attached to conscience and the ignoring of | Great Pyramid, and enjoying a modest selfishness as a motive seemed to show dinner picnic fashion at its base, the three that Malreward had gone over to the philo- reclined watching the full moon, and letsophic Radicals, whose names were abomi- ting the soft sand drop in powdery streams nable to Mainwaring; but a few minutes through lazy fingers beneath the shadow after this suspicion had dawned on his of the Sphinx. mind, Malreward lashed out so savagely on the speech of a leading Radical statesman that Mainwaring was puzzled. How ever, it is not easy to talk politics in Cairo when we are there for the first time. There are so many colors, such harmonies and contrasts, such flushes of bright hues and varieties of intertwining forms all around one; and then, above all, there is such a vivid movement of life in street and bazaar, down the steps of tall, cool mosques, and around the twisted pillars of many-arched fountains, that your eyes are too actively employed for unruly tongues to jangle.

The desert stretched, a bright expanse, under the shining moon. The Sphinx, looking more human than it ever looks by day, rose like a great rocky island out of the sea of sand. Behind towered the vast rampart of the oldest of the Pyramids with a slight flush of pale red suffusing and softening its rough face. The Pyramid of Chephren was in shadow.

"The sentiment that overpowers every other with me," said Malreward, "as I look at the Sphinx is one of compassion. There is something inexpressibly sad in the loneliness of this creature. Here in the desert, surviving all who understood its purpose, all who reverenced its power, it remains for the people's pity and wonder." If it could open those closed lips and tell us what it told the generation that created and adored it, would it have anything to say to which we should care to listen?"

"The Arabs call the Sphinx Abu'l hôl, the Father of Terror,' and the name is fitly chosen. For from its age, from its size, from its strength, it seems suited to be the parent of all the progeny of demons that through the peopled centuries have cowed hearts, and crushed wills, and usurped the sceptre of God. I hate the thing with its calm face and bestial body," said Mainwaring with a passion he rarely showed in his voice.

It happened, then, that the familiar English themes were only referred to once during the first three days of their stay, and the friends saw and enjoyed to the full. In Malreward's travelling days he would have made it a point of duty not to go to see the Pyramids or the Sphinx, which he considered monuments of pride, cruelty, and folly. His opinions, however, about the relative proportion of things in rerum naturâ, and of himself in particular, were changing. He realized that he could not afford to send ancient history to Coventry. He spent hours in the museum. He pondered in the darkness of Coptic churches and in the glare of the thronged El Azhar, and when he spoke it was as one who had for a long time seen men "as trees walking," but who now had brought the two lines of his intellectual "It is a quotation beloved by tourists," life into contact. All that experience of said Waverton, "but I cannot help, whenforeign travel and observation, which had ever I come here, recalling the short chapsupplied him with statistics whereupon to ter about the Sphinx in Eöthen.' You base cynical criticisms on humankind, was remember, Upon ancient dynasties of henceforth to be so much fuel wherewithal Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, upon to feed the flame of a bright and active Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoconscience. And conscience with Malre- man conquerors, upon Napoleon dreaming ward was not as it too often is a whip of an Eastern empire, upon battle and kept in an oratory for private flagellation: pestilence, upon the ceaseless misery of it was a lighthouse that he was responsible the Egyptian race, upon keen eyed travelfor, and on the brightness and steadiness lers, Herodotus yesterday and Warburton of its lamp the fate of millions depended. to-day-upon all and more this unworldly The caustic rhetoric that had spent itself Sphinx has watched, and watched like a in the House in proving the tergiversation providence with the same earnest eyes, of ministers and the apathy of the Oppo- and the same sad, tranquil mien. And sition was employed in finding fault with we, we shall die, and Islam will wither the past. Henceforward there was hope away, and the Englishman, straining far for the world. A new departure had been over to hold his loved India, will plant a taken. A new era was about to dawn. firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit What it was, Mainwaring was for some in the seats of the faithful, and still that time at a loss to understand, until after sleepless rock will lie watching and watch. seeing the sun set from the summit of the ❘ing the works of the new, busy race with

Surely," replied Waverton, whose opinions and language were colored by those of Malreward, "it is time we had outlived the idea that the word civilization is a monopoly of Europe and America, and indeed (for that is what we mean in our hearts) peculiar to the nineteenth century. Am I to be asked to believe that the civilization of Egypt dates from Na poleon I., and goes no further back? Were the architects who built magnificent Thebes savages, and the soldiers who played écarté amidst its ruins, and stuck up a placard inscribed To Paris' on its most stately pylon, civilized men ?"

"No one would go so far as that now," said Malreward. "But I should like to sift that statement of yours, Mainwaring. When you say that the civilization of the West must dominate the East, do you mean that the Western nations must conquer the East as the French have conquered Algiers, the Spaniards Cuba, and we ourselves India?"

matters I was helped to find a definition which gave me a glimpse of light. But I never dreamed that any one would attempt to carry my theory into practice until in this year of grace 1883, and in this country of riddles I seem to espy a kind of hope.” Mainwaring and Waverton expressed surprise, and the former pressed for a full explanation with a promise not to interrupt unless under special provocation.

There was a pause of at least a minute before Malreward complied with the invitation and addressed himself to reply to the objectors.

66

let

Surely this ever-recurring question of the relations of the Western peoples to the Eastern remains in the unsatisfactory state in which we find it to-day because we have never taken the trouble to get a definition of civilization. There are two views diametrically opposed to each other. One party says, Leave nations, distinguished from us by race and religion, and separated from us by leagues of land and sea, alone. Why should we force ourselves and our institutions on Zulus and Egyptians, on Chinese and Japanese? Why not leave them unvisited by the missionary, and his companion the inevitable gun-boat? If they are torn by wars, them alone to stew in their own juice. If they are our neighbors and jeopardize our interests, and the cry of proximus ardet is raised, let us limit our interference sternly and distinctly to the protection of those imperilled interests, and when these are secured let us withdraw with all speed.' Another party begins by assuming that the Western man is undoubtedly in the position of superiority, and has a mission, in the most imperious sense of that widely used word, to teach the Eastern man all the lore his inquiring spirit and varied experience have garnered through centuries of activity, and above all, to begin by obliging him to make a clean sweep of all practices and preju dices, creeds and customs, which stand in the way of the process of de-Orientaliza. tion. If the Asiatic or the African wears flowing robes, restrain his limbs in a tight surtout; if he writes from right to left, make him write from left to right; if he travels on a camel, make him travel in a train; if he drinks water, teach him to drink wine; if he eats with his fingers, compel him to eat with a fork. Have I stated the case fairly or not? Grant that "Since you desire it," returned Malre- I have, for the sake of argument for a moward, "and the time and place are ger-ment, and rout me in detail afterwards." mane to such speculations, I will tell you

"I believe there is no evading that somewhat stern interpretation of my words," replied Mainwaring reluctantly.

"That was really my conviction," returned Malreward, "all the time that I was supposed to be making laws for my unhappy country. In fact I repeated my political belief as the chivalrous Poles said their credo in church, with my sword drawn in my hand and my face turned to the east."

"And have you changed your opinion?" asked Mainwaring.

"So completely that every structure of argument built on those lines seems frail and foolish beyond description," said Malreward emphatically.

"Tell me, and I shall perhaps get an explanation of many changes that have been puzzling me of late in my old friend," said Mainwaring.

Mainwaring and Waverton assented,

how after long consideration of these but with rights reserved.

"Well, then," continued Malreward, "But I maintain that if we had a defini"my main point is this. That the West- tion of civilization to fall back upon and ern man does this too often in a masterful appeal to, there would not be such a wide spirit, without sympathy and without ex- divergence of opinion on our duties to amination, and that in the process he Eastern and other non-European peoples involves himself in countless contradic- as there is at present. We are now most tions and inconsistencies, as well as in of us, I fear, content to regard civilization costly and sanguinary wars. And then, as a convenient phrase covering all that that having a wakeful and sensitive con- world of materialistic appliance and sciscience, though its prickings are felt more entific discovery which the nineteenth commonly after an injustice has been century has developed in Europe and done than when he is preparing to com- America. This system, with its vast mit it, he is ill at ease with himself, and apparatus for subduing the earth, we delets the Oriental discover, when he has sire to see set up in all lands. The thoroughly unfitted him for the country phrase march of civilization' is not in which God has put him, that he is quite so fashionable as it once was, but it half afraid he has made a mistake after is still heard occasionally and it repreall sents a progress like that of the mythic Bacchus over India, only that instead of blushing vineyards and fountains running wine, the modern god would leave behind him stacks of smoking chimneys and streams black with the refuse of chemical manufactories."

"This is not so clear," interrupted Mainwaring. "The fatal fluency with which my honorable friend was twitted in a certain debate at the Union has assur edly led him astray."

"No," said Malreward. "It is the point I am most anxious to bring out. I do not know that I should quarrel with masterful reorganization if it were consistently carried out, and if we believed in it ourselves. But ever and anon we let the Oriental see that we are not quite certain we have been on the right tack, and that we are by no means sure that the medicine we have been administering is the proper prescription for the patient. For the sake of antithesis and precision you employed the words Western man and Eastern man, and that use of the singular has led you into a fallacy. You may personify the West for rhetorical purposes, but you do not thereby make it an individual. The government of England, to narrow the issue, resolves to annex and civilize according to its view of that word an Indian State. When the annexation and civilization are accomplished, evils are found to exist in the State, as it was perfectly fair to expect they would continue to do for some time. Then a section of the English people cry out that we have done the Hindoos no good, but the best-informed portion of the English people probably know that a great many practical benefits have been conferred on the natives."

"There is truth in what you say," replied Mainwaring. "Your arguments move me, however, but do not remove me. I grant that it is impossible to expect all Englishmen to think alike on any question, much less on one of foreign policy." Malreward saw his way to making his favorite point.

"I fancy," said Mainwaring, "that Waverton and I are prepared to agree in the main with what you say, though we might wish it said in less tropical language. However, we will look over that if you give us a definition of your own. Let us see you try your hand at building house if only to give us the neighborly pleasure of proving that your edifice is not a whit more stable than those you have demolished."

'Agreed," said Malreward. "I will try a definition of the civilized man then. He is the man who makes the most of the powers God has given him, and the world God has put him in. The man who does this has a right to teach his brother who does not do it. He does not merely go and compel him to make a railway or a canal, or to lay a line of telegraphic wires on pain of having his country taken from him. He requires improvements and reforms of all kinds, beginning with the reform of the man himself."

"Again you are speaking of a nation as if it were a unit, which if you persist in doing, we shall have fresh confusion,” said Mainwaring.

Malreward answered as if he had expected the objection.

"I did it on purpose to bring out the fact that the individual must be first reformed, made honest, self-reliant, obedient, punctual, truth-telling. In a word, must be taught to make the most of himself before you can expect him to make the most of the place in which he is put. Mr. Gladstone, in his much-abused and

ter.'

little-read volume on Church and State, | of the world. In the days of old the cities says: The State and the Church are rose into prominence and sunk into decay both of them moral agencies. But the as the trade stream washed their busy State aims at character through conduct, quays. Coptos, whence the clerks and the Church at conduct through charac | book-balancing caste of Egypt takes its You admit that these are the two name, is the emporium one day.* After powers which have set about the task of a while Myos Hormos has greater advanreforming the world. I say a nation with tages and supersedes Coptos, to be in an instructed conscience which has en- turn thrust into the background by Philo abled it to recognize its obligations to its teras Portus, which had a commercial people and to give them intelligent teach- reputation in the days of the Pharaohs. ing, strict laws, and free institutions, is As it was in the beginning so it is to-day. bound also, on the principle of noblesse It is not by ethical theories but by mutuai oblige, to try to induce a nation long kept interests that the nations will be guided in a prison of ignorance, superstition, in their treatment of each other." and semi savagery, to come from darkness to light. Civilization, defined as I have defined it, will induce a man to approach another in the two ways named just now. It will labor to improve him in conduct and character. This is a very different thing from telling him that unless he cuts a canal through his country, or buys piece goods of your Manchester, you will bombard his towns, land on his coast, and dictate a treaty to him in his capital."

"We shall be led in a direction in which we do not wish to go if we suffer you to proceed without interruption," said Waverton. "Your beneficent civilization with all its professions of respect for the territorial rights of others is to be, after all, an aggressive missionary power."

Besides," added Mainwaring, "you have to remember one thing after all. We desire an outlet for our manufactures and employment for our young men. You will both call me a Philistine, but you cannot dispute the truth of the statement. England is not an educational establishment. It is a mercantile firm anxious to increase the number of its customers. The Western must approach the Eastern in one of three ways, by war, by religion, or by trade. Now, though recent facts tell against me, I am optimist enough to say that I believe fighting is going out. It is possible that the growth of scepticism may drive the clergy in despair of doing anything at home to go out in larger numbers than they have hitherto done, and so missions may become an important factor in the question; but it is certain that we shall go on manufacturing cotton goods, and that we shall be obliged to make people buy them. It is a material question after all. The countries that tried to keep us out have one by one been compelled to open their ports. The diapason of our policy' is commerce. It is impossible to ignore the moving power

Malreward replied, speaking rapidly and earnestly,

Be

"This might have been the last word on the question some years ago, but we have learned, I sincerely believe, that this is not the sum of the whole matter. lieve me, the question has widened. There is a fourth speaker who will have to be listened to. Besides the soldier, the missionary, and the merchant, there is the man in politics,'t not the politi cian, remember; and if he says, with no uncertainty in his tone, what shall be our animating principle, and appeals to the national conscience we shall find that henceforth the dealings of States with each other will be swayed by higher laws than have been recognized before. Not what we can get out of the country, but what we can make of the man in it will be the first consideration. I do hope that a beginning is being made here in Egypt. It seems to me that this occupation is one of the greatest events in the history of the world. It is an opportunity which is an importunity crying, trumpet-tongued, to every man concerned to try to make this the starting-point of a new policy. The unique character of this country makes it a duty of extraordinary interest, and of course of extraordinary difficulty."

"We are all agreed as to the difficulty," said the two listeners, for Malreward's flowing speech compelled them to adopt that subordinate part.

"I grant," continued Malreward, "that we are here under circumstances that can never be expected to recur, but I do say

See the inimitable burlesque prospectus in Mr. Mackenzie Wallace's "

tion," p. 49. 's "Egypt and the Egyptian Ques

†The whole passage whence the quotation comes is worth reading: "It is specially true that he who holds offices of public trust runs a thousand hazards of sinking into a party man instead of man employing party instrumentality for its ulterior purposes; into a politician instead of man in politics; into an administrator instead of man in administration." - Mr. Gladstone in "The State in its Relations to the Church."