Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

What thou dost hide, thy second beauty new.
O splendor of the living light eterne!
Who is there that beneath Parnassus' shade
Hath paled, or quenched his thirst from its
fresh burn,

And would not seem to have his mind downweighed,

Seeking thy form and presence to make known, O'ershadowed by the heavens that sunrise made,

When to the open air that form was shown?

[ocr errors]

[Purg. xxxi. 124-145]

The power of that vision of the unveiled truth, falling short only of the ineffably beatific vision of the divine glory which ends the "Paradiso" as this ends the Purgatorio," to complete the work of Lethe in blotting out the memory of the evil past, is indicated by a touch of the skill of the supreme artist. Beatrice unfolds to him an apocalypse of the coming history of the Church and the empire,

which is to correct his former theories. "That thou mayst know," she said, "how stands that school

Which thou hast followed, and its doctrine

scan,

And learn how far it follows my true rule." And then, unconscious of reproach, the very confessions which had just passed from his lips remembered no more, he makes his reply:

And then I answered, "Memory dwells not here

That I have so estranged myself from thee, Nor doth my conscience wake remorseful fear." [Purg. xxxii. 85-93.]

Well may Beatrice tell him that his Lethe-draught has been free and full, and feel that the time has come for it to be followed by that of the other mystic river, which revives the memory of every good deed done, and so completing the transformation wrought out by Lethe, gives to the new man, the true self, the continuity of life which had seemed before to belong to the old and false and evil self. I do not inquire now how far such a philosophy of consciousness is tenable in itself, or may be reconciled with acknowledged truths of ethics or theology; but it will be admitted that there is a mystic greatness in its very conception which places Dante high among the spiritual teachers of mankind. One who could picture that state to himself as the completion of his pilgrimage, the perfected result of the regenerate life begun in baptism, must at least have had some foretastes of ecstatic rapture, of communion with the eternal wisdom, and of the infinite goodness

[blocks in formation]

have I,

And much else, told him, and full clear I see
That Lethe has not hid them from his eye."
And Beatrice, "Deeper cares, maybe,
Which often memory of her strength deprive,
Have clouded o'er his mental vision free,
But see Eunoe's waters hence derive,
Lead him to them, and, as thou'rt wont to do,
Once more his half-dead energy revive."
As gentle soul that works without ado
The will of others, e'en as 'twere its own,
When patent it is made by token true,
Soon as my hand she clasped, that beauteous

[blocks in formation]

[Purg. xxxiii. 110-145.]

The passage which I have just quoted warns me that I too must stop with my task hardly more than half completed. A wide region of inquiry tending to like results opens itself in the other elements which enter into the processes of the Mount of Purgatory, the teachings of art as indicated in the marvellous forecast of the possibilities of the future in the description of the sculptured cornices in Canto XII., which seems almost as a prophecy of the doors of the Baptistery at Florence, the reminiscences of history

[ocr errors]

or literature, which suggest in the poem, | greedy." I told Selby he was a prig," as they had suggested in the poet's expe- but he gave me a pocket-knife provided rience, thoughts that take their place in with a great number of blades, which at fashioning his character, deterring from once mollified me, for he was as generous evil, impulsive to new strivings after in giving as in taking. good. But I, too, have "filled every corner of my chart," and dare not now ask for "wider limits." It will be enough for the present if what I have written in free and loving reverence for the great Florentine, shall lead here and there a few to study the great master-work of his genius, and in so studying to find in the poem the man himself, greater even than his work. E. H. PLUMPTRE.

ABDOOLAH.

CHAPTER I.

From Belgravia.

I ALWAYS felt a certain interest in Selby, he was the most irrational person I ever knew. His faults were numerous enough to have provided a whole family with dangerous qualities. We had been at the same preparatory school when we were little boys. He was a ward in Chancery and the inheritor of a large fortune. When I think of the use he made of it, I clearly understand why the wealthy are especially remembered in the litany of our Church. In spite of the vice-chancellor, rich wards are sadly unprotected. Poor Selby! his fellow-creatures began to prey upon him long before he had learnt his Latin nouns. His very guardian, I fully believe, increased his income at his ward's expense, and I have an idea the reverend gentleman who undertook our elementary education charged the guardian twice as much as he did my father. Certainly Selby was treated as though he were of more value than any of the rest of us even than the dark boy with a perpetual cold in his woolly head, said to be a prince in his own country.

At a very early age Selby had some original notions on morality. He used, for instance, to imagine everything belonged to him. If he wanted a thing he would have it, even if he had to take it out of another fellow's desk. I recollect he took six pieces of butter-scotch from mine one Sunday when the rest of us were at church, and he was left behind with a bilious attack. I was much enraged, but our master treated the matter in a somewhat airy way, and said "Selby must not play jokes of that description on Sunday, but that it served me right for being VOL. XLVIII 2451

LIVING AGE.

We used to live then near Selby's guardian, and sometimes in the holidays I visited at the house to play, but did not care for it very much. Selby had a number of expensive toys which he used to smash, and bored me a good deal by try. ing chemical experiments which had no other definite result than that of burning yellow holes in his clothes, and raising the most abominable smells. People used to flatter him, and assure him he had taste for science. The boy indeed was a very golden calf. At the public school to which Selby afterwards went he could not pass out of his form, and finally, having acquired a premature taste for brandy and soda-water, the head-master suggested to his guardian that he would do better with a private tutor. The next time I saw Selby was at Oxford. We were at the same college for a couple of terms, after which he was sent down, and I lost sight of him for a good many years. I married and settled in a remote village in Devonshire, whilst he did his best to run through his fortune. One July afternoon, however, happening to be in London, I ran against Hilton, standing on the steps of his club. He had been at the same school as Selby and myself.

[ocr errors]

I'm just going to see a man you know," said he.

"Who?" asked I.

[ocr errors]

'Selby. He's just come back from Egypt, where he has been playing the part of a pasha. Come and see him too."

We hailed a passing hansom and drove to Selby's chambers, and were shown into a somewhat gaudily furnished room full of tokens intended to suggest the acquaintance of the owner with the mysterious East. The walls were hung with long chibouks, murderous-looking scimitars, and other deadly weapons. In a glass case, amongst other curiosities, was something which looked like the smaller part of a mummy; and over all there floated the faint pungent odor which clings to all Oriental wares.

"The pasha," said Hilton, "wishes to impress us with his magnificence."

Here Selby, in slippers, and a fez on his head, shuffled into the room and greeted us warmly. He had grown much stouter since I saw him last. His lips seemed looser and his eyes dimmer.

1

He told me he had heard of my marriage, and hoped I was happy.

"You always were a steady fellow," he remarked with a faint air of superiority, as though his own ill-regulated career were indicative at least of greater enterprise.

"And you," said I, "have been a bold buccaneer. I always prophesied great things of you since you shot down stairs at college on your tea-tray."

"On a tea-tray?" said Hilton, gazing at Selby's rotund person increduously. Why, there isn't one big enough."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Selby had one," said I "didn't

you?"

"So you all said," replied he, laughing, "but I didn't remember anything about it."

Hilton glanced at me for an explanation.

"A lot of men had gone to a 'wine' at Selby's rooms," said I, glancing towards Selby, whose face brightened up at the recollection. "When they came away: all very noisy- the giver of the feast insisted on showing them what he called the national sport of the Canadians, and sitting down on a wide tea-tray he shot down his staircase like an avalanche, and made nearly as much noise. He found the sport so exhilarating that he had another shot. This time, to diversify it, he lighted a couple of crackers, and said he was a comet with a fiery tail. Bang! bang! went the crackers as Selby bumped down-stairs, and the whole college turned out to see what was the matter, and found Selby seated on his tea-tray at the foot of the staircase so thick of speech that no one could understand what he wanted to say."

"What happened next day?” asked Hilton, a good deal amused.

"Oh, they kicked me out," replied Selby, "said my moral tone was more in keeping with the atmosphere of a music hall than of a university. But you fellows must be thirsty."

And he suddenly violently clapped his hands.

[ocr errors][merged small]

vet jacket and white shirt resembled those of matadors such as I have been accustomed to meet at fancy balls. The red blood glowed in his dark cheeks, but_his expression was pensive and sad. Evi dently he understood not a word we said, for he stood before us with a blank expression in his strange dark eyes, a quaint pathetic figure in the midst of our prosaic London life. Outside were all the commonplace sights and sounds of "the long, unlovely street" where little boys were advertising the evening papers with discordant voices; but between this lithe dark man and the life without there could be no sympathy. What sympathy he did feel was evidently centred in his master, on whom his eyes were fixed with strange intentness.

"Who is he?" I asked.

Selby looked at him a moment, evidently pleased with the impression made on us.

"A man I brought back from Egypt," he said. "His name's Abdoolah." "Is that his national costume?" "Not exactly. It's a sort of livery I devised myself. Neat, isn't it?" "Very," said I, whilst Selby contemplated his henchman not without pride.

Then Hilton endeavored to entertain the picturesque stranger with such baby talk as one might adopt to an infant of foreign extraction, but without, I think, making his meaning more clear.

"You talky English, eh?" he inquired. Abdoolah smiled, and showed two rows of strong, white teeth.

"Sar-rah Bernhardt," he answered in curious gutturals, "Missy Langtry, Gerran-ole-man!"

"What's he mean?" asked I.

"He's imitating the Cairese donkey boys," replied Selby. "He was one once. It's the best English he's got.'

[ocr errors]

Then with difficulty he made Abdoolah understand he was to fetch certain drinks, and whilst he was absent told us how it was he had become acquainted with him.

When they were at anchor one night on the Nile in a lonely reach they were aroused by shouts followed by the sound of blows from the bank. One of Selby's people fired off a gun, which was followed by the rustle of retreating feet on the soft sand. On landing they picked up Abdoolah, cruelly battered about the head, but still showing signs of life. He was brought on board the dyabeah, and ultimately recovered. Selby had no clear notion why Abdoolah had been so mal. treated, and "fancied there was a woman

in the case," but as he had been robbed | rational, we left him, I promising to dine as well as beaten one reason was suffi- with him on the following evening to meet ciently plain. Mr. Dougal, his future editor. As we walked to the club Hilton declared that Selby ought to have some one to take care of him.

When I went to Selby's on the follow

"He turned out a splendid fellow," said Selby, "and was awf'ly grateful an' all that sort of thing. He saved me a lot o' money by preventing the others from robbing me." Then, knowing his career, iting evening Mr. Dougal was already there. occurred to me that it was unfortunate he had not found a fellow countryman to take an equally unselfish interest in his welfare.

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"But it can't go on forever," said Hilton bluntly. "What do you intend to do?"

66 Ah," ," said he slyly, "I've got a grand dodge to recoup myself." And after a little while, under a promise of secrecy, he informed us what it was. It was just such a one as I should have imagined of Selby.

You know that paper, the Arcadian,” said he. "It's on its last legs. The proprietor wants me to buy it. I'm just the fellow to make it pay."

He says

"I should say you were the last. What on earth do you know about journalism?" I answered.

"Oh, you know," said he airily, "I've got a lot of gen'ral information. I've knocked about a bit."

Do you intend to make Abdoolah your editor?" asked Hilton scoffingly.

"Not exactly," said he, "but I've found a fellow, a lit ry man an awful clever chap who's to be editor, and between us we're bound to make it pay. I can just scrape enough together to buy the journal. You fellows may laugh, but see if we don't do well! Dougal says we're sure to make it valuable property."

Selby, I noticed, had been drinking steadily, and, as is often the case, he grew proportionately sanguine, and soon began to talk as though he were making his fortune, so, finding him proof against all our arguments, and steadily becoming less

He was a Scotchman, not in the least like
the typical northerner, but a sly-looking,
thick-set young man of surprising volubil.
ity, who endeavored to conceal his accent
under an elaborately fashionable voice
an accent which, in spite of his efforts,
insisted on revealing itself spasmodically.
His object was evidently the exploitation
of Selby, and I fancied he thought mine
the same, and consequently, he did not
appear to take kindly to me.

Selby introduced us and then took us into the dining room, where we found Abdoolah, to whom he gave some order.

"I have sent Abdoolah to fetch Sambo," he said. "I always have him in to dinner, and I think he'll amuse you."

Whilst I was wondering who Sambo might be, I heard from without the sounds of an animal of some kind, in pain or wrath, and Abdoolah reappeared wheeling along a stand to which was chained a monkey, like a pigmy and diabolical Prometheus to his rock. Sambo chattered, squealed, snapped, and sparred at Abdoolah, and was only prevented by the shortness of his chain from a tooth-and-nail onslaught on the Egyptian.

"That's Sambo, is it?" said Dougal. "And an ugly deevil he looks."

The monkey was trundled to a place near the head of the table, and finally relapsed into a discontented silence.

Dinner commenced, and we began to discuss the chances of the Arcadian. Mr. Dougal poo-poohed all my arguments as to the risks Selby was running in purchasing it.

“I have,” he said, “wide experience in journalism, and we intend to convert it into something oreeginal-a sort of by brid between a high-class magazine and Punch. Come! here's success to eet!" He emptied a bumper of champagne, and then added: "You think it will succeed - eh, Selby?"

"Rather!" replied Selby, who I think had been drinking all day, looking as wise as a bacchanal engaged in a sum of mental arithmetic.

This was the commencement of various toasts, which, in order to preserve my sobriety, I drank sparingly.

I shall never forget that dinner! Ab

doolah, useless as a waiter, but interest | brought an action against the proprietor ing as a study of repose, watched over it with his Sphinx-like face, motionless and apathetic, save that his gleaming eyes fixed themselves at intervals wistfully on his master, steadily passing from one stage of intoxication to another. When I was crushed with Mr. Dougal's desire to demonstrate that all my convictions were groundless assumptions, it was a relief to contemplate Abdoolah's Oriental dignity, which not even Selby's fancy dress could destroy. Opposite to him, crouched on its perch, was the monkey, its weird, wrinkled face looking the pic ture of villanous despair, pensively catching its fleas, and evidently suffering from asthma and home-sickness.

I confess I drank and smoked more than was good for me, and that I laughed with unnecessary loudness when the monkey flew at Dougal, who was blowing cigar smoke in its wizened face, and bit him on the thumb, making him scream with terror and pain.

When I came away Selby was being assisted up-stairs by Abdoolah, singing a maudlin song about "ole fren's ;" and Dougal was seated on a ball chair dismally contemplating his wounded thumb, his host having, with some incoherence, informed him that the bite of that kind of monkey often gave rise to hydrophobia. Through the open dining-room door I could hear the cause of his dismay chuckling to himself. The evening had not been altogether without its humorous side, though in my case it was followed by a headache next day.

I considered it my duty to write to Selby, clearly laying before him the risks he was incurring in purchasing the Arcadian, but I did not receive an answer; and meeting Dougal in the street shortly afterwards, he looked carefully in an opposite direction. I suppose he did not think me virtuous enough for his acquaintance. I decided, therefore, to let a wilful man have his own way, and give Selby no more good advice.

CHAPTER II.

and obtained heavy damages. Selby's
excuse was that he never read his own
paper, and had no idea that it contained
offensive matter. After this, two or three
defiant numbers of the paper were issued,
and then it was seen no more. Selby had
lost over the transaction, as I had antici-
pated, whatever money he had not hith-
erto succeeded in squandering, so the
crash came, and he figured somewhat dis-
honorably in the Bankruptcy Court, and
when under examination displayed quite
an Arcadian ignorance of his own affairs,
of the nature of acceptances, promissory
notes, and business generally, which he
appeared to transact frequently
"when
under the influence of liquor," as the re-
porters phrased it. Then for some time
I heard no more of him until one day, hap-
pening to be in London, I almost ran
against Abdoolah coming out of the door
of a public-house in a back street. He
was carrying a black bottle, quite uncon-
scious that it detracted in any way from
the dignity of his appearance, and strode
down the street looking neither to the
right nor left. He did not recognize me
- and I dare say our white faces were all
much the same to him- but seemed even
more absorbed in himself than when I
had last seen him. He was still wearing
his livery, but its glories were faded, and
he seemed himself shrunk and parched by
the bitter east wind that was blowing. I
followed him out of curiosity till he
stopped opposite a dingy house evidently
let out in chambers, where he entered and
ascended the stairs. In the passage a
man was cleaning boots, so I asked him
if Mr. Selby was within, and upon learning
that he was living in the rooms of a Mr.
Havilland, and also that he was at home,
I mounted the dark staircase and knocked
at a door which bore the owner's name.
I had to repeat the knock very vigorously
before any one answered it. At last, how-
ever, it was opened about six inches by
Abdoolah, who, before I had time to speak,
exclaimed, "Notty-tome," and shook his
turbaned head to emphasize his meaning.
I took out a card and gave it to Ab-
doolah.

"I know he's at home," said I: "give him this."

WHEN I went back into the country I subscribed for the Arcadian, in order that I might watch the result of Selby's venture. I do not think a more foolish But he appeared anxious to have nothand contemptible journal was ever pub-ing to do with it. Experience had no lished. It tried hard to obtain a success of scandal by libelling eminent personages, but failing, commenced to devote its attention to the conduct and character of burlesque actresses, one of whom

doubt taught him long ago that all documents, no matter what their size and nature, were vexatious to his master.

"He not want it," he said, refusing to touch it.

« VorigeDoorgaan »