“I think he would be good-looking in any dress,” said Lothair. “A remarkable countenance.”
It was an oval visage, with features in harmony with that form; large dark-brown eyes and lashes, and brows delicately but completely defined; no hair upon the face except a beard, full but not long. He seemed about the same age as Mr. Phoebus, and his complexion, though pale, was clear and fair.
The conversation, after some rambling, had got upon the Suez Canal. Mr. Phoebus did not care for the political or the commercial consequences of that great enterprise, but he was glad that a natural division should be established between the greater races and the Ethiopian. It might not lead to any considerable result, but it asserted a principle. He looked upon that trench as a protest.
“But would you place the Nilotic family in the Ethiopian race?” inquired the Syrian in a voice commanding from its deep sweetness.
“I would certainly. They were Cushim, and that means negroes.”
The Syrian did not agree with Mr. Phoebus; he stated his views firmly and, clearly, but without urging them. He thought that we must look to the Pelasgi as the colonizing race that had peopled and produced Egypt. The mention of the Pelasgi fired Mr. Phoebus to even unusual eloquence. He denounced the Pelasgi as a barbarous race: men of gloomy superstitions, who, had it not been for the Hellenes, might have fatally arrested the human development. The triumph of the Hellenes was the triumph of the beautiful, and all that is great and good in life was owing to their victory.
“It is difficult to ascertain what is great in life,” said the Syrian, “because nations differ on the subject and ages. Some, for example, consider war to be a great thing, others condemn it. I remember also when patriotism was a boast, and now it is a controversy. But it is not so difficult to ascertain what is good. For man has in his own being some guide to such knowledge, and divine aid to acquire it has not been wanting to him. For my part I could not maintain that the Hellenic system led to virtue.”
The conversation was assuming an ardent character when the consul, as a diplomatist, turned the channel. Mr. Phoebus had vindicated the Hellenic religion, the Syrian, with a terse protest against the religion of Nature, however idealized, as tending to the corruption of man, had let the question die away, and the Divan were discussing dromedaries, and dancing-girls, and sherbet made of pomegranate, which the consul recommended and ordered to be produced. Some of the guests retired, and among them the Syrian with the same salute and the same graceful dignity as had distinguished his entrance.
“Who is that man?” said Mr. Phoebus. “I met him at Rome ten years ago. Baron Mecklenburg brought him to me to paint for my great picture of St. John, which is in the gallery of Munich. He said in his way—you remember his way—that he would bring me a face of Paradise.”
“I cannot exactly tell you his name,” said the consul. “Prince Galitzin brought him here, and thought highly of him. I believe he is one of the old Syrian families in the mountain; but whether he be a Maronite or a Druse, or any thing else, I really cannot say. Now try the sherbet.”