cetera.

“`Thou weepest, Zobeide, because last night, at
mosque, thou sawest each maiden have her escort, and
they went off two and two as the animals entered the
ark; but not one looked at you, and you wended your
way homeward through the rain, alone and uncared
for. You would change all this. Is it not so?'

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

“And bending her head like a sunflower in a gale,
she whispered, `It is.'

“`Maiden,' said he, seizing her by the shoulder-bone,
and fixing his eyes on her with a hungry intensity,
`I can give thee these and more.'

“`O, sir!' said she, `whoever you are, give them
to me! give them to me! But,' and a doubt crossed
her mind, `what price must I pay? What must I do
to gain all these?'

“`Only sign your name. Here, maiden, is the
document, sealed with a notary's seal, with a revenue
stamp on it, and a place left blank for your name.
See how beautifully the blank is printed! I have
them done here in Ispahan, so as to have them handy
where I do the most of my business. Sign, Zobeide,
sign!'

“`Read it to me,' said she, `read it to me.'

“He read it. It was an article of agreement in
which he promised to give her youth, beauty, wealth,
as much of those articles as she should order, on demand,
for the space of ten years, in consideration of
which she should, at the end of that period, become
his, soul and body.

“`And who are you?' asked she, trembling, her
system shaking like castanets.

“`The Devil, Zobeide, himself, in person.'

“`Avaunt!' she cried, drawing herself up to her
full height, as all heroines do when they say `Avaunt!'

“`Shall I go, and leave you here — yellow-haired,
freckled, and scraggy, Zobeide?' said he, sardonically.

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

“She had been revelling in a dream of bliss while
he had been talking, and in imagination had been all
he had painted her, and the thought of going back to
her old condition was too much. She thought of the
church the night before; she remembered that she
had never had a beau but once, and he was a lame
kobosh-maker who never came the second time, and
in a fit of frenzy she exclaimed, `I will sign!' and
tried to fall, overcome with emotion, on his neck.

“`Not any of that,' said he, dodging. `Business is
business, but please don't'; and he whipped out a
lancet, and tied up her arm so that she should n't bleed
too much; for it always was the regular thing for
such contracts to be signed in the blood of the victim,—
though I don't see why red ink would n't do as
well, if it was n't for the precedent,—and she signed.

“As the final curl was put to the tail of the `e,'
there was another clap of thunder, in which he seized
the fatal scroll and vanished as he came, without going
through any door, and leaving behind him a perceptible
odor of sulphur.

“The next morning Zobeide was missing. Quietly
she packed her trunk, and bought a ticket for Teheran.

“She was never more seen in Ispahan.

“Teheran. Zobeide was at her toilet in a luxurious
mansion on the Avenue of the Faithful, which
she had bought nine years and eleven months before,
and was occupying. She was n't the Zobeide we saw
at the opening of this legend, not by any means. A
more beautiful female never stood before a looking-glass.
Her teeth had grown out again; her hair had

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

come in thicker and longer than any you see on the
labels of the Hair Restorers; her skin was as pure as
alabaster, her neck was truly like the swan's, and her
arms were rounded as they ought to be, her feet
were shrunk into 3s or 3½s; and altogether she was
allowed by good judges to be the most perfect piece
of femininity in those parts. She did n't powder,
because no powder could improve her complexion;
she did n't paint, because no paint could rival the
natural roses in her cheeks; and she did n't embellish
her figure, because there was no necessity for it.
When the Devil makes a contract of this kind, he
always fulfils his part to the letter. Lovers! she
had them by the thousand. Half of the noble youths
in Teheran were at her feet. They sighed for the
possession of her matchless charms; they sighed for
her wealth, with which to go into the oil business:
but to all of which she turned a deaf ear. Her
motto was “Excelsior,” and she was waiting for some
noble Lord, some Grand Duke, or some Princely
Potentate or Power, to fall at her feet. And besides,
she had grown capricious and wayward, and it was a
source of serene pleasure to her to have them dangling
after her.

“One night Zobeide stood at her toilet preparing
herself for a gay assemblage, at which she was sure
to be the admired of all admirers. She was just putting
the last touch to herself, and was admiring the
effect in the mirror, when, horror! there was another
face beside hers in the glass! She shrieked, for it
was the identical face which she had stood before

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

ten years before, in her desolate chamber in Ispahan.

“`Zobeide,' said he, `I have come for thee. Didst
think, Zobeide, when thou left Ispahan, that I could
never find time to come here after thee? Foolish
girl! Know that two thirds of the inhabitants of
that city COME TO ME of their own accord! Here is
the contract, but' — a frown o'erspread his countenance—
`I am mistaken in the date. Thou hast yet
a month before thou fallest due. Never mind,' said he
to himself, `the time is n't wasted. I never yet failed
to make a trip to Teheran pay. I shall be here again
in a month. Be ready.'

“Zobeide went to the party, nevertheless, and was
the gayest of the gay. Ah! could those who envied
her hair have known by what means she became possessed
of it! Could those who noticed the heaving of
her bosom have known how heavy the heart she was carrying
underneath it! But they did n't. They never do.

“That night was one of unmixed agony. She
paced the floor till the dawning of the day, and wept
and tore her hair, and tore her hair and wept. Was
there no way to escape him? Could she not outwit
him? Was there no flaw in the contract? Were
such contracts binding under the laws of Persia? To
all these questions she got no answer, and finally, in
her despair, she went to the mufti of the mosque in
which she had been sleeping ever since she had been
in Teheran, as all people do when the Devil gets after
them. She told him her story, weeping till the carpet
was soaked.

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

“`Zobeide,' said he to her tenderly, as is the custom
of ministers when they are giving advice to
young and prepossessing females, `thou didst foolishly.
What are the transitory things of life? What
are beauty, wealth, and such, if thou canst not enjoy
them forever?'

“`True, father,' said she, `but I 've had a good time
of it for ten years. You cannot appreciate my situation.
Owing to your sex, you never can be a scraggy
female, yellow-haired and freckled, and running
mostly to hands and feet. If you had been such,
you would have done as I did.'

“`Zobeide, one way remains, and only one. When
the arch-fiend cometh, give him back all that he
gavest thee; tell him to restore thee to thy normal
ugliness, and the contract is at an end.'

“`But what shall I do then?'

“`If you are too ugly to move in good society,
turn reformer, my child, and go to lecturing on woman's
rights. Why did n't you think of that before?
'

“And she took his advice. Precisely as the clock
struck twelve, on the night of the thirty-first of the
twelfth month of the tenth year (she was in her chamber),
before her stood her visitor, — this time without
his coat and hat and gentlemanly attire. When the
Devil makes a bargain, he always appears fixed up;
when he comes for his pay, he is not such a pleasant-looking
individual. I learned that once in a fit of
delirium tremens, caused by being a candidate for a
county office.

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

“`Avaunt!' said Zobeide, `I rue the bargain. I
will not go!'

“`My dear,' retorted he, `it 's too late. You can't
back out. Here! See! Here is the contract duly
signed and sealed, and the stamps sufficient. My
dear, you must go!'

“`Place me,' shrieked she, `as you found me. Take
back this wealth, this beauty, this hair, these teeth,
and give me back my old set, which was as good as
new. I will not go! Our arrangement is at an
end.'

“`Zobeide,' said he, smiling sardonically, and fixing
on her a wicked eye, `look at this! Ha! ha!'

“And he held before her a photograph which had
been taken ten years ago, and which she thought
she had destroyed. There was the yellow hair, the
wrinkles, the freckles, the skinny neck, the hands,
and the feet which even hoops were insufficient to hide;
and as her eyes were glued on it, the Devil smiled
still more sardonically.

“`Would you be again like this, and be again beneath
the notice of a lame kobosh-maker?' said he.

“`Never!' shrieked she, `take me!' and she fell
fainting into his arms.

“When the servants came up the next morning at
11 A. M., to awaken their mistress, she was n't there.
There was, however, a strong odor of brimstone pervading
the apartment, which completely overpowered
the Night-Blooming Cereus which stood open on her
table. The servants helped themselves to her clothes
and jewelry, and all of them married well and had

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

large families. The house was sold for taxes, as is
the custom of the city, and was finally converted
into a boarding-house.

“My friend, there are several morals to be drawn
from this legend, the principal one of which is, that
the unquenchable desire for being handsome and rich
is what generally sends women to the Devil; and so
long as men are idiotic enough to hold beauty,
which can only endure a few years, superior in value
to other qualities which are eternal, I cannot say that
I blame them. Every Gill must have her Jack,
and the Gills all desire that which has most power
over the Jacks. So far, beauty has done the trick,
and therefore they want beauty.

“But I am tired. I will lie me down.”

And the Sage went into his tent and laid him down
on his divan.

p632-094 IX. THE INUTILITY OF TRUTH.

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was not in good humor.
He was away from his home, and missed sadly
the comforts and conveniences of his tent. He
took with him the editor of these pages, that in
genial companionship he might mitigate the suffering
that to him always accompanied change, but he was
not happy. He was out of his place, and was therefore
as uncomfortable as a faro-dealer would be in a
prayer-meeting, a member of Congress at a reform
convention, or a lobster in hot water. The dweller in
Fifth Avenue, used to the conveniences of modern
civilization, would not be comfortable in the simple
tent of the Persian sage; so, likewise, the Persian
sage was not comfortable in the gorgeous room which
he was occupying in a hotel at Trenton. When
the heat became insupportable, he could not lift the
bottom of the cloth of his tent and get a free circulation
of air; at Trenton he had to depend on a raised
window.

“They talk of improvements,” said Abou to himself,
as he hung panting out of the aperture, gasping

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

for breath. “Has the world made progress? Is this
hole better than all out-of-doors?”

It was while he was thus musing, in an irritable
frame of mind, that a stranger entered, which interruption,
of all things in the world, was precisely what
Abou did not want.

“What is the matter with you, my buck?” said
Abou, unconsciously dropping into the fervid Oriental
style of expression.

“Mighty Abou,” said the stranger, “I would
confer with you. I would be perfect. I would
live close to truth. I would so train my mind
that truth should ever be in it — my tongue, that
it should ever utter it. This is what I yearn for, —
truth.

“Young man,” replied Abou, impressively, “to
remark that you are an ass would be a very mild
statement of your condition. But I will waste a
little time on you. Listen.

“In the years gone never to return, I was a young
man in Ispahan. I was the son of loving parents,
who sent me to the school of Blohard, the perfectionist,
to be instructed in morals. Blohard held
and taught as a first principle, that truth, absolute
and undeviating, should govern all men; and that
under no circumstances could it be safely disregarded.
I believed him, and went out into the
world to practise his teachings.

“I had a maiden aunt, who had property to which
it was expected I would be heir, and my parents had
particularly instructed me to show her deference and

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

honor. Woe is me that I ever saw Blohard, whom
may seven thousand fiends torment! I was at her
house just after I had received this lesson from that
prince of quacks. Everything was propitious for
me. She was seventy-one, and had a cough which
was tearing her to pieces; and to make it absolutely
certain that she could not long survive, she had three
physicians in attendance upon her. As her will was
made, leaving all her estate to me, the song of the
bulbul was not more agreeable to my ear than that
cough; and the three physicians were more pleasant
to my eye than a vision of Paradise.

“On the morning in question, I found her absorbed
in the fashion-plates of the Lady's Magazine of that
period. My son, here is a fact thrown in gratis, —
no woman ever gets beyond fashion-plates. It is a
provision of nature that a fashion-plate delights the
feminine mind so long as it is incased in the feminine
body. My aunt was reclining on a sofa and arrayed
gorgeously. She had on a pink mauve poplin, berage
moire antique, cut bias down the back, with heart-shaped
bodice, low in the neck, and with short sleeves
trimmed with asbestos lace. It was a dress appropriate
for a young lady of fifteen with flesh on her
shoulders.

“`Abou,' said she, with a death's-head grin and a
paralytic shake of the head, `doth not this dress accord
with my style of beauty?'

“I was about to reply like a man of the world,
when the precept of Blohard (whom may fire consume!)
occurred to me.

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

“`I am sure it does not, aunt!' I replied. `You
are too fearfully old and ugly for such a gay dress.
The beauty of the apparel calls unnecessary attention
to your general ghastliness; you are too bony for
such dry-goods, and the cut thereof adds to your
horrible boneiness instead of hiding it. A skeleton,
no matter how perfect a skeleton it may be, should
never be dressed low in the neck; for shoulder-blades,
when they seem to be forcing their way through saffron-colored
skin, are never pleasant to look upon.
Now, aunt, in all candor, I would suggest that instead
of dressing yourself so absurdly in lace, you swathe
your shrivelled remains in flannels, thus compelling
art to furnish what nature has denied, — a sufficient
covering for your bones. It is absurd for a hideous
old virgin like yourself to ape the style of a girl of
fifteen. Go to, vain old woman! Instead of indulging
in such vanities, prepare for Death, who stands
waiting for you.'

“The old lady did not appreciate my truthfulness.
She flew at me like an attenuated tigress, and called
me a fool and a beast, and ordered me out of her
house. The excitement was so great that she fell
into a fit of coughing which killed her. She lived,
however, long enough to alter her will, leaving every
dirhem of her estate to the Society for the Conversion
of the French to Mohammedanism. I never saw a
kopeck of it.

“This was somewhat discouraging, but I determined
to persevere. Blohard had dwelt so strongly
on the necessity of absolute truth that I could not

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

think of going back on it. So I gritted my teeth
and waded in.

“I had an uncle, a very rich man, who was afflicted
with poetry. He was troubled with the idea that he
was a poet, and spent the bulk of his time hacking
away at his verses. He had finished a poem of thirty-six
cantos, and he invited me to hear it.

“`My son,' said he, `I have confidence in your
taste and judgment. Now, I am going to show this
poem to you, and shall abide your judgment. If
you say it is good, I shall so esteem it, and publish
it; if you say bad, I shall accept the decision, and
burn it.'

“`Fire away!' I answered, in the Oriental style,
which is more fervid than your form of utterance in
this deliberate and unimpassioned West.

“The old gentleman read, and read, and read. I
struggled manfully to keep awake, and succeeded.
When he got through he paused.

“`Your honest judgment, my son.'

“I determined to give an honest opinion, but I
said to myself, I will draw it mild. I will not hurt
the old gentleman's feelings. I will treat him tenderly.

“`Uncle,' said I, `the poem may have merits, but
I fail to discover them. It is defective in rhythm,
utterly and entirely devoid of sentiment, and atrocious
in design. A more stupid, senseless performance
I was never bored with. It is hog-wash. It
is idiocy — it is deliberate idiocy. It was conceived
in weakness and brought forth in inanity. I would,

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

for your sake, that I could call it lunacy; but it lacks
the strength and fire that an overturned intellect
would have given it. I cannot say lunacy in connection
with it, for to say lunacy presupposes intellect,
of which this performance gives no token. It
is drool. It is drivel. For the sake of your family,
do not publish it.'

“I did not expect this criticism to produce the effect
it did, for it was entirely honest and just. But it
did not strike the old gentleman at all pleasantly.
He glared at me a moment fiercely, and raising a
chair, felled me to the floor. He kicked me out of
the house, protesting the while that a more insulting
dog than I was did not dwell in Ispahan.

“He did publish the poem, however, but the public
of Ispahan sustained my criticism. The wits of Ispahan
and Teheran made him their butt for weeks.
But when he died, he left me, who should have been
his heir, a bound copy of the accursed trash.

“I followed up this thing for a year. I told an
orator that his peroration was bosh and his entire
speech was clap-trap. I told a dervish that his whirling
and howling were only half as good as they had
been a year before. In the most candid manner, I
informed an actor who had invited me to witness and
criticise his performance, that he was the worst I
ever saw. In short, in that year I made an enemy
of every man, woman, and child in Ispahan; and
what grieved me was, that in all that time I held
closely to the truth, never deviating from it a hair's-breadth.

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

“And finally I came to blows with Blohard himself.
He asked my candid opinion of a lecture he
had delivered, and I told him what I thought, as he
had instructed me. I merely remarked that the badness
of the thought was only equalled by the badness
of the execution, and that both together were exceeded
by the badness of the delivery. Instead of
thanking me, he flew into a rage.

“My son, truth is not the highest wisdom in ordinary
hands, but silence is. Only very rich men
can afford to spread truth about recklessly. Truth
is too precious for every-day use. When a rich man
says, `I am a plain, blunt man, and am used to speaking
the simple truth; I call things by their right
names, I do,' — set him down as a disagreeable old
brute, who goes about making people uncomfortable,
because he can do it safely. When a poor man says
the same, set him down as a fool. I do not advise
lying, but beware of too free use of the truth. It
needs to be handled judiciously. Were the world
perfect, — were everybody as free from weakness as,
for instance, myself, — it would answer, for truth
would then be pleasant; but as it is, beware of it.

“Silence, my ingenuous friend, is your best hold.
Silence will conceal the fact that you are an inferior
being, and will offend nobody.

“Let silence be your rule — speech the exception.
Then shall you prosper and be counted as one of the
wise. But leave me now, for I would rest.”

And Abou, after the manner of the Eastern sages,
mixed him in a tumbler the strong waters of the

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

Giaour with lemon and sugar and a very little water
(for the water of Trenton is not healthful), and swallowed
it, saying, “Be chesm, but it is good. It
warms the midriff and makes one charitable. For an
excuse to repeat, I would be willing, almost, to heave
out another chunk of wisdom.”

And with this Oriental ejaculation, he clambered
into his bed.

p632-102 X. THE SHADOWY NATURE OF FAME.

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was called upon one morning
in the last moon by a young man of nineteen,
who had walked all the way from Sussex County to
consult him.

Abou was not in the humor to shed wisdom, for
he had been disappointed. He had been trying the
experiment of transmuting metals, hoping to arrive
at the secret of manufacturing gold. He had the
required ingredients in the crucible, he had repeated
the magic formula, and at the critical moment, when
the star Xermes was entering the remote apex of the
sublunar constellation Capsicum, he had dropped
into the seething metals the required ounce of virgin
gold.

For the sake of effect he had used for this purpose
the head of a cane, which had been presented to him
by a certain corporation, for his services in lobbying
through the Legislature a most villanous fraud in
which it was interested. He could have used other
gold, but he thought the effect would be better to
use this. He wanted to see a picture of himself in

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

the illustrated papers, breaking off this gold head,
with an account of how he had spent all his means to
carry on the experiments, until finally, just at the
threshold of success, he had to have an ounce of
gold. Where was he to get it? Ha! There was
the cane! True, it was a valued memento, but, in
the interest of science, it must go! That was his
idea.

To his surprise the result was not gold, and he
wondered at it till he investigated. Then he discovered
that the head of that cane was nothing but
Milton gold, and that the whole affair had been bought
at a dollar store. Then did Abou inveigh against the
frauds and deceptions of a wicked world.

Abou looked up and saw the young man, and knew
his errand at once. He had a broad, white forehead,
a turn-over collar, and wore his hair long in ringlets.

“Well,” said the magician, with an unusual degree
of acerbity, “what wouldst thou with me?”

“Mighty Abou,” replied the youth, prostrating
himself three times, “my name is James Parkinson
Peters. My first business is to offer, as a tribute to
your genius, — which is only equalled by your goodness, —
this package of the distilled product of the
New Jersey orchard.”

Abou unrolled it, smelled it, and remarking to
himself, “Apple-jack,” said, —

“I accept it in the spirit in which it is tendered.
Dear to the heart of the sage are the words of approval
of young men of taste; dearer is the distilled juice
of the apple — when it is old and mellow. But what

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

else dost come for? What says Hafiz, the Seer of
Sangamon County? `He who comes full-handed
expects to go away fuller-handed.' Be modest in your
asking, young man, lest I repent me of taking your
nectar. Drive on your cart, gentle youth.”

Mighty Abou, tell me, ah! tell me, is there any
such thing as winning a name that will echo down the
ages?”

“Echo down the what?”

“Down the ages, which is to say, Is there such a
thing as imperishable fame?”

“Young man, I understand you. You hanker for
immortality; you would have the name of J. Parkinson
Peters remembered to the end of time, as it
were. Is that the desire that is consuming you?”

“Mighty Abou, it is.”

“J. Parkinson Peters, a more asinine thought
never entered an idiot's head; but we all have it at
some period of our respective lives. I know of but
one cure for it, and this fortunately I have about my
person. Here, J. P. P., is a brick. That brick is
from Egypt and is only perhaps five thousand years
old. You see those characters? You can't read
them — I can. That brick has on it a record of
the kings of the old Memphian monarchy which
preceded the Ptolemies. Those Memphian monarchs
were no small potatoes. In the art of scooping other
nations they were equalled by few and excelled by
none. Their names filled the world in their day, and
every monarch of them died supposing his name
would go echoing down the ages. Now, you are a

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

young man of ordinary intelligence. Well, did you
ever hear of Wunpare? He was the first of them.
No! Well, he had armies, and generals, and commissaries,
and was actually a great king. He gave battle
to Toopare and was beaten. Toopare was in turn
beaten by Threeze, who was ignominiously routed by
Strate, who succumbed in turn to Phlush, who was
beaten by Acephull, who held on a little while, laying
out Forephlush and Threjax, only to meet his
doom at the hands of Foreuvakind, who in turn was
made a cold corpse by Stratephlush.

“Now, my young friend, the great Stratephlush,
being the best of them all, was sure of his immortality,
and he really believed that future ages would
celebrate his deeds in prose and verse; and the egregious
ass built a pyramid or two to perpetuate his
name.

“Where now, O idiot! is Stratephlush and his memory?
A few sages like myself, who know all things,
know the name, but no more; and only such of us
as can decipher cuneiform writing. Practically the
great conqueror Stratephlush is no more known than
is the tailor who made the breeches in which he went
forth to do battle. He made history, and what is it?
A line in a dull book, and a brick! Even we sages
cannot come at the time of his reign into a thousand
years. He lived, fought, ruled, and died. He went
to death with philanthropists, tailors, dentists, lightning-rod
men, reformers, life-insurance agents, missionaries,
cabinet officers, prostitutes, explorers, advertising
agents, preachers, auctioneers, and

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

lecturers. The cold waters of oblivion cover them all.
Stratephlush is no more remembered than is the Ben
Butler of his Congress, and neither of them are any
better known than are the people they swindled.
The skull of Stratephlush and that of his shoemaker
cannot to-day be distinguished. We thought we had
Stratephlush's skull, but it turned out afterward that
it was a woman's skull, which was determined by the
filling in the teeth. Imagine the feelings of the ghost
of Stratephlush when he saw the savans worshipping
a woman's skull supposing it to be his!

“As it was with the ancients, so will it be with the
moderns. The Brobinding nag of to-day will be the
Liliputian of the next century. I do not suppose
that even my name will live forever.

“My son, all this that you are hankering after is a
delusion and snare; but life is not barren for all that.
I believe there is a future (as everybody does), for
the reason that I hold this life to be altogether too
short to reward me for my virtues, and that an eternity
is not too long to punish my enemies. I make
this life of use in getting up my moral muscle. I am
in training in this world to make as respectable a
ghost as possible in the next. But I am not going
for fame to any extent, nor do I care about being
noted. I leave that for showmen and patent medicine
men. I indulge in no visions of monuments
and vanities of that nature. I would n't give a brass
sequin for all the stone that could be piled up to commemorate
my virtues. If a grateful people want to
build a monument for me, after I am gone, let them

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

come to me now, and say so, and I will discount the
cost of it twenty-five per cent for cash in hand. I
can use the shekels now: after I am gone they will
never do me a particle of good. The statue will not
be like me, and if it is I shall not have the ability to
thank them.

“Go home, young man, go home. Go about your
legitimate vocation, whatever it may be, and stick
by it. Live right along, take all the comfort you
can, be as happy as possible, and when you die,
count it as certain that, so far as this world is concerned,
you have died all over. Go and be
happy!”

And Abou dismissed him, and resumed his experiments.

p632-108 XI. HOW TO WIN SUCCESS IN LITERATURE.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM had a mortal dread of young
literary persons. Whenever he saw a man of
tender age, with long hair, a turn-over collar, and
fine dreamy eyes, he was in the habit of calling loudly
for his shot-gun. He disliked them more, if possible,
than he did book-agents or life-insurance solicitors.

It was with great surprise, therefore, that one
morning I saw a young man of this description enter
his enclosure and approach the sage without the latter
indulging in any ferocious demonstrations.

“Well?” said Abou.

“Great man, Light of the world I may say, —
help me, aid me! I have a call, a mission. I have
within me yearnings for the Good, the True, the
Beautiful. The Grand inspires me; the Sublime
exalts me. I would write for the weekly papers.
How shall I achieve my purpose?”

“Young man,” said Abou, “I was once like you.
I wrote for the sake of Suffering Humanity. The
check which I received for each article, though it shed

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

a ray of light over the heart of my landlady, was not
the impelling motive, it was merely an agreeable
incident.

“A desire to benefit Suffering Humanity always
guided my pen. It was a sweet thing, I found, to live
solely for the good of others. That is what I did.
It was my best hold. I wrote for the good of the
human race. When I did not publish, I did what
good I could by reading my work to a friend (a
man of great bodily strength and wonderful powers of
endurance), that at least one might be benefited. I
took the manuscript of an article to him once, and,
to my great grief, found him sick with a fever.

“`My dear sir,' said I, `how much, for your sake,
do I regret this unlucky illness! Were you well, I
should read you this manuscript.'

“`Is it yours?' he asked, feebly.

“`It is.'

“`Were I well you would read it to me?'

“`Most certainly.'

“A smile illumined his wan, pale, fever-wasted
face, as the light of the sun struggles through the
rifts of a leaden cloud, and glorifies the brow of a
gray rock. There was in that smile a wonderful
commingling, as it were, of resignation, thankfulness,
and joy.

“`Were I well, you would read me your manuscript,
eh? How kindly Providence has arranged
things! The bitter is not altogether bitter, nor is the
good altogether good. Even typhoid fever has its
compensations.'

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

“I am willing to waste some time on you, for I
presume it is your intention to elevate the tone of
American literature. It needs elevating, and I have
been waiting in vain for some one to elevate it. What
have we, in the way of magazines or papers, that are
proper exponents of the best thought of the country?
What kind of an idea would the literati of the Old
World have of American literature, if they saw only
the issues of the periodical press of the country?
Echo answers. The “Atlantic Monthly” has, as a
rule, some good things in each number, but is too
light, too airy, too frisky. The “North American
Review” suits, of course, a certain class of readers,
but its levity is unendurable. It lacks that
weight, that dignity, that a quarterly ought always
to possess; and as for the other magazines — well,
I will say nothing about them, but I have my
opinion.

“Writers are needed who do things with a purpose.
For instance, if you write tales, let them be always
moral tales. Have your village maiden always in
simple book-muslin, with a simple blue sash about
her waist, tripping in a simple manner to the grove
beyond the green, to meet John Perkins, the brawny
bricklayer, her lover. Have her marry him, despite
the warnings of her guardian, who has discovered
that John Perkins plays seven-up at a quarter a corner,
and five-cent poker, and other sinful games, and
what is still more heinous, invariably loses. After
the wedding, have John Perkins go on from seven-up
to tobacco, from tobacco to rum; make him the

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frequent father of cherub children, who shall always
be in rags; make him whip his wife regularly; and
finally, when at the lowest round of the ladder, have
him saved by an itinerant temperance lecturer, to the
great delight of his wife, who shall suddenly grow
young again, and shall adopt book-muslin and blue
sashes, and lean trustingly on his arm, as she did in
the days before the fall, and have John go into the
temperance missionary business himself, and so forth.

“This style of writing is done easily when you
are once ready for it, but it requires a deal of preparation.
A man of ordinary intellect would require
a month of the wildest and most debasing
dissipation to reduce his mind to the level for it.
But in the interest of moral writing, you should be
willing to do even this.

“If you write stories of real life, indulge in no
vagaries. In your stories the young man must
always marry the girl, and the would-be seducer
must always commit suicide when he fails in his
hellish designs, leaving his ill-gotten gains to the young
man who was his nephew, though no one knew it or
suspected it till he came to the point of expiring.
Right there make an impressive moral picture.
The young man must refuse to take the blood-stained
gold, and must say, “Never mind it, Sophia; we are
poor, but I would beg on the streets rather than live
in luxury upon money every piece of which is dark
with the bel-lud of innocence, and rusted with the
tears of the helpless. We are poor, Sophia: let
us be virtuous.” In real life, he probably would n't

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

say anything of the kind. He would have taken the
shekels if each individual shekel had been voted its
possessor as back-pay. He would have set up a
carriage, Sophia would have indulged in cargoes of
fine dresses, and they would have made it lively in
their neighborhood. But in your stories, always
have the hero say, “We are poor, but let us be
virtuous.” The poor generally are virtuous — is it
because they have n't the ducats to be wicked with?
It is a conundrum of the most exhaustive nature.

“And in your stories Virtue must always triumph
over Vice. Adhere steadily to Virtue. I have a respect
for Virtue. Familiarity with her has not yet
bred contempt. I believe in giving Virtue fair play;
and as in actual life, Vice, as a rule, comes out winner
by a great many lengths, I insist that in romance
Virtue shall have a show. If she does n't get it there,
where will she?

“Avoid, carefully, all naturalness in writing. We
can get naturalness anywhere — we have a surfeit of
it. Mud is natural: mix water and dirt, and you
have it. But is it attractive? The people very properly
want something beside nature if they are expected
to pay for it, for nature they can get for nothing.
Who cares for blue water? No one. Let the
bay turn to a bright red, and everybody would rush
to see it. We gaze at the sun only when it is eclipsed.
How many people would go a step out of their way
to see two perfectly formed, handsome men? To
put this so that it will be perfectly plain to the dullest,
how many citizens of New York would go to

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

see Roscoe Conkling and myself? None. But how
many hundreds of thousands of people paid half-dollars
to see that pigmy, Tom Thumb, and those
solemn, spirit-depressing curiosities, the Siamese
Twins? Had the tie been severed that bound those
willing hearts, not a man or woman in Christendom
would have gone after them, unless to have seen what
was left of the tie.

“The attractiveness of Dickens' sweet little female
children consists entirely in the startling fact that
children of that style are not lying around loose.
They are seen only in his pages and in Sunday-school
papers, where the precocious prigs propound heavy
questions in theology to their gratified parents, and
save up their pennies for the heathen. If you write
for children, draw all your portraits from this class.

“You may, possibly, try a tale of the Revolution.
If so, you may depend upon it that the young ploughman
who left his horses in the field to join the patriots
will always taunt his captors with being redcoated
tools of British tyranny; that he will always
refuse a Brigadier-General's commission in the British
army, preferring starvation as a private in the
service of his bleeding country. In describing battles,
you must always have the proud Britons two to
our one, and you must always defeat the proud Britons,
though the painful impression is on my mind
that history shows that whenever the Continentals
and British came together in a hostile way, your gallant
forefathers were, as a rule, most satisfactorily
whaled.

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

“You may, also, try your versatile hand on an
Indian romance. If so, the elegant triflers, fresh
from Broadway, must always excel the noble red
man of the forest in rifle-shooting and woodcraft generally,
and must always succeed in circumventing
and destroying the cunning savage on his own
ground, and with his own weapons.

“You must not startle anybody by going outside
of what is regular.

“But romance may not be your best hold. You
may prefer to cheer a despondent public with cheerful
essays of a light and playful character, on such
familiar subjects as `The Origin of the Human Race,'
`The Connection of Animal with Vegetable Life,' or
something of that sort, straying from the path occasionally
to pluck a few flowers from the tariff statistics
or the currency question. If so, follow the same
rule as in romance. Avoid a fact as you would the
small-pox or a reformer. Let your theories contain
just the one point that will please the most people,
and generalize the words of six syllables in sentences
so long that the strongest memory will forget the
beginning before it comes to the ending. The reader
will never understand you, and will deem you truly
wise. We always look up to that which we cannot
understand. In Persia, my young friend, were once
a set of illuminati, very like those you have in your
country, who spake only in six-syllabled words. I
cursed myself for an idiot one day because I could not
comprehend a speech that one of them made. After
hammering on it for two weeks, I thought I smelt

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

something. I took my dictionary and tackled the
great words; I translated it, in short, into the Persian
of every-day use, and found what? It was an article
of my own that I had written for the `Ispahan Morning
Herald,' nothing more or less. The metaphysical
fraud had merely clothed it in words of six syllables.

“Remember this: There is nothing like words of
six syllables to hide commonplaces and platitudes.

“Follow these directions, my infant, and in time
you may get to the height of getting four dollars a
column for your work in the weekly papers, which
is fame.

“Away, for I have done. Peace be with thee!”

p632-116 XII. THE WISE OLD RAT.

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked by a young man
from Boston this question: “Is it possible for
man, limited as are his powers, surrounded as he is
by circumstances, driven hither and yon as he is by
influences outside himself, to lay out a course in life
and follow it; that is to say, can man, imperfect as
he is, repressed by the inevitable, circumscribed by
the unscalable, and assailed by the irresistible, go
forward and rise into a higher, purer, and better life
in a straight line, or must he deviate at points in his
progress to evade obstacles, and —”

“State that again, young man, for I fain would
comprehend you,” said Abou.

“What I want to know is this: Can man, limited
as he is —”

“Now I comprehend what you want to know,”
said Abou, promptly. “Why did n't you state it
that way before? Clearness in statement is necessary.
I will answer your question by a parable
written by Cheesit, a sage of Brownith, who was
beheaded for embezzlement some two hundred years

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

ago. The legend (it is a poem in the original) runs
thus: —

“Once upon a time, a wise old rat, whose gray
hairs attested his age, left his peaceful home in search
of food for his numerous progeny. It was a beautiful
evening. The sun was descending o'er the
western hills, investing their summits with a coronal
of gold, and transforming the banks of clouds into
seas of liquid light. The birds sang their vesper
hymns, the dormouse chirped its faint pee-wee, taking
care to get into its hole as rapidly as convenient,
for the dormouse knew that he was a toothsome
morsel, and that the rat is constitutionally hungry.
The young chickens chirped cheerily, but they too
absented themselves with alacrity at his approach,
for they knew that the softness of the evening, and
the general harmony, as it were, of things in general,
would not prevent that rat from taking them in.
They would have said as much could they have
spoken. Alas! that there is no such thing as perfect
peace. The chicken eats the worm, the rat eats
the chicken, the terrier eats the rat. Is this the
warring of forces, or is it stomach? Is it the eternal
order of things, or is it appetite? It is a conundrum, —
I give it up. But it is sad.

“He tripped along gayly, for the splendor of the
evening filled his soul. He murmured somewhat
at the lack of confidence in the fat dormouse and
the juicy chicken, but not much. He was musing
over the events of a long life; of the granaries
he had gnawed into; of the dogs he had avoided;

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

and was repeating to himself that grand poem of Zoo-
Zoo's, —

`Life is real, life is earnest,' —

“One glance, and he took in the situation. He
was in a garden which afforded no opportunity for
concealment, and within ten feet of him stood a small
but intensely wicked boy, who had a brick poised in
his hand, and was about hurling it full at him.

“Whiz! came the deadly missile. An adroit
spring backward saved him, when the boy gave
chase. The rat saw an old house near, and towards
that he ran, hoping to find in its purlieus friendly
shelter. Alas! for the hunted fugitive. He made
one mighty leap, and experienced a sense of falling.
He found himself in the bottom of a dry cistern,
seventeen feet deep, whose smooth walls it was impossible
to scale. The boy saw the trap the rat had
fallen into, and was quickly on the spot. Another
brick was convenient, and that was immediately
hurled. Fortunately the aim of the boy was not
perfect. Ill had it fared with that rat if this had been
ten years later in life, when that boy, grown to be a
man, had run with a fire-company in New York, and
had learned to hurl the brick with unerring aim!

“A shingle lay near, and that he threw with no
better success than before, but as he searched for
another missile, he bethought himself.

“`He can't get out,' pondered this cruel boy. `I

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

will let him stay, and in the morning I will bring
Nip, my terrier, and chuck him in the cistern with
the rat, and won't he make that rat sick, though?'

“By making `that rat sick, though,' this vigorous
but unrefined youth meant to say that the terrier dog
would rend the rodent. He had never attended
school, and had not learned to express himself properly.

“He turned away with a sardonic smile o'erspreading
his otherwise intelligent countenance.

“The wails of the entrapped one soon brought to
the spot his wife and her multitude of children, who,
falling on their hind-quarters around the edge of the
cistern, wrung their paws in agony and cried, —

“`Bald-head, come up!'

“`Verily would I,' returned he, `but how? No,
my children, it 's up with me. My time is almost
gone. With daylight comes the boy, with the boy
the dog, and I shall pass in my chips. I 'm a goner,
my time is short. Bless you, wife of my bosom!
Bless you, products of our chaste love! I had hoped
to live, my children, long enough to have taught you
the neatest way of gnawing through a cupboard, the
most expeditious way of spoiling a carpet, — my way,
by which it can never be repaired. I had hoped I
might teach you how to dodge a cat, how to
avoid a terrier, how to suck eggs, and all the learning
that experience has brought me. But hope fails
me; it is all of no avail. Fate is too many for me;
I succumb. But I will die like a rat — with dignity.
That terrier will bear with him marks of my claws.

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

To superior strength will I yield, to nothing else.
My body may be shaken, but my undaunted soul,
never! I would I had a Roman toga, that I might
pull it over my head when I die, as Cæsar did. But
one can't have effective accessories in a cistern. It
is n't a good place for a heroic death.'

“At this minute a heavy rain commenced.

“`Now,' said he, `I am surely destroyed. The
cistern will fill with water, and I shall drown. Oh,
wretched fate! what a ghastly corpse I shall make.
For what is more horrid than a drowned rat!'

“The rain increased in severity, and soon the
bottom of the cistern was covered. In his despair
the rat noticed that the shingle, which the boy had
hurled at him, floated, and to prolong his life he
sprang upon it, much to the disappointment of his
youngest, who had a natural curiosity to see how
their progenitor would look floundering in the water.
Perched thus, he began to disclose to his wife the
location of a cheese he had lately discovered.

“`My dear wife,' he was saying, `it wrings my
heart to leave you, but I must. Why, oh! why must
we be separated just as life was becoming worth having?
Why must I be taken just as I had learned to
love you, and you had learned to love me? Oh, the
agony of death, now that I see you! But take courage,
dearest. There is another world, and to that
you will come, and paw in paw we will go through
an eternity in a land that has no wicked boys or terriers.
But I will make your stay as comfortable as
possible. Before I die, dearest, let me say that the

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

cheese is in the pantry at Zaba's. Go for it. You
will go through the sewer —'

“At this moment he observed that the shingle bore
him with perfect ease, and he immediately ceased to
talk.

“`Go on! go on!' said his wife, horrified at the
possibility of a secret so valuable dying with him,
`Go on, go on!'

“`Shut up, you old fool you!' said he, resuming
his regular style with great promptness. `If this
rain holds on long enough, I am as good as a dozen
dead rats.'

“And sure enough, he did not perish. On that
shingle he held; the rain continued until the cistern
was quite full, and he paddled to the edge with his
front paws, steering with his tail, and gayly sprang
on terra firma (which is the Latin for dry land), and
was safe.

“He had made his escape. The boy came next
morning with his terrier, but the rat was not there to
rend. The boy was disappointed, and so likewise
was the terrier, but what was evil for them was good
for the rat.

“That evening the wise old rat sat in his humble
domicile, contented and happy. He gathered his
children about him, and deduced from his late adventure
the usual moral lesson. He never forgot the
moral.

“`Observe, my children,' said he, `that blessings
come to us very frequently in disguise. We murmur
at terriers which rend us with neatness and dispatch,

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

and with a celerity which is a perpetual surprise to
me. But mark! had not this wicked boy had a terrier
he would have dispatched me with bricks. He
would have heaved them, and heaved them, till it
was dark, and then he would have gone and got a
lantern, by the light of which he would have continued
to heave. Thus are the evil desires of the
wicked made to work good for the saints. I am a
saint.

“`How I dreaded those bricks! Yet but for a brick
to stand on, the rain would have drowned me in the
first five minutes.

“`That shingle was another terror. Yet, but for
that shingle, your progenitor would have been that
most disgusting of all things — a drowned rat.

“`The rain was to have been my destruction — that
was to have overwhelmed me. Blessed was that
rain! Without that rain of what good would have
been that brick and shingle? That rain lifted me
out of the pit into which I had fallen; the flood
which was to have drowned me bore me on its bosom
to safety.

“`In conclusion, my children: Providence always
furnishes opportunities to every one. The truly great
is he who makes good use of opportunities, he who
sees what is worth his while to grab, and has the
nerve to do it.

“`Never despair is an exceedingly good motto.
Keep your eyes peeled, your ears open, and your
claws sharp, and there is no trouble about your going
through life with a wet sheet and a flowing sail. My

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

late experience, my dears, accounts for my nautical
mode of expression. Remember there is no evil but
is mixed with good; that the wise turn evil to good,
while the foolish sink under it. Bless you, my children,
I will seek my couch.”

“My young friend,” said Abou, “this is the legend.
Does it answer your question, or are you not sufficiently
intellectual to comprehend parables? I repeat,
are you answered?”

The young man from Boston looked at Abou and
said, —

“What I want to know is this: Is man partially
developed, imper —”

“You told me all that once before, and my legend
answered it. Go to, young man! Do you laugh at
me? Am I a man? Bismallah! —”

And Abou's face assumed such an expression of
ferocity that the mild young man from Boston abruptly
fled his presence.

As he left him, a soft smile broke over Abou's
countenance, and the expression of wrath was gone.

“By hokey! — that is to say, Be chesm! — my
answer was as intelligible as his question. May Allah
keep me from young men of `culcha'!”

And Abou went into his laboratory.

p632-124 XIII. WEALTH.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM sat in front of his tent one
beautiful morning in August, looking out calmly
on the scene that lay before him. On the one side
were the long ranges of hills; before him the beautiful
stream meandered cosily through the rich bottom, its
sides dotted with sleek cattle, which, intent upon the
rich grass, fed quietly, unmindful of the mosquitoes
that were buzzing about them. Abou's soul was
filled with the beauty of the scene.

“Why,” said he, “should we not take a lesson from
the cows? Why should we not enjoy the great good
we have, and not notice the small troubles that beset
us? Why should we not, with the wealth of delights
we possess, permit ourselves to be absorbed in enjoyment,
and despise the trifling troubles of life? I
loathe the man who permits little things to make him
lose his temper, and — May Allah curse that evilminded
and altogether aggravating fly! What were
such pests permitted for?”

And Abou, vigorously slapping his cheek in endeavors
to kill the fly, poured forth a flood of the

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

choicest Persian profanity. Alas! like all philosophers,
Abou could not follow his own philosophy.
The contemplation of nature upset by a fly!

Scarcely had he smitten his head thrice, in vain
attempts to kill the fly, when a young man appeared.

“Well!” was Abou's greeting.

“Do I stand in the presence of Abou ben Adhem?”

“You have that felicity! What will you with
him?”

“Mighty Abou —”

“Don't say mighty Abou. Be chesm, it has become
monotonous. Change it, or cheese it!”

(Abou frequently dropped into the Oriental style.)

“Great Abou (if that suits you better), I am an
humble suppliant.”

“Get at it now, get at it! Of course you are an
humble suppliant. You did n't come here to do me
good. No, indeed, no one ever does. But to business.
What is your particular form of idiocy?”

“Great Abou, I would be rich. I would have
gold, or National Bank notes (I am not particular),
and would enjoy all that money can buy. I would—”

“Young man,” said Abou, “that is a very common
form of insanity, and very hard to cure. Every man
who is unable to lift himself up from the common
level by any other means tries to do it by accumulating
money; every man who lusts after the pleasures
of life yearns for money to buy them. Then
there is the grovelling man, who wants money for the
sake of money; and the more dangerous man, who

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

desires it for the power it wields. I will give you
five minutes of wisdom. When you hear me say `I
have done,' what you want to do is to get out of this
as rapidly as possible.”

And Abou significantly cocked a double-barrelled
shot-gun, and set it down blandly within easy reach,
and drove on the cart of his discourse.

“To accumulate money, my young friend, is the
easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to
make a dollar a day, and spend only seventy-five
cents. Any grovelling worm in worldly dust, any
puller and hauler of the worldly muck-rake who
knows enough to realize that one hundred cents make
a dollar, and who, at the same time, is too infernally
mean to spend any part of it, may become as rich as
Crœsus, if he don't starve to death too soon. To
amass shekels, all that is necessary is to live like a
beggar, and write the word `grub' in your hat, if
indeed you allow yourself the luxury of a hat. You
must, however, go through the process of eliminating
from your nature everything in the shape of love,
charity, mercy, tenderness, liberality, warmth, geniality,
taste, and all desire for enjoyment of any kind.
I have known men who had as much money as they
could use, who would deliberately live away from
their families ten months in the year, to make more;
and this, too, when all the comfort they ever had
was with their families. Money must fill the entire
man, and the accumulation thereof be the sole pleasure
and passion. Accomplish this, and you will find
your money will grow as fast as you desire it.

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

“But you will decrease. The love of money is a
tape-worm, — it feeds on the body that carries it.
Your soul will shrink, and shrivel, and fade, till you
will have none of it whatever. You have seen a
tumble-bug in your native New Jersey, rolling a ball
of dirt. It rolls and rolls till the ball is bigger than
the bug, and it can't roll any farther, when it lies
down and dies by the side of its accumulation. Precisely
so, my rash friend, you will roll up money
till it gets too large to manage, and you will lie
down and die by the side of it.

“There are, of course, other ways of accumulating.
You might take a revolver and go on the highway;
there is forgery, pocket-picking, getting into Congress
and voting yourself back-pay, and other modes;
but being of a good family, and expecting to have
children of your own, of course you would n't think
of doing anything of the kind.

“We now come to the second part of this chunk
of wisdom. What are you going to do with your
wealth when you have it? Enjoy yourself, eh?
Yes, they all say so. But when your strength is all
gone, what have you got to enjoy yourself with?
Your table? What good is a French cook when
your stomach, used up by the labor of years, won't
allow you to eat? Society? What good is society
to a man who has been educating himself for forty
years in nothing but stocks and merchandise?
Travel? You would n't endure it a month, because
what you saw you would n't comprehend. Probably
the most touching sight in Nature is a venerable,

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

gray-haired pork-packer at an opera, or in front of
a picture. You see, the effort necessary to make
money exhausts all the faculties which you expect
money to cater for.

“It so happens, or rather it is wisely ordered, that
trouble is the twin-brother of every one of the pleasures
that money buys. Champagne tickles the palate
and looks well in a glass, but gout hides in every
bubble. The smiling face of the scarlet woman has
an angel's look, but — well, get one tacked to you
and see what will happen! The dinner of eleven
courses makes a pleasant show and a goodly; but
behind the waiter stalks dyspepsia, grim and terrible.
Your money brings it all; you can't take half and
leave half; it goes all in one lot.

“Then what is it worth, anyhow? The inexpensive
but thirst-quenching beer curls me as beautifully
o'er the beaker's brim as the costly champagne,
and is, after all, as good, if you only think so. The
mysterious hash, flavored with the long-reaching
onion, is as appetizing as the páte de foie gras, — the
one costing a shilling and the other ten dollars.
The kabob of veal, which in Ispahan can be had for
a kopack, is as toothsome as the pilau of lamb for
which the true believer shells out a dirhem. One
thing, my infant, is as good as another thing, and,
doubtless, better. Were the waters of the rivulet
champagne, and were water worth four dollars and a
half per bottle, with a fee to the waiter, the men of
wealth would all be smacking their lips over water.
Whiskey rasps our interiors as effectually as brandy;

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

the one is within the reach of the humblest purse,
the other is so many ducats per gallon. A carriage
is a good enough thing in its way, but heavens!
think of being a slave to a coachman! And having
the carriage, you feel that you must ride in it whether
or no. Imagine a condition of things that compels
you to ride whether or no! What a weight a carriage
must be on one's mind! And then, again,
think of the terror that an average servant in a black
coat and white neck-tie must inspire!

“My dear sir, a state approximating to vagabondage
is the state in which the most happiness is found.
Happiness means simply freedom from all care, save
that which delights you. I fain would be an Italian
prince, exiled from my native soil, gaining a subsistence
by grinding a hand-organ. Or I would be an
Ethiopian, earning an honest though precarious living
by doing odd jobs about houses and picking up
such trifles as can be conveniently reached. These
men have no troubles. The sixpence of the morning
gives them a dinner, the five-cent piece of the afternoon
a supper, and a dry-goods box a bed. I never
heard of an organ-grinder who owned a big railroad
to worry over, or a boot-black who bought care in
the form of a steamship line. But they live, move,
and have being, and what more does Vanderbilt?

“Go to, young man, go to! Strive to be like me.
You probably never will reach the height of philosophical
virtue on which I repose, but you may
come something near it. Despise money; do not
waste a life in pursuit of it. Do as I do, — learn

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

to live without it, to care nothing for it, and be
happy.”

And Abou, having finished his homily, sold a
Durham heifer to the young man at a bargain, and a
hundred shares in a Texas railway. And chuckling
at the ease with which he had taken him in for a
thousand dollars, he turned to his labor.

p632-131 XIV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF KOAB.

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was approached one day by
a young man who asked him as to the best
method of using up an inheritance he had just fallen
into. Abou looked at the young man; he diagnosed
the case, as it were, and went for him thus: —

“Young man, I will tell you a story of Persian
life. Listen.

“Koab, the son of Beslud, the leather merchant,
was a young man of twenty when his paternal progenitor
was promoted to be an angel and assumed
wings. Koab did not weep at his father's demise,
for the old gentleman had accumulated his lucre with
great care and by great labor, and, consequently,
was very, very close with it. He had been a singular
old man. He never knew the taste of champagne,
and always smoked a pipe, — excellent preparation
for death, methinks. With such tastes, what was
there for him to live for? What was there in death
for him to fear?

“But he left young Koab a fortune of an even

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

hundred thousand dirhems, which the young man lost
no time in transferring to his own keeping.

“Immediately Koab's relatives gathered about him
to advise him as to what to do with it.

“One said, `Go into the grocery business and become
a merchant prince.' Another strongly insisted
that his best hold was to go into railroads with his
capital, and be a Van-der-Built. Another advised,
with tears in his eyes, that he go into dry goods and
be a Stoo-art or a Klaa-flynn. Another was divided
in opinion as to whether he ought to start a daily
paper or run a theatre; but Koab dismissed him
with a frown. `He hates me, and would ruin me
quickly,' quoth the sagacious young man.

“`I shall do nothing of the sort,' said he. `I shall
adopt none of your suggestions.'

“`You will be ruined if you do not!' shouted they
all in a chorus.

“`As not one of you has succeeded in making a
fortune,' retorted Koab, `it strikes me that you are
fearfully competent to advise me. But I have marked
out my path in life.'

“`What is it?'

“`I shall, firstly, get rid of all my poor relations.

“The relatives all discharged themselves of groans.

“`Then I shall invest what the old m— that is, my
poor father, left me, in safe securities bearing ten per
cent.'

“`Good! that will give you ten thousand dirhems
per year.'

“`True, but I shall not live on ten thousand per

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

year. I shall live on about twenty thousand a year.
I shall have horses, an interest in a yacht, shall join
all the clubs, shall never drink water when wine is
attainable; in short, I shall go for pleasure in every
possible way that pleasure is to be had.'

“`But you will run through your fortune while
you are still young.'

“`That is the time to run it through, while I am
young enough to enjoy it. What, O idiots! is the
good of a fine dinner to a man whose stomach is worn
out and who is too much used up to eat it? Wherefore
wine to him whose stomach can't abide wine? Wherefore
anything to a man who can't take anything? I
would prefer it, had I income enough, to live just as
I desire without infringing upon my capital; but as
I cannot, I propose to live my life anyhow. Fate
has been cruel to me in not giving me two hundred
thousand dirhems. I shall never feel pleasant towards
my deceased father that he did not labor harder and
live more savingly. He has used me badly. But I
am a philosopher. Koab proposes now to drain the
cup of pleasure to its dregs.'

“Koab went in, in the language of the prize ring,
in a very spirited style. He kept a fast horse, he
drank wine, he gambled a little; and if his feminine
friends had been virtuous in proportion to the amount
of money he spent on them, Cæsar's wife would
have been a drab in comparison with them. But
they were not. On the contrary, quite the reverse.

“He had a severe fit of sickness, which nursed his

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

estate a little; but he managed by hard work to get
through with the most of it in about ten years.

“`Your money must be nearly all gone,' said his
friends to him one day.

“`I have about a thousand dirhems left,' said he.

“`Horrible!' said they.

“`Beautiful!' said he. `My stomach is also almost
gone. How lovely it is to have your money hold out
as long as your stomach! Had one given out before
the other, — I shudder at the thought. To have an
appetite and no money, or to have no appetite and
cords of money, — I know not which is the worst.
But with me it is splendid. Things run in grooves,
as it were. A few more dinners, a few more nights,
and my stomach will be gone, and my money with it.
But I have had a good time of it.'

“`What will you do then?'

“`Impious wretch, do you read Holy Writings?
“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” In my
case, I can testify to the truth of that passage every
day. Then again, “Take no thought of the morrow.'”

“As he anticipated, in a few weeks Koab had not
a dirhem, not a kopeck left. He lived a few days
on credit, and then spent several days considering
whether suicide by poison or drowning was the more
pleasant. After giving the subject mature consideration,
he concluded that he would not die at all, and
accepted a situation as a porter in a wholesale grocery
store, whose proprietor had known his father.

“He was rolling barrels one day, when his friends
came in.

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

“`Ha!' said they. `You see, now, we were right:
you are brought down to manual labor at thirty.'

“`Precisely what my physician would have prescribed
for a wasted constitution like mine,' said he,
cheerfully. `I am gaining flesh under it.'

“They came in again, and saw him eating brown
bread.

“`Ha!' they remarked. `You are brought down
to plain food. We told you so.'

“`My friends,' said he, impressively, `were I the
possessor of millions, I should, after ten years of
dissipation, be compelled to eat plain food or die.
O ye imbeciles! can't you see that this is natural?
What difference does it make whether I eat brown
bread by the advice of a physician, or eat it because
I can't get any other? What difference does it make
whether I exercise my overtaxed body in a gymnasium,
where I pay for the privilege, or exercise it by
rolling barrels, for which I get paid? “Exercise
and plain food,” said my doctor long ago, “is what
you must have.” I am getting both, ye sodden-brained
Job's comforters.'

“And Koab worked on, and got his health, and
finally got into business, and made money, and had
another fortune to spend; and he spent it.

“This, my young friend, is all of the story of Koab,
the Persian, that I shall tell you. There is a moral
to it which probably you don't see. But I have a
comfortable way of fixing people who do not see the
moral to the things I say. I simply say it is because
they lack the necessary intellect.

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

“Far be it from me to advise young men to squander
their fortunes in riotous living, as did Koab.
Koab's idea was not wholly correct. He erred.

“But he erred no more than do those who go to
the other extreme; in fact, he erred less.

“The people who grub through their entire youth,
enjoying nothing, with the idea that they will live to
enjoy at some remote period, err a great deal more,
for the reason that they never enjoy at all. Grubbing
unfits them for enjoying, and therefore their
labor is to no purpose. Kunla, the Persian poet,
who wrote `Go it while you 're young,' was not
wholly wrong; for youth has the faculty to enjoy
and the power to enjoy. The blood courses freely;
there is strength, elasticity, and joyousness. But
alas! there comes a time when we cannot enjoy if
we would. The man of sixty, sans teeth, sans gastric
juice, sans stomach, thin-blooded, cold, and cynical,
can enjoy but little at best; and if he has grubbed in
his youth, ten to one but he has acquired a habit of
grubbing which lasts him through his old age, and
his life may be said to be as much of a failure as the
other.

“If Koab had been a moral person, and had enjoyed
himself in a rational way, within his income,
and had done some business for the sake of others,
I should mark on his tombstone `Approved.' He
should have had his yacht; he should have eaten
good dinners; he should have had the fleet horses of
Arabia; and he should have had pictures and all else
that pleases the senses. But he should have avoided

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

excesses and immoralities; he should have used some
of his money in relieving the necessities of the unfortunate
children of the Prophet; in short, he should
have paid the debt which we all owe to humanity.

“But as between Koab and the man who uses his
inheritance only to double it, who lives a life only to
gather dross without putting it to any use whatever,
I give my voice to Koab as the most sensible.

“My son, some day when I have time I will write
you a history of my life, which you shall read, and
which will be a lamp to your feet, and a sure guide.

“But leave me now, for I fain would rest.
Away!”

And Abou went in to count over the profits of a
speculation he had been in; and he wrought at it
late in the night.

“Why do you so labor for lucre?” said I to him.
“Do you follow the lesson you gave the young man,
O Sage?”

“What says Hafiz?” was his reply: “Chin-music
is cheaper even than that of the hand-organ.' Doth
advice cost? Go to!”

p632-138 XV. THE DANGER THAT LIES IN THE NAMING OF CHILDREN AFTER GREAT MEN.

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

ABOU BEN ADHEM was called upon one day
by a person who desired to apply the suction-pump
to him. The man — for it was a male person—
had with him a bright-faced, intelligent boy of
perhaps six summers, who was restless and impatient,
as such boys are likely to be. The lad broke loose
from his father, and ran to chase a butterfly that was
lazily disporting itself in the warm air, when the
father, with tender solicitude, said to him, —

“Schuyler Colfax, remain with your parent! You
might slip up and soil your pants, my child.”

As the father spoke these words, an expression of
pain flitted over the countenance of the sage.

“Your name is Thompson?”

“It is.”

“And your che-ild's name is Schuyler Colfax
Thompson?”

“It is.”

“Alas! poor child.”

“Why do you sigh and say `Alas! poor child'?”

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

“Because Schuyler Colfax is not yet dead, and
a grateful country has not, as yet, bedewed his untimely
grave with tears. That 's why I sigh for that
sweet child. Listen.

“I was once a sweet child myself, — the pride of a
loving father and of a darling mother. When I was
born Agha Ilderim was the vast artillery of the province.
He was a member of the Council, he was the
great orator, and, in short, the coming man. My
father was a warm supporter of the great Agha Ilderim:
he was on his committees at elections, and he
attended all his meetings, and rallied his voters to
the polls, and brought in the aged and infirm voters,
and was as enthusiastic a supporter of the great man
as he could wished to have had. And it was purely
disinterested too. True, the fact that my father had
been appointed, by Agha, inspector of rat-terriers
for that district, was urged by his enemies as a reason
for his zeal; but it was a slander.

“When I was born Agha Ilderim was at the zenith
of his power, and my father, the moment the sex of
the child was ascertained, threw up his turban and
named it Agha Ilderim, and Agha gave me a silver
cup and patted me on the head, and predicted a glorious
future for me.

“But alas! when I was five years old there came
a trouble upon Agha Ilderim. There was a road
that was being built by the government and there
was a huge swindle in it. The Shah investigated it,
and lo! it was discovered that Agha had had his
arms in it elbow-deep, and once opened, it was

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

discovered that this patriot had been speculating and
stealing in every possible way, for years. And he
was disgraced of course, and defeated for the Council,
and became of nought among men, and his name
became a hissing and by-word, and in his stead rose
Nadir el Abin, who took Agha's place and became
the great man of the province.

“My father became a great admirer of Nadir, and,
as he was continued in his office, did for Nadir what
he had done for Agha. Filled with indignation at
the dishonesty of Agha, he melted the silver cup he
had given me, and sold it, and spent the proceeds in
strong waters, and immediately changed my name to
Nadir el Abin, and was happy.

“But lo! in about four years the Governor of the
province desired to get through the Council a measure
which the people did not approve of, because it
took away their liberties. The members of the Council
were implored to stand firm against the usurpation,
and Nadir was looked upon as one of the most
trustworthy; but, to the indignation of the people,
he voted with the Governor, and carried the measure,
and when they hooted at him he put his finger to his
nose, for the Governor made him Collector of Revenue
for life.

Then was my father's rage kindled against Nadir,
and he came home and said to my mother, —

“`Lo! Nadir's name is a stench in the nostrils of
the people. Be chesm, it will never do for our child
to bear the name of Nadir.'

“And as Akbar, the scribe, vaulted into Nadir's

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

place in the affections of the people, my name was
forthwith changed to Akbar.

“Akbar ran well for a season, but he went under.
A patent for tipping chibouques was before the Council
for extension, and the people murmured at it, for it
offended them. The owners of the patent, however,
cared nothing for that. They appeared to the members
of the Council with arguments, in bags, and Akbar
was possessed of many bags immediately after he
had voted to extend the patent, and the people hooted
him and threw mud at him in the market-place.

“As a matter of course it would not do for me to
continue to bear the name of Akbar, and it was
changed to that of Hafiz, and when he went under, to
Katah, which I kept till Katah succumbed because
he voted himself back-pay and was concerned in a
ring for building a road.

“Then my father and mother held a council over
me one morning.

“`I have tried,” said my paternal parent, “to give
our child an honorable name.'

“`Verily,' returned my mother.

“`But whenever I gave him the name of a great
man, that man suddenly deceased, that is, politically.'

“`He did,' said my mother; `it is fate.'

“`What shall we do?' asked my father. `The
child must have a name, and it seems to be risky to
give him the name of any one living. Advise me,
O my wife!'

“`Let the great men go, for lo! such is the
construction of the human mind, that greatness is as

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

uncertain as railroad stocks. Let us call him
Abou.'

“And they did it. Abou, my friend, is a name
which, in Persia, is as common as John is in New
Jersey.

“And now comes the point. Change that boy's
name from Schuyler Colfax to plain James, John, or
Thomas. Never name a child after any living greatness.
If you must name him after a great man, take
a dead one, and select a very dead one. Go to your
books and roust out a deceased statesman. Avoid
your recent ones. Go back and find one who has
been dead so long that all his vices and peccadilloes
have been obliterated by the hand of time, and only
his virtues remembered. I would advise you not to
fasten on any one who has flourished since the Roman
Empire. It will not answer to take a living man,
for his balance-sheet is not made up till he has gone
hence. A gone-hencer is safe, and no one else is.
Imagine the feelings of that parent who, just after
the battle of Saratoga, in your Revolution, named
his innocent child Benedict Arnold! The hero of
Saratoga may always become the traitor of West
Point. To bring it down to a later date, what is to
become of the thousands of children who, between
the years 1860 and 1867, were named A. Johnson?

“My friend, for names go among the dead men.
Their lives are closed and their balances are struck.
A man dead, with worms at him, and under several
tons of marble monument, cannot possibly get up
and blast a fair reputation. So long as a man lives

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

he is in danger. Folly, and greed, and ambition
surround every man who lives. I have to fight them
off myself.

“Change the name of your child to Thomas at
once. And go, for I am weary.”

p632-144 XVI. OLD TIMES AND NEW.

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

THE Persian, Abou ben Adhem, was in a deep
study one morning, when a person — a male
person — from the village in the neighborhood came
to him for the purpose of conversation.

“What wouldst thou?” was Abou's remark.

“I would learn something!” was the reply.

“That is to say, you would drop the bucket of
your ignorance into the well of my wisdom. Well,
be chesm, drop away! what wouldst thou now?”

“Great Abou, is there any way by which we degenerate
sons of noble sires can get back to the good
old habits, manners, and customs of our forefathers?
Can we restore the simple habits of the olden time, —
the good old time?”

“What?”

“Can we not go back a few hundred years, and — ”

“Ass!” was Abou's reply. “Oh, what a fate is
mine! Such men as you come to me, and, as there
is a punishment for killing, I am compelled to convert.
Well, I submit.

“You sigh for the good old times, do you? Do

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

you know what those good old times were? Of
course you do not. Such men as you never do!
You have an idea in your wooden heads that men
were simple, honest beings, who went about in doublets,
knee-breeches, and hose, with silver buckles on
their shoes; and that women were ditto, — all but the
breeches and doublets. You have got the notion
that as the world grows older wickedness increases,
and that all humanity is tending to a ghastly hell.
But I, who lived during those times, know better.

“O imbecile! O ignoramus! O unphilosophical
reader of bad poetry! Don't you know that
human nature was precisely the same five hundred
years ago that it is now; that humanity perpetually
yearns for something better and higher and nobler,
and that precisely as knowledge increases so does
goodness? You want to go back to the good old
times, do you? What good old times? To the
good old times of Moses and Joshua, who had a habit
when they made war of slaughtering all the men,
women, and children that fell into their hands? No,
they reserved the women; but it was no compliment
to the morals of those people that they omitted that
much of bloodshed. Do you want to go back to the
good old times of the old French kings, — say Francis
and the earlier Louises, — when the people were
slaves, permitted black bread only, and not half
enough of that, and the nobles were tyrants, wielding
supreme power, and robed in velvets and silks?
Have you a fancy for the good old times in Germany,
when the barons, when they came in from hunting,

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

had a cheerful habit of having a peasant killed and
his bowels taken out that they might warm their feet
in the cavity? Or do you prefer the good old times
in England, when king and court were so shamelessly
dissolute that no pretence of virtue was made, when
chastity was a scoff and concealment of sin a joke,
when London was ruled by common stabbers, when
might was right, and safety was only found in cunning
or strength? How would you like to trade
your steamships for the old high-pooped sail-vessels,
the railroad for the cumbrous wagon, the macadamized
road for the mud, the cooking-range for the barbarous
fire, our cuisine for their fearful cookery, Croton
water for miserable wells, gas for torches of lightwood,
safety for danger, comfort for non-comfort, —
civilization for barbarism, in short?

“There was n't any such thing as humanity in those
days, either in theory or practice. If a man got
tired of his wife, he simply dissolved the matrimonial
tie by cutting her throat; if a woman got tired of her
husband, she hinted to her paramour the fact that Sir
Henry was a tiresome old muff, and immediately Sir
Henry had a rapier run through him.

“How vast the improvement of these later days!
Now the party disgusted simply goes to Indiana or
Chicago, and, in a perfectly legal manner, the judge
dissolves the connection, and the party returns and
marries the new object of his or her choice, and
everything is as serene as the face of a mill-pond.

“In the good old times of which you are so enamoured,
if a man got embarrassed pecuniarily, he

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

mounted his horse and loaded his pistol, — they
did n't have beautiful revolvers then, — and putting
an ugly black mask over his face rode out on the
highway, and stopped the lumbering old coach, and
took purses at the muzzle of the pistol.

“Now how does such an individual do? Why, he
gets a contract from the Government, he starts a life
insurance company, or, if he is a great genius, a
genuine descendant of Dick Turpin or Jack Sheppard,
he gets into Congress, and votes as his conscience and
interest dictates, or he gets hold of the Erie Railroad,
or — but why enumerate? You see the difference,
and how much to-day is better than the days three
hundred years ago.

“To bring it down a little later, how would you
like to go back to the days of the Puritan Fathers,
those estimable old Liberals, who fled from England
because they were not there permitted to worship
according to their notions, and who immediately set
up just as intolerant a system in the land to which
they fled? It was all well enough for the Puritans;
but how was it with the Quakers, whom they exiled,
after making them harmless in disputations by boring
their heretical tongues with orthodox hot irons?

“Or to go a little farther back, how would you
like to have the personal combat business restored?
That was a delightful practice, was n't it? A big
burly ruffian claimed your farm or abducted your
daughter; then the burly ruffian swore he was innocent,
and demanded the trial by combat. He was
used to weapons, and his fighting weight was a

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

hundred and eighty-five: you never knew which end of
a sword to take hold of, and weighed one hundred
and twenty-five. But you had to do it. The first
round, down you went, and the judges declared him
innocent, and you guilty of bringing false accusations.
He kept the girl, and your head was chopped off, and
your property confiscated to the State. In those
good old days, the State meant the king and his pet
mistress. It is true there was a superstition that
Providence would protect the right; but, as a rule,
the burly ruffian in the wrong made short work of
the small man in the right.

“The thumb-screw, the rack, the stake, and all
that cheerful paraphernalia belonged to and was the
exclusive property of the good old times,— the good
old times that exiled the bold men who insisted that
the world was round and not flat, with other heresies.
Do you want them back again? You point at municipal
and governmental corruption. I grant it bad
enough; but bad as it is, it is better to have polite
thieves than brutal ones; and it is a high compliment
to the times that the people are in possession of
property to be taxed. In your good old times
the State and Church took it all as fast as it was
earned.

“It took the world thousands of years to get to
the point of civilization that would admit of a jury
and hundreds more to reach the sublime heights of a
republic. And it has just commenced at that. Both
have yet to be perfected.

“The mistake that men of your notions make is,

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

you don't seem to have any idea whatever that other
men know anything or have any sense. Because a
woman likes carpets on a floor better than rushes, is
she less virtuous? Can't a man be as good, clad in
decent broadcloth as in odorous sheep-skin? Is dirt
akin to godliness, or does filth tend to enlarge the
moral muscles? Could a man with a back-breaking
sickle sing praises to the God of Nature any more
melodiously than he can now, mounted on a comfortable
reaper? Nay, my friend, on a reaper a man
might thank Heaven he lived; with a sickle, I question
whether he would feel that thankfulness.

“The more men know, the greater the inducement
they have to virtuous life. In the barbarous age,
before law was invented, if a man wanted a piece of
land which another man claimed, the claimants met
with stone hatchets. Both kept the land, — one of
them on the surface, and the other some three feet
beneath, with a hole in his head. As civilization
progressed, the hatchet went out and law came in,
and the more civilization we have the less hatchet we
have. We have wars now, it is true; but it is because,
and only because, we are not yet fully civilized.
We have thieves and robbers now; but it is because
there lurks yet in the human system a taint of the good
old times. Civilization has not yet fully physicked
humanity, and traces of barbarism remain. Napoleon
was a varnished barbarian; Kaiser Wilhelm is an
Attilla with veneering on. Then down in Delaware
the whipping-post is a mile-stone in the path of the
progress of the other States, useful merely to make

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the better people of other localities congratulate
themselves on what they have surmounted.

“`Good old times,' forsooth! Go to, wretched
man! To-day is the best day the world ever saw;
to-morrow will be better, and its to-morrow better
still. In five or ten thousand years, this world will
be a tolerably decent place to live in. Do you know
why men exposed their lives so recklessly in battle
in your `good old times'? Bravery! you say. Bosh!
It was because there was nothing under heaven to
live for; precisely as I, feeling that I must die some
time, came to New Jersey, that I might leave this
world without a pang of regret. It was a cowardly
willingness to get out of the world, because there
could be nothing worse.

“But leave me now. Instead of mourning for a
miserable past, tackle the splendid present, and try
to do something for a still more splendid future. Do
something for the world you live in. Do something
for the race you belong to. After hearing you talk,
I might properly suggest that the best thing you
could do for humanity would be to drown yourself;
but I forbear. I am not in a sarcastic mood this
morning. Go to! I am weary; leave me.”

And the Sage went into his tent, and was soon in
the arms of Morpheus.

p632-151 XVII. THE UTILITY OF DEATH.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked one day by a
sorrowing man if there was n't a screw loose
somewhere in the economy of nature, as regards the
duration of life. “Why,” asked this individual,
“why was Death permitted to come into the world
at all?”

Abou was never in so good humor as when he had
an opportunity to moralize, and this was one not to
be wasted. So he arranged himself in his easy-chair
and got the man safely under his eye, and, as the
Orientals say, “went for him.”

“Death,” said Abou, “is not to be catalogued
among the evils of this world; it is to be considered
as the greatest blessing the world enjoys, and as the
most useful of all the provisions of nature, — that is
to say, when it is taken into account how men are
made.

“If men were all as honest, as true, and as good
as I am, for instance, Death could be dispensed with;
but as they are not, it is an absolute necessity as a
great equalizer. It is the great balance-wheel and

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

the great distributor. It is the bad rich man's check
and the poor good man's protection; it is the salvation
of the State and the hope of the individual.

“Listen to a brief history: —

“In Persia, a hundred years or more ago, lived
Hogem. Hogem, in his youth, sailed a small
schooner on the Gulf of Persia, from Koamud to
Bangay. He accumulated dirhems, in a small way,
at the business, for he allowed no competition. If
another man started a schooner in the same trade,
Hogem's craft always got to sailing wild, and was
certain to collide with the new one, and burst a hole
in her side and lay her up. Accidents of this kind
got so frequent that no one cared to sail on Hogem's
route, and he had the whole trade to himself.

“Of course, Hogem learned the advantage of having
control of an entire trade, and he kept his eye
out for it. When steam was introduced into Persia,
he was the first to put on boats propelled by the new
power, and he observed the same tactics that he did
with his schooner, and of course made great piles of
shekels by his steamboats.

“Then came railways, and Hogem kept his weather-eye
cocked in that direction. He did not embark
in railroads at the beginning, for he was talented.
He waited till the people built them with their own
money, and found they could n't make them pay.
He watched the road from Bangay to Koamud, the
two most important cities in the Empire, and he
waited his time. The road cost twenty millions of
dirhems, but as it had never paid a dividend, the

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

stockholders were willing to sell at any price. So
Hogem bought a little over half of the stock, for little
or nothing, to make himself President; then he
swindled the others out of their stock and owned it
all himself. It paid immediately, for he stopped all
the stealing, and the time had come when it was possible
for the road to pay.

“Owning the road, he had a sure thing on the
people. They had to travel over it, and they were
compelled to use it to transport their produce, for
there was no other way for them. He put on just
such rates as he pleased, and he regarded their murmurs
no more than the sighing of wind through rosebushes.

“The people murmured, and applied to the Council
for relief. They said, in their Oriental way, `Lo!
this Hogem has gobbled our railroad, and has us
where our hair is short. After other roads are built
he captures them, and we are helpless. Save us from
Hogem!'

“But Hogem laughed in his sleeve. `Shall I let
this fat thing go out of my hands? What says Niggah-mynstrel,
the poet of the people?


“When you have a good thing, save it, save it,
When you ketch a white cat, shave it, shave it —
When you ketch a white cat, shave it to de tail.'
These people are my white cats. Go to!'

“And he went to Teheran, where the Council met,
the same time that the representatives of the people
did; and he took gorgeous rooms at the Teheran

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

Hotel, and he put therein bottles of the juice of the
grape and great jars of the strong waters of the
Giaour, and tobacco cunningly rolled by the Espagnol,
and he stored in his closet bags of dirhems.

“And then Hogem asked the members of the Council
to visit him, and he gave to them the juice of the
grape, and he warmed their hearts with strong waters.
And as each went out, he took him aside and
laid his finger beside his nose, saying, `Here, take
this bag of dirhems, for thou art a pleasant fellow,
and a brick, and I love thee. And when my enemies,
the people— whom may Allah confound!—come
to the Council, and demand laws against my just
charges for carrying their rice and things, say, “Go
to! Hogem is a good man and an honest man. His
charges are just.” And when the vote is taken, vote
against them, and if you prevail, come to me again;
come alone, and there will be more strong waters —
and perchance, haply, another bag of dirhems.'

“And Hogem put his finger to his nose, and
winked a solemn wink of ineffable meaning, which
was comprehended, for the member did likewise.

“Now, there were two hundred members of the
Council, and the great man saw one hundred and five
of them, and each, with a bag of dirhems under his
robe, voted against the people. And straightway
each of the one hundred and five had two bags of
dirhems about him.

“Thus, you see, Hogem had the entire country
at his mercy. He owned the Council so that it would
not permit other roads to be built. In a little while

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he did not have to seek the members, for they sought
him. They would say, `If he has the gold, why
should I not have my divvy?' Divvy is a Persian
word, used in Councils, the meaning of which you,
probably, do not understand.

“Now, here is where Death comes in to advantage.
Hogem had all the Councils under his thumb; he
was moving on the Shah himself; he would, in ten
years more, have had all Persia at his feet: and you
may imagine the condition we should have been in,
with this one man as our sole ruler. Just as he was
making a bigger and wickeder combination than ever,
paralysis struck him and the people were saved. His
combinations melted; his railroads had to be sold;
competition came in, and things were again lovely in
Persia.

“Suppose that the Frank, Bonaparte, had had
eternal life. He would have gone on swallowing one
nation after another, till he would have controlled the
whole world. He would have met another Bonaparte,
you say? Very good; that would have been worse,
for the two would have kept the world at blood-letting
forever.

“And then think of a world with such pests as
George Francis Train and the Woodhull in it, with
no prospect of relief from Death?

“`Good men die too.' Verily. But that does n't
detract from the strength of my position a particle.
For where there is one honest, or to put it stronger,
where there is one man like myself, there are a
thousand bad ones.

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

“The disparity between the two classes being so
great, Death is an advantage. It is the safety-valve
of society; it is the limit to human action; and as
human action tends to the bad, why, the limit is an
excellent good thing.

“When men all do right, probably there will be
no more Death. But I really don't expect to ever
see it. The man whose ancestors lived correctly and
who lives correctly himself, lives longer than the one
in whom these conditions do not exist. It is very
likely that when the old virus is all out, that Death,
which was intended as the cure for it, will go out
with it. But as long as the virus is in, Death is
necessary, as the cure for it. Poison spreads faster
than wholesome things. A rum-mill will infect an
entire neighborhood in half the time that a prayer-meeting
can possibly convert it. Wickedness moves
faster than an express train: goodness moves at the
speed of the ox-cart.

“There are so many bad men, and disease is so
slow, that I sometimes think there is a great deal of
lightning squandered every year. With its quick
action, its wonderful killing capacity, and so great
a use for it, it is a thousand pities that more of it
cannot be judiciously directed. But there are mysteries
in nature.

“Were there no Death, what would the young
woman married to an old man do, or the young man
married to an old woman? Take offices where promotion
comes by seniority. What anguish would
wring the bosoms of the juniors if the seniors were

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immortal! Death makes room for men; Death checks
the wicked, betters the condition of the good, — in
short, it is altogether a sweet boon.

“My young friend, I long for Death; for the next
world, to a perfect man, can only be a blissful one.
I long to go! And now leave me.”

“Stay!” said the young man, as he turned to go.
“If you so long to go, why don't you go? Death is
attainable to any one.”

“I continue to live,” said Abou, “because I can
do my fellow-men good by living.”

And he walked slowly into his habitation.

p632-158 XVIII. A VISION OF THE HEREAFTER.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was annoyed one morning
by an elderly gentleman, who desired to learn
of the ideas the Persian Sage had of the Hereafter,
particularly as to the style and quality of people who
would be likely to reach a future of bliss.

Abou removed his chibouque from his lips, and
moistening his throat with a long draught of sherbet,
spoke to him thus: —

“My friend, many hundreds of years ago, when I
was a comparatively young man, I dreamed one night
that I had shuffled off this mortal coil, and was in
the Land of the Hereafter. Methought I was decently
deceased, had been genteelly buried, and a tombstone
had been erected to my memory, on which were
inscribed enough virtues to furnish a dozen. I blushed
a spirit-blush when I read that tombstone, and discovered
what an exemplary man I had been; and I
likewise wept a spirit-weep when I thought what a
loss the world had sustained in my death.

“I ascended, and was knocking at the outer gate
of Paradise for admittance. The season had been a

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

very healthy one, for the National Convention of Physicians
had been drowned while taking a steamboat
excursion on the Persian Gulf, so the door-keeper
had but little to do while my case was being decided.
I whiled away an hour or two ascertaining the whereabouts
of my old acquaintances, who had deceased
during the ten years previous.

“`There is a large number of my friends up
here?' I remarked, inquiringly.

“`Not very many,' was his reply.

“`Ebn Becar is here, I suppose?'

“`Not any Ebn Becar,' was the answer.

“`I am surprised,' I answered. `Ebn Becar, the
date-seller, not in Paradise! Be chesm, no man in
Ispahan was more regular in his attendance at the
mosque, and he howled his prayers like a dervish.
He was exceedingly zealous in keeping the faithful in
the line of duty.'

“`True,' said the door-keeper, `true! But, you
see, Ebn kept his eagle eye so intently fixed on his
neighbor's feet that his own got off the road, and
when he pulled up, it was n't at the place he had calculated.
His prayers were pleasing to a true believer;
but as they were not backed up by doing things in
proportion, they failed to pass current here.'

“`How fared it with Hafiz, the scribe? He was
charitable; no man gave more to the poor than he.'

“`Hafiz did give many shekels to the poor each
year, but it was the way he gave it that spoiled the
effect of his charities. He gave, not for any love of
his kind, but because it was a part of his system to

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give. He was afraid not to give. So he said, “I will
answer the demands of the law of the Prophet by giving
so much, which will ensure me Paradise,” and fancied
that was charity. When the widow of Selim, the
mule-driver, employed him to save her inheritance
to her children from her wicked brother, he required
of her all that the law permitted him to exact, so that
she said, “Lo! I might as well have let my brother
had the land.” He answered, “The law gives it me.
Go to!” He would oppress the poor in a business
way, and compromise with his conscience by subscribing
a tenth of his profits to charity. Compromising
never did work in such matters. The compromiser
gives to the devil something of value, and
receives in return that which damns him. The oppressions
and graspings of Hafiz were exactly balanced,
in number, by his charities; but as he died
worth a million, the oppression side was the heaviest
in quality. We keep books very accurately, you
observe.'

“`Abdallah, the maker of shawls, is —'

“`No, he is n't. He was an ardent teacher of the
rules the Prophet gave for the faithful, but he was
the worst practiser I ever had any knowledge of.
The strong waters of the Giaour ruined his prospects.
He preached abstinence from wine, but he constantly
partook of the forbidden drink. He loved wine, and
immediately proceeded to deceive himself into the
belief that he had dyspepsia and had to take it.
Hearing once that strong liquor was an antidote for
the bite of a serpent, he absolutely moved into a

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province where serpents abounded, and went out
regularly to get bitten. He talked loudly against
gluttony, but excused himself for eating five courses
by holding that he needed it to keep himself up.
He succeeded in deceiving himself, but he could n't
deceive us.'

“`Kahkani, the poet, whose songs were all in
praise of virtue, is here? The fervent goodness
that produced such morality must be safe!'

“`Quite wrong, my dear sir. Kahkani's poems
were beautiful; but bless you! he never felt the sentiments
expressed in them. He had an itching for
fame, and writing spiritual hymns happened to be his
best hold. If he could have written comic songs
better than hymns, he would have written comic
songs.'

“`Whom have you here, pray?'

“`Saadi, the camel-shoer, is here.'

“`Saadi! why, he was constantly violating the law
of the Prophet.'

“True! he would even curse the camels he was
shoeing. But he was always sorry for it, and he
would mourn over the infirmities of his temper, and
strove honestly and zealously all the time to live
better and be better. He did not make a great
success, but he did the best he could. He gave liberally
of his substance, without blatting it all over
Ispahan. When he gave a dirhem, he did n't pay
the newspapers two dirhems to make the fact public,
which is my definition of genuine charity. Then
there 's Firdusi, the carpet-cleaner —'

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

“`He never gave anything.'

“`Certainly not, for he had nothing to give. The
Prophet never asked impossibilities. He would have
given if he had had it, and he tried hard to get it.
Then there 's Jelal-ed-din —'

“`He could n't make a prayer.'

“`True! but he said “Amen” to those who could,
and he meant it, which was more than half those who
made the prayers could say.'

“`And Wassaf, the teacher, — where is he? A
more pure and blameless life no man ever led!'

“`He is here, but occupies a very low place.'

“`A low place?'

“`Verily. Wassaf did not sin, it is true; but it
was no credit to him that he did not. A more egregiously
deceived man never lived or died. He obeyed
the laws of the Prophet, because he could not do otherwise,
thus crediting himself with what he could not
avoid. He could not be a glutton, for his stomach
was weak; he could not partake of the strong waters
of the Frank, because his brain would not endure it;
he was virtuous, because he was too cold-blooded,
too thin-blooded, to have any passion. He had not
moral force enough to commit a decent sin, and this
inability to be wicked he fancied was righteousness.
He was a moral oyster. He, an iceberg, plumed
himself upon being cold. Now Agha, the fluteplayer,
who was at times a glutton and a wine-bibber,
and all the rest of it, is several benches higher than
Wassaf. For Agha's blood boiled like a cauldron;
he was robust, he had the appetite of the rhinoceros

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of the Nile, and a physical nature that was constantly
pushing him to the commission of sin; but Agha,
feeling, knowing that it was wrong, fought against it
manfully. He fell frequently, for the Evil One knew
his weak moments; but he rose and fought against
himself, and managed to come out victor, at least
half the time. There was no more merit in Wassaf's
virtue than there is in an iceberg's being cold. But
for a burning volcano like Agha to keep himself
down to an even temperature, that was great.

“`My friend, it is not worth while to enumerate,
but — well, you will know more when you get inside,
if you do get inside. You have seen the sky-rockets
of Jami. They ascend with much fizz, and make a
beautiful show, but alas! before they reach the skies
they explode, and disappear in a sheet of flame. Precisely
so with many men. They soar aloft on their
professions; but they, too (to use a vulgarism), bust
before they attain Paradise, and go down in a sheet
of flame.

“`The true believer, who practises what he believes,
is an arrow. Pointed with belief, feathered with
works, death shoots him off; he pierces the clouds
and lands on the right side of the river.'

“At this point,” continued Abou, “I awoke. My
ideas of the future I got largely from that vision.
My opinion is that in New Jersey, as in Persia, there
are a great many people deceiving themselves. Go
thy way! Be virtuous and be happy. I would rest
me.”

p632-164 XIX. REMORSE: THE NATURE OF THE AVERAGE ARTICLE.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM, in an unpleasant frame of
mind, one morning, was approached by a longnosed,
sad-looking man, who propounded to him the
query, “What is Remorse?”

To which Abou replied, “The humiliating sense of
an abject failure.”

“What!” exclaimed the seeker after truth, “is
there no such thing as sorrow and regret for wrongdoing?”

“Frequently, my aged infant, frequently. There
are minds so susceptible to proper impressions, so
spiritualized, if I may use the expression, as to feel
a pang or two after they have done a wrong thing;
but they are not common.

“Listen to my own experience. A great many
years ago, in Persia, I made the acquaintance of a
party of men who met frequently to indulge in a
game played with cards, which, I presume, you know
nothing of here, called, in Persia, drah-poquier. It
is a curious game. The cards are dealt one at a
time, till each has five; then those who are playing,

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

put on the centre of the table a coin, such as has been
determined upon — say a kopeck; then they are allowed
to throw up as many cards as they choose,
taking from the pack an equal number; then the man
who sits next to the dealer remarks sarcastically, `I
am the aged one, impoverish me,' and the betting
begins. It is a curious game and a fluctuating,
the players being kept in a pleasant state of uncertainty
as to what the others have, till they come to
what they call a `show-down.'

“Well, I learned this game, and played it with
unvarying success for some days, winning, on an
average, four or five dirhems at a sitting. As I gathered
in my spoils I saw nothing wrong in the game.
It seemed to me a most desirable and, in all respects,
a gentlemanly game.

“`I am sorry,' I said to myself, `for Hafiz, the
bellows-maker, and for Nadir, the seller of shawls;
but Allah knows I risk my substance on the cards as
do they, and had they my luck they would have my
money. Be chesm, it is a highly moral game, and
had I an hundred children I would teach it them.
What is there wrong in it? It is my money which I
risk; it is their money which they risk. There is
no trickery or cheating in this game, for the cards
are fairly dealt, and we make wagers on our judgment
or our luck. So does the merchant who buys
the wheat of Khurdistan, believing that the crop will
be short, and that it will go up. So does the merchant
who sells the corn of Kohmul, believing that
the crop will be heavy and the price will go down.

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

What is this but gambling? If they play with wheat
and corn, why should not Hafiz and I play with
cards? And then it strengthens the mind, it develops
the judgment, quickens the reasoning powers,
and broadens, widens, and strengthens the mental
man. It is a noble game and a great pursuit.'

“Thus reasoned I, joyously.

“I had no remorse, nor did it occur to me that it
was gambling.

“But one night it so happened that I had a certainty
on Hafiz. I had three cards alike in my hand,—
that is to say, three aces, — and when the cards
were helped, as the phrase is, I took another. Hafiz
drew one card to the four that he held, and the betting
began. Now, four aces is a strong hand, there being
but one that can beat it, namely, a strate-phlush. I
wagered a kopeck to help Hafiz on to his ruin. How
I gloated over those four aces! I saw nothing wrong
in those four aces, nor in making out of Hafiz, the
bellows-mender, all that he should make by his trade
for a year. He saw my modest kopeck and said he
would wager a dirhem in addition. Exulting in the
strength of my four aces, I gladly put up the dirhem,
and remarked that such was my faith in my hand
that I would impoverish him to the extent of ten
dirhems more. Hafiz — on whose head light curses!—
saw the ten dirhems, and boosted me (boosted is a
Persian phrase) one hundred dirhems. I made sure
that the four aces was not an optical delusion, and
went him one thousand dirhems, which he saw, and
came back at me five thousand dirhems, which,

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

feeling that it would be cruel to utterly ruin him, I
called without further gymnastics.

“Smilingly I laid down my four aces and reached
for the property. Smilingly he put away my outstretched
and eager hand, and laid down beside my
four aces his accursed hand, which was a strate-phlush.

“`The property is mine?' said he.

“`It is!' said I.

“Then I experienced a feeling of remorse. Then
I felt that drah-poquier was gambling, and that gambling
in any form was a sin of the most heinous nature,
and that I had been guilty of a crime.

“`Oh, why,' I exclaimed `did I ever permit myself
to become infatuated with the desire for gaming!
If I win, it is my neighbor's dirhems; if I
lose, it is my own. In any case, there is nothing of
actual value that passes. While we use capital in
gambling, we produce nothing. One side is richer,
the other poorer, and there has been a waste of
precious time. Besides, it is terribly demoralizing.
It infatuates a man and enfeebles his mind. His
mind dwells on the game to the exclusion of everything
that is good; it crushes out everything that
is high and noble, and develops everything that is
mean and small in one's nature. It ruins the loser
financially and ruins the winner morally. Wretch
that I am! why did I ever permit myself to play at
all? Why did I permit this cursed infatuation to
grip me?'

“And Remorse sat on me, and I beat my breast

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

and pulled my hair. Bewailing my wickedness, I
determined to purge myself of the unholy thing.

“Would I have so thought and so done had I held
the strate-phlush, and the accursed bellows-mender
the four aces? I do not know.

“Once more. In my youth I drank deep of pleasure.
The wines of Shiraz were not too good for me,
and the strong waters of the Frank I indulged in to
a degree that was astonishing. I had a constitution
of iron, and the endurance of an army mule. I could
drink all night and disport myself all day. There
seemed to be no limit to it. Moralists said it was
wicked, but I laughed. What cared I for the moralists?
`Go to!' I said, `life is short and it behooves
me to get the most out of it. A fig for your preachers
and your preaching! Wine is good — I will drink
it. The black-eyed woman pleases me — I will enjoy
her society. The rattle of the dice is music to
mine ear — they shall rattle.' Pleasure I wanted,
pleasure I enjoyed, and I went for it in every possible
form. The moments flow by rapidly, each one
bringing with it a fresh delight; the days sped by,
each one crowned with a new pleasure.

“But finally it came to an end. My stomach gave
out and dyspepsia set in. I could drink no more
of the rich wines or of the strong waters; women
pleased me not; the rattle of the dice was no longer
a pleasure: for I was, to use a Persian phrase,
played out. My system gave out all at once. I had
hunted pleasure, and pleasure was now hunting me.
I had lived out my vitality, but time remained.

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“Then I experienced what is called remorse.
With dyspepsia gnawing at my stomach; with my
knees weakened and my back of no account whatever;
incapable of what had delighted me, and diseased
in every part, I was sorry I had lived the life I had
lived. Not because the Koran interdicted it, not
because the life had been of itself wrong, but because
certain pains and penalties followed the life which
gave me more pain than the life had given me pleasure.
So long as my health lasted I cared nothing
for the violation of the precepts; it was only when
the penalties were enforced that I felt a sorrow for
what I had done.

“There are men — and women — who do, I presume,
experience a genuine remorse for the commission
of wrongs, great and small; but, as I said, the
number is small. It is the penalties that hurt them.
Solomon, of whom you have probably heard, did not
say “vanity of vanities,” so long as he was in good
health and could sin with some zest. It was only
after he was old and incapable that remorse struck
him. Precisely so it is with the most of us. When
the candle of enjoyment is all burned out, and the
dark, black snuff alone remains, we look at it with
regret and remorse. Possibly, it may be grief at
the sin, but as a rule, methinks, it is grief because
we cannot do it over again, or because now that we
have the penalties to pay, that it did not pay to do
it at all.”

“But —”

“Don't say another word. You have got all out

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of me that is necessary for you to know. In fact, as
I have spoken, you have got all that there is in the
topic. Leave me.”

And the Sage went wearily in to his breakfast.

p632-171 XX. A LESSON FOR HUSBANDS.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked one day by a
seeker after knowledge whether a man had better
marry or not.

The Sage was in a good mood for talk: he had
had his supper and it suited him, the tobacco in
his chibouque was precisely to his taste, and he had
made a fair operation that day in stocks. Life was
to him more than usually pleasant, and being in
good humor he was disposed to narrate.

“Listen,” said he, “to a true tale.

“I was once a married man — possibly I am yet.
The lady whom I married was too sinewy and tough
to die in a hurry.

“If I sigh as I speak let not that sigh be interpreted
as an indication that I am an unbeliever in matrimony.

“Matrimony in the abstract is a good and desirable
thing; whether it is always a good thing is another
question.

“I shall not testify, for I cannot be an unprejudiced
witness. I was married and I am bald-headed. It
was not a fever that took out my hair; it came out

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suddenly one night during an argument with my
wife.

“When two people — of opposite sex of course —
discover that their hearts throb in unison, they should
be joined, that they may continue to so throb. When
two people — a man and a woman — discover that
their tastes are similar, likewise their hopes and
aims, they should marry. In such cases life is,
doubtless, a rose-tinted dream.

“But where the masculine person is not tremendously
strong, is timid in his nature, and addicted to
miscellaneous pleasures; and the female member of
the firm is five feet nine inches in height, addicted to
having her own way, and very strong in the arm, I
will not say that, for the man at least, marriage is a
good thing. I do not believe it. I have had experiences.
There is such a thing as will power: a
strong will in a weak body will bear down and override
a weak will in a strong body; but when the
strong will animates a strong body the combination
is fearful. Give the wife both these qualities, and it
is bad for the husband. The husbands of such wives
must be exceedingly mild in temper to retain their
hair. I have known many men who possess such
wives, and have noticed that they invariably wore
wigs. But for such wives a worthy trade would languish.
How the lines of life cross each other! Who
would suppose that temper had anything to do with
the trades? Life is a riddle.

“Possibly it is bad for the wife when the husband
is so constituted, but I know not. I am speaking

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from the standpoint of the husband, and am in no
mood for pursuing the theme further than is necessary.

“I am large enough, and am not exactly timid, but
I am, or rather was, of an easy, quiet, philosophical
nature. I was wont to submit to almost anything
rather than have a struggle. Struggles I detested.
My wife, Zulieka, was five feet nine inches in height,
and not timid. The roar of the lion, though he was
behind iron bars, would frighten me: she would stride
into his den and conquer him. She was eminently
fitted by nature to be a lion-tamer in a moral menagerie;
and when I read that lions did sometimes rend
their keepers into infinitesimal fragments, I frequently
wished that she would embrace that profession.

“I have described my late wife, Zulieka, and her
husband, myself. I put them in the order in which
they stood before the world.

“My married life was not altogether a summer
morn.

“Dark tempests frequently arose and swept over
our domestic hearth. Zulieka represented, in these
tempests, the thunder, lightning, wind, and hail, and
I the worn, beaten, and drenched traveller on the
dreary moor.

“Zulieka had a passion for control; she felt that
she was born to command, and she did command
everybody who came near her, from the date of
her birth. When she put her foot down, it came
down with most significant emphasis; when she
said anything, she generally intended to be distinctly

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understood as meaning it. Two of her younger sisters
committed suicide to escape her domination.

“I did not willingly propose to this superior being:
she captured me; I was taken by her. She
forced me to propose to her, and compelled me to
ask the consent of her father. When she got her
eye on me and told me to do this I no more dared
to disobey her than I would have dared to face a
hungry tiger. I was her property, she had taken
me, — and I yielded.

“Never shall I forget the expression of satisfaction,
of devout thankfulness, that illuminated the countenance
of that long-suffering father when I asked
for her. `Take her, my son, take her, and we 'll be
happy.' It was a slight departure from the regular
formula, but I did not observe it. I thought him
liberal when he furnished me the means to start in
business, and insisted upon fixing the location himself.

“It was a thousand miles from where he lived, and
so remote from railroads that Zulieka could never
visit the home of her childhood, and there revive the
sweet recollections of the past. It was in the cold,
mountainous North. Was it accident or design?
Alas! what conundrums life continually presents for
solution, and to how many of them do we reply, `I
give it up'!

“My only hope of release was that cholera or
yellow fever or some exceedingly fearful disease
would strike her. It would take cholera or yellow
fever to do for her; her great nature would laugh

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the severe bilious or the more grasping typhoid to
scorn. Cerebro-spinal meningitis might bring her,
but I doubted it. My chief trust was in cholera and
yellow fever. They are sudden in action, and might
surprise her.

“I awaited anxiously the advent of those cheerful
liberators. `But they might take you!' I knew that.
But I had the advantage of her. Life was desirable
to her so long as she had the ecstasy of banging me.
Life was of no account to me so long as she lived to
bang. Therefore, I sighed for the advent of yellow
fever or cholera.

“I did thrice attempt to combat this terrible
woman. My first effort was a failure. The succeeding
ones were likewise. I well remember my first
essay. I attempted to dictate something to her concerning
our child, Hakao. She hurled one look at
me. Oh, that look! It was sufficient. I acknowledged
her power from that moment.

“We had been wedded five years. I longed to be
my own man, — to taste the ecstasy of doing just
once as I should see fit. I determined to do it. `I
am a man,' I said to myself, `and she is a woman.
I will assert my manhood.'

“That very evening, as I took my copote after tea
to go out, Zulieka remarked, —

“`Abou, you will be home by half-past eight.'

“I drew myself up to my full height (five feet
seven), and assuming my sternest look, replied, —

“`Zulieka, I shall not be at home at half-past eight.
It may be half-past nine, half-past ten, half-past eleven,

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or perchance daylight. I shall stay out as long as
I choose, and return when I please. I am a man,
madam, and not a child.'

“Zulieka started up as if to annihilate me, but a
second thought struck her, and she subsided, with the
remark, `Very well, Abou, very well.'

“She was quiet and apparently resigned. My
boldness had quelled her. Her face was quiet but
cold.

“So the ice of a lake is quiet and cold, but there
is death in the chilly waters under it.

“But I had embarked in this crusade and determined
to follow it, let it end where it would, and I
put on my copote with emphasis and left the house.

“That evening I met several of my friends, from
whom I had been for some time estranged by the
severe rule of my spouse. We had a supper, and,
after appropriate beverages, cards and cigars. My
friends were all married men, all possessed of — no,
not of, but by — muscular wives, and they determined
to enjoy the liberty they had stolen.

“I said supper and beverages. The supper was
light; the beverages were not. We drank lustily,
talked first loudly, then huskily, then sillily, and
finally at two o'clock in the morning separated, vowing
to meet at the same place every night. Each
wended his serpentine way to his respective home.
Crooked are the paths of life — at two in the morning.

“I found my way to my home easily enough. It was
a modest cottage in the suburbs, in the centre of a

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very respectable lot of ground. I should have preferred
a house nearer the centre of the town:
Zulieka doted on nature, and so we had a small
garden, with a lawn, clipped trees, worms, bugs, and
things of that sort.

“I found my way to the door, but not through it.
I should always have preferred to carry a night-key,
but Zulieka preferred that I should not. Hence I
did not.

“`Locked out!' muttered I to myself. `Thank
you, my dear. I shall essay the window. Keep me
out of my own house? Ha! ha!' And I laughed
derisively.

“I tried the windows, but they were all securely
locked. The skilful burglar might have essayed those
windows in vain. He would have had his labor for
his pains.

“It was a bitter cold night, and in parting with my
friends I had forgotten my overcoat. There I stood
shivering in the wind, while Zulieka was warm and snug
in bed. Loudly I knocked, — only echo answered.

“All the windows? No! I bethought me of one
which I had not tried. I disliked additions to a
house, but Zulieka preferred them; and therefore
an addition to our house had been built. It was a
laundry, — a one-story structure in the rear of the
kitchen, with one window in it. That window I tried,
and to my infinite joy it was unfastened. `Ha! ha!
From the laundry to the kitchen, from the kitchen
to the dining-room, thence to the sitting-room, and
thence, — ha! ha!'

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“And I pondered as to whether I should smother
her with pillows, as Othello did Desdemona, and I
doubted as to whether I would give her time to say
her prayers. I remember now that I finally resolved
that it would be only fair to give her time to say one
short one.

“Carefully I hoisted the window, and holding it up
with one hand clambered up. Poising myself on the
sill, I sprang gayly, not upon the floor, but into a
barrel of ice-cold water, which had been carefully
placed directly under that window, by whose loving
hands I had no difficulty in determining. With a
howl of anguish I struggled to get out, and in so
doing I tipped the barrel over.

“Soaked thoroughly, and with my teeth chattering
like castanets, I rushed to the door that opened into
the kitchen. It was locked. The window! I would
climb out the aperture through which I came, and
hie me to a hotel. Woe was me! the window had
fallen, and had fastened itself so that I could not open
it. I was a prisoner in a laundry, eight feet square,
the thermometer at the freezing point, wet through
and through, with no prospect of getting out.

“`I will sleep,' I said, and lay down. Alas! the
same kind hand that had locked all the doors, and all
the windows but one, and had placed a barrel of
water under that one, had likewise poured several
barrels on the floor. The floor was a good one and
held water, and there was at least three inches of that
fluid on it, in which I lay down.

“Springing to my feet I leaned for rest against the

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wall. The cold increased in intensity every minute,
and in an hour I was sheathed in an armor of ice, and
was as stiff and incapable of motion as the Cardiff
Giant.

“My tongue was the only member of my body that
was free, and that I employed in hurling anathemas
at Zulieka, who was warm and comfortable in her
bed. If she finally goes to the place to which I consigned
her that night, she will be as much too warm
as I was then too cold.

“Need I continue the harrowing tale? How slowly
dragged along the hours! The clock struck two.
Two! Why, five hours must pass before seven, and
could I endure till then? Three! four! five! I was
gradually congealing. Life was leaving me slowly.
I was not altogether miserable nor wholly discontented
with my fate. Should I die and be compelled
to meet the King of Pandemonium himself I could
not be much worse off. Life with Zulieka had robbed
death of its terrors. As I thought of her I exclaimed,
`O Death, where is thy sting?'

“Morning did come at last. At 7 A. M. Zulieka
arose, the first of the household. She sang her
matin song gayly as she dressed. I yelled like a
Camanche. Cheerfully she came to me. On her
face was an expression of pity and surprise.

“`Why, Abou,' said this female, with her large
eyes wide open, `can this be you? Where, oh where
have you been all night? I waited till very late for
you, and then went to bed, and lay uneasy all night
fearing that something had happened to you. Bless

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me! you are wet through and through, and your
clothes are frozen stiff. Dear me!'

“And she looked as innocent as — I pause for a
simile. A stranger would not have supposed that
she planned the trap into which I had fallen, and was
laughing internally at her success.

“`Take me down,' I replied, `and lay me in front
of the grate.'

“She did so, and as I was thawing out, she put
her arms about my neck and exclaimed, —

“`Dearest, how cruel it was in you to stay all night
away from your Zulieka!'

“I made no reply, — there was none to make.

“I may live long or I may die soon. The rheumatism
I am enjoying at this time, and the cough
which is rending me, I charge to that night. But
long or short I never contested the field with Zulieka
again. I was no match for her. I might as well
have engaged Mr. Heenan in the roped arena, or
attempted to cope with Prof. Agassiz in corals and
things. She was my superior. I was down. Had
I arisen I should have been knocked down again.
I spared her the trouble and myself the humiliation.
I stayed where I was. My only satisfaction was that
before I left her she went back to her father. That
was my revenge for his failing to rescue me from
her.

“My story is done. I do not know whether it
bears upon the question you put to me or not, for
I have really forgotten the question. Had I remembered
the question, I should have varied the

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narrative so that it would have been a complete
answer.

“But you must be an incomprehensible idiot if you
cannot get a moral out of anything I say. Go!”

And Abou relighted his chibouque and composed
himself for a long reverie.