“It is also said that they discovered and first navigated the Atlantic Ocean, my Phœnicians; that they worked gold mines in the distant isle of Thasos and opened silver mines in the South and Southwest of Spain. In Africa, we know, they founded the colonies of Utica and Carthage. But we are told they went farther than this. And according to some historians, they rounded the Cape, they circumnavigated Africa. And according to recent discoveries made by an 140 American archæologist, they must have discovered America too! For in the ruins of the Aztecs of Mexico there are traces of a Phœnician language and religion. This, about the discovery of America, however, I can not verify with anything from Sanchuniathon. But might they not have made this discovery after the said Sanchuniathon had given up the ghost? And if they did, what can We, their worthless descendants do for them now? Ah, if we but knew the name of their Columbus! No, it is not practical to build a monument to a whole race of people. And yet, they deserve more than this from us, their descendants.
“These dealers in tin and amber, these manufacturers of glass and purple, these developers of a written language, first gave the impetus to man’s activity and courage and intelligence. And this activity of the industry and will is not dead in man. It may be dead in us Syrians, but not in the Americans. In their strenuous spirit it rises uppermost. After all, I must love the Americans, for they are my Phœnician ancestors incarnate. Ay, there is in the nature of things a mysterious recurrence which makes for a continuous, everlasting modernity. And I believe that the spirit which moved those brave sea-daring navigators of yore, is still working lustily, bravely, but alas, not joyously––bitterly, rather, selfishly, greedily––behind the steam engine, the electric motor, the plough, and in the clinic and the studio as in the Stock Exchange. That spirit in its real essence, however, is as young, as puissant to-day as it was when the native of Byblus first 141 struck out to explore the seas, to circumnavigate Africa, to discover even America!”
And what in the end might Khalid discover for us or for himself, at least, in his explorations of the Spirit-World? What Colony of the chosen sons of the young and puissant Spirit, on some distant isle beyond the seven seas, might he found? To what far, silent, undulating shore, where “a written language is the instrument only of the lofty expressions and aspirations of the soul” might he not bring us? What Cape of Truth in the great Sea of Mystery might we not be able to circumnavigate, if only this were possible of the language of man?
“Not with glass,” he exclaims, “not with tear-bottles, not with purple, not with a written language, am I now concerned, but rather with what those in Purple and those who make this written language their capital, can bring within our reach of the treasures of the good, the true, and the beautiful. I would fain find a land where the soul of man, and the heart of man, and the mind of man, are as the glass of my ancestors’ tear-bottles in their enduring quality and beauty. My ancestors’ tear-bottles, and though buried in the earth ten thousand years, lose not a grain of their original purity and transparency, of their soft and iridescent colouring. But where is the natural colour and beauty of these human souls, buried in bunks under hatches? Or of those moving in high-lacquered salons above?...
“O my Brothers of the clean and unclean species, of the scented and smelling kind, of the have and have-not 142 classes, there is but one star in this vague dusky sky above us, for you as for myself. And that star is either the last in the eternal darkness, or the first in the rising dawn. It is either the first or the last star of night. And who shall say which it is? Not the Church, surely, nor the State; not Science, nor Sociology, nor Philosophy, nor Religion. But the human will shall influence that star and make it yield its secret and its fire. Each of you, O my Brothers, can make it light his own hut, warm his own heart, guide his own soul. Never before in the history of man did it seem as necessary as it does now that each individual should think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger of Jannat or Juhannam.”
CHAPTER V
PRIESTO-PARENTAL
If we remember that the name of Khalid’s cousin is Najma (Star), the significance to himself of the sign spoken of in the last Chapter, is quite evident. But what it means to others remains to be seen. His one star, however, judging from his month’s experience in Baalbek, is not promising of Jannat. For many things, including parental tyranny and priestcraft and Jesuitism, will here conspire against the single blessedness of him, which is now seeking to double itself.
“Where one has so many Fathers,” he writes, “and all are pretending to be the guardians of his spiritual and material well-being, one ought to renounce them all at once. It was not with a purpose to rejoin my folk that I first determined to return to my native country. For, while I believe in the Family, I hate Familism, which is the curse of the human race. And I hate this spiritual Fatherhood when it puts on the garb of a priest, the three-cornered hat of a Jesuit, the hood of a monk, the gaberdine of a rabbi, or the jubbah of a sheikh. The sacredness of the Individual, not of the Family or the Church, do I proclaim. For Familism, or the propensity to keep under the same roof, as a social principle, out of fear, 144 ignorance, cowardice, or dependence, is, I repeat, the curse of the world. Your father is he who is friendly and reverential to the higher being in you; your brothers are those who can appreciate the height and depth of your spirit, who hearken to you, and believe in you, if you have any truth to announce to them. Surely, one’s value is not in his skin that you should touch him. Are there any two individuals more closely related than mother and son? And yet, when I Khalid embrace my mother, mingling my tears with hers, I feel that my soul is as distant from her own as is Baalbek from the Dog-star. And so I say, this attempt to bind together under the principle of Familism conflicting spirits, and be it in the name of love or religion or anything else more or less sacred, is in itself a very curse, and should straightway end. It will end, as far as I am concerned. And thou my Brother, whether thou be a son of the Morning or of the Noontide or of the Dusk,––whether thou be a Japanese or a Syrian or a British man––if thou art likewise circumstanced, thou shouldst do the same, not only for thine own sake, but for the sake of thy family as well.”