THE STORY OF OMAR.
Omar, the hermit of the mountain Aubukabis, which rises on the east of Mecca, and overlooks the city, found one evening a man sitting pensive and alone, within a few paces of his cell. Omar regarded him with attention, and perceived that his looks were wild and haggard, and that his body was feeble and emaciated: the man also seemed to gaze stedfastly on Omar; but such was the abstraction of his mind, that his eye did not immediately take cognizance of its object. In the moment of recollection he started as from a dream, he covered his face in confusion, and bowed himself to the ground.—“Son of affliction,” said Omar, “who art thou, and what is thy distress?” “My name,” replied the stranger, “is Hassan, and I am a native of this city: the Angel of adversity has laid his hand upon me; and the wretch whom thine eye compassionates, thou canst not deliver.” “To deliver thee,” said Omar, “belongs to Him only, from whom we should receive with humility both good and evil; yet hide not thy life from me; for the burthen which I cannot remove, I may at least enable thee to sustain.” Hassan fixed his eyes upon the ground, and remained some time silent; then fetching a deep sigh, he looked up at the hermit, and thus complied with his request.
It is now six years since our mighty lord the Calif Almalic, whose memory be blessed, first came privately to worship in the temple of the holy city. The blessings which he petitioned of the Prophet, as the Prophet’s vicegerent, he was diligent to dispense; in the intervals of his devotion, therefore, he went about the city, relieving distress, and restraining oppression: the widow smiled under his protection, and the weakness of age and infancy was sustained by his bounty. I, who dreaded no evil but sickness, and expected no good beyond the reward of my labour, was singing at my work, when Almalic entered my dwelling. He looked round with a smile of complacency; perceiving that though it was mean, it was neat, and that though I was poor, I appeared to be content. As his habit was that of a pilgrim, I hastened to receive him with such hospitality as was in my power; and my cheerfulness was rather increased than restrained by his presence. After he had accepted some coffee, he asked me many questions; and though by my answers I always endeavoured to excite him to mirth, yet I perceived that he grew thoughtful, and eyed me with a placid but fixed attention. I suspected that he had some knowledge of me, and therefore inquired his country and his name. “Hassan,” said he, “I have raised thy curiosity, and it shall be satisfied: he who now talks with thee is Almalic, the sovereign of the faithful, whose seat is the throne of Medina, and whose commission is from above.” These words struck me dumb with astonishment, though I had some doubt of their truth: but Almalic, throwing back his garment, discovered the peculiarity of his vest, and put the royal signet upon his finger. I then started up, and was about to prostrate myself before him, but he prevented me: “Hassan,” said he, “forbear; thou art greater than I, and from thee I have at once derived humility and wisdom.” I answered, “Mock not thy servant, who is but as a worm before thee; life and death are in thy hand, and happiness and misery are the daughters of thy will.” “Hassan,” he replied, “I can no otherwise give life or happiness than by not taking them away: thou art thyself beyond the reach of my bounty, and possessed of felicity which I can neither communicate nor obtain.—My influence over others fills my bosom with perpetual solicitude and anxiety; and yet my influence over others extends only to their vices, whether I would reward or punish. By the bow-string, I can repress violence and fraud; and by the delegation of my power, I can transfer the insatiable wishes of avarice and ambition from one object to another; but with respect to virtue, I am impotent: if I could reward it, I would reward it in thee. Thou art content, and hast therefore neither avarice nor ambition: to exalt thee, would destroy the simplicity of thy life, and diminish that happiness which I have no power either to increase or continue.” He then rose up, and, commanding me not to disclose his secret, departed.
As soon as I recovered from the confusion and astonishment in which the Calif left me, I began to regret that my behaviour had intercepted his bounty; and accused of folly, that cheerfulness which was the concomitant of poverty and labour. I now repined at the obscurity of my station, which my former insensibility had perpetuated: I neglected my labour, because I despised the reward; I spent the day in idleness, forming romantic projects to recover the advantages which I had lost; and at night, instead of losing myself in that sweet and refreshing sleep, from which I used to rise with new health, cheerfulness, and vigour, I dreamt of splendid habits and a numerous retinue, of gardens, palaces, eunuchs, and women, and waked only to regret the illusions that had vanished. My health was at length impaired by the inquietude of my mind; I sold all my moveables for subsistence: and reserved only a mattrass, upon which I sometimes lay from one night to another.
THE STORY OF OMAR.
(CONCLUDED.)
In the first moon of the following year, the Calif came again to Mecca, with the same secrecy, and for the same purposes. He was willing once more to see the man, whom he considered as deriving felicity from himself. But he found me, not singing at my work, ruddy with health, and vivid with cheerfulness; but pale and dejected, sitting on the ground, and chewing opium, which contributed to substitute the phantoms of imagination for the realities of greatness. He entered with a kind of joyful impatience in his countenance, which, the moment he beheld me, was changed to a mixture of wonder and pity. I had often wished for another opportunity to address the Calif; yet I was confounded at his presence, and throwing myself at his feet, I laid my hand upon my head, and was speechless. “Hassan,” said he, “what canst thou have lost, whose wealth was the labour of thy own hand; and what can have made thee sad, the spring of whose joy was in thy own bosom?—What evil has befallen thee? Speak, and if I can remove it, thou art happy.” I was now encouraged to look up, and I replied, “Let my Lord forgive the presumption of his servant, who rather than utter a falsehood, would be dumb for ever. I am become wretched by the loss of that which I never possessed: thou hast raised wishes which indeed I am not worthy thou shouldst satisfy: but why should it be thought, that he who was happy in obscurity and indigence, would not have been rendered more happy by eminence and wealth?”
When I had finished this speech, Almalic stood some moments in suspense, and I continued prostrate before him. “Hassan,” said he, “I perceive, not with indignation but regret, that I mistook thy character; I now discover avarice and ambition in thy heart, which lay torpid only because their objects were too remote to rouse them. I cannot, therefore, invest thee with authority, because I would not subject my people to oppression; and because I would not be compelled to punish thee for crimes which I first enabled thee to commit.
“But as I have taken from thee that which I cannot restore, I will at least gratify the wishes that I excited, lest thy heart accuse me of injustice, and thou continue still a stranger to thyself. Arise, therefore, and follow me.” I sprung from the ground as it were with the wing of an eagle; I kissed the hem of his garment in an extasy of gratitude and joy; and when I went from my house, my heart leaped as if it had escaped from the den of a lion. I followed Almalic to the caravansary in which he lodged; and after he had fulfilled his vows, he took me with him to Medina. He gave me an apartment in the seraglio; I was attended by his own servants; my provisions were sent from his own table; and I received every week a sum from his treasury, which exceeded the most romantic of my expectations. But I soon discovered, that no dainty was so tasteful, as the food to which labour procured an appetite; no slumbers so sweet as those which weariness invited; and no time so well enjoyed, as that in which diligence is expecting its reward. I remembered these enjoyments with regret; and while I was sighing in the midst of superfluities, which though they encumbered life, yet I could not give up, they were suddenly taken away.
Almalic, in the midst of the glory of his kingdom, and in the full vigour of his life, expired suddenly in the bath; such, thou knowest, was the destiny which the Almighty had written upon his head.
His son Aububeker, who succeeded to the throne, was incensed against me, by some who regarded me at once with contempt and envy: he suddenly withdrew my pension, and commanded that I should be expelled the palace; a command which my enemies executed with so much rigour, that within twelve hours I found myself in the streets of Medina, indigent and friendless, exposed to hunger and derision, with all the habits of luxury, and all the sensibility of pride. O! let not thy heart despise me, thou whom experience hast not taught, that it is misery to lose that which it is not happiness to possess. O! that for me, this lesson had not been written on the tablets of Providence! I have travelled from Medina to Mecca: but I cannot fly from myself. How different are the states in which I have been placed! The remembrance of both is bitter; for the pleasures of neither can return. Hassan, having thus ended his story, smote his hands together, and looking upwards, burst into tears.
Omar, having waited till this agony was past, went to him, and taking him by the hand, “My son,” said he, “more is yet in thy power than Almalic could give, or Aububeker take away. The lesson of thy life the Prophet has in mercy appointed me to explain.
“Thou wast once content with poverty and labour, only because they were become habitual, and ease and affluence were placed beyond thy hope; for when ease and affluence approached thee, thou wast content with poverty and labour no more. That which then became the object, was also the bound of thy hope; and he, whose utmost hope is disappointed, must inevitably be wretched. If thy supreme desire had been the delights of Paradise, and thou hadst believed that by the tenor of thy life these delights had been secured, as more could not have been given thee, thou wouldst not have regretted that less was not offered. The content which was once enjoyed was but the lethargy of the soul; and the distress which is now suffered, will but quicken it to action. Depart, therefore, and be thankful for all things: put thy trust in Him, who alone can gratify the wish of reason, and satisfy the soul with good: fix thy hope upon that portion, in comparison of which the world is as the drop of the bucket, and the dust of the balance. Return, my son, to thy labour; thy food shall be again tasteful, and thy rest shall be sweet: to thy content also will be added stability, when it depends not upon that which is possessed upon earth, but upon that which is expected in Heaven.”
Hassan, upon whose mind the Angel of instruction impressed the counsel of Omar, hastened to prostrate himself in the temple of the Prophet. Peace dawned upon his mind like the radiance of the morning: he returned to his labour with cheerfulness; his devotion became fervent and habitual: and the latter days of Hassan were happier than the first.