TO NATURE
O Mother eternal, divine, satanic, all encompassing, all-nourishing, all-absorbing, O star-diademed, pearl-sandaled Goddess, I am thine forever and ever: whether as a child of thy womb, or an embodiment of a spirit-wave of thy light, or a dumb blind personification of thy smiles and tears, or an ignis-fatuus of the intelligence that is in thee or beyond thee, I am thine forever and ever: I come to thee, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. O touch me with thy wand divine again; stir me once more in thy mysterious alembics; remake me to suit the majestic silence of thy hills, the supernal purity of thy sky, the mystic austerity of thy groves, the modesty of thy slow-swelling, soft-rolling streams, the imperious pride of thy pines, the wild beauty and constancy of thy mountain rivulets. Take me in thine arms, and whisper to me of thy secrets; fill my senses with thy breath divine; show me the bottom of thy terrible spirit; buffet me in thy storms, infusing in me of thy ruggedness and strength, thy power and grandeur; lull me in thine autumn sun-downs to teach me in the arts that enrapture, exalt, supernaturalise. Sing me a lullaby, O Mother eternal! Give me to drink of thy love, divine and diabolic; thy cruelty and thy kindness, I accept both, if thou wilt but whisper to me the secret of both. Anoint me with the chrism of spontaneity that I may be ever worthy of thee.––Withdraw not from me thy hand, lest universal love and sympathy die in my breast.––I implore thee, O Mother eternal, O sea-throned, heaven-canopied Goddess, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. And whether I be to-morrow the censer in the hand of thy High Priest, or the incense in the censer,––whether I become a star-gem in thy cestus or a sun in thy diadem or even a firefly in thy fane, I am content. For I am certain that it shall be for the best.––Khalid.
CHAPTER I
THE DOWRY OF DEMOCRACY
Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq, generally have a broad margin wherein a separate work, independent of the text, adds gloom to the page. We have before us one of these tomes in which the text treats of the ethics of life and religion, and the margins are darkened with certain adventures which Shahrazad might have added to her famous Nights. The similarity between Khalid’s life in its present stage and some such book, is evident. Nay, he has been so assiduous in writing the marginal Work, that ever since he set fire to his peddling-box, we have had little in the Text worth transcribing. Nothing, in fact; for many pages back are as blank as the evil genius of Bohemia could wish them. And how could one with that mara upon him, write of the ethics of life and religion?
Al-Hamazani used to say that in Jorajan the man from Khorasan must open thrice his purse: first, to pay for the rent; second, for the food; and third, for his coffin. And so, in Khalid’s case, at least, is Bohemia. For though the purse be not his own, he was paying dear, and even in advance, in what is dearer than gold, for his experience. “O, that the Devil did not take such interest in the marginal work of our 100 life! Why should we write it then, and for whom? And how will it fare with us when, chapfallen in the end and mortified, we stand before the great Task-Master like delinquent school boys with a blank text in our hands?” (Thus Shakib, who has caught the moralising evil from his Master.) And that we must stand, and fall, for thus standing, he is quite certain. At least, Khalid is. For he would not return to the Text to make up for the blank pages therein, if he were not.
“When he returned from his last sojourn in Bohemia,” writes our Scribe, “Khalid was pitiful to behold. Even Sindbad, had he seen him, would have been struck with wonder. The tears rushed to my eyes when we embraced; for instead of Khalid I had in my arms a phantom. And I could not but repeat the lines of Al-Mutanabbi,
“So phantom-like I am, and though so near,
If I spoke not, thou wouldst not know I’m here.”