III
And then the victors fly upon the spoil! The repelling Word yields, and is found to contain wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. ‘I rejoice at Thy Word as one that findeth great spoil.’ Spoil! We have all felt the thrill of those tremendous pages in which Gibbon describes the sack of Rome by the all-victorious Goths. We seem to have witnessed [245] with our own eyes the glittering wealth of the queenly city poured at the feet of the rapacious conqueror. Or, in Prescott’s stately stories, we have watched the fabulous hoards of Montezuma, and the heaped-up gold of Atahuallpa, piled at the feet of Cortes and Pizarro. Or if, forsaking the shining spoils of the Goths in Europe and the gleaming argosies which the Spaniards brought from the West, we turn to a later date and an Eastern clime, we instinctively recall the glowing periods of Macaulay in his story of the conquests of Clive. After his amazing victory at Plassey, ‘the treasury of Bengal was thrown open to him. There were piled up, after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses of coin. Clive walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to help himself. He accepted between two and three hundred thousand pounds.’ He was afterwards accused of greed. He replied by describing the countless wealth by which he was that day surrounded. Vaults piled with gold and with jewels were at his mercy. ‘To this day,’ he exclaimed, ‘I stand astonished at my own moderation!’
Here, then, is the magic key that opens to us the secret in the psalmist’s mind. ‘I rejoice at Thy Word as one that findeth great spoil.’ The besiegers pour into the city. Every house is ransacked. In the most unlikely places the citizens have concealed [246] their treasures, and in the most unlikely places, therefore, the invaders come upon their spoils. Out from queer old drawers and cupboards, out of strange old cracks and crannies, the precious hoard is torn. As the besiegers rush from house to house you hear the shout and the laughter with which another and yet another find is greeted. So was it with his conquest of the Word, the psalmist tells us. At first it resisted and repelled him. But afterwards its gates were opened to his challenge. He entered the city and began his search for spoil. And, lo, from out of every promise and precept, out of every innocent-looking clause or insignificant phrase, the treasures of truth came pouring, until he found himself possessed at length of a wealth compared with which the pomp of princes is the badge of beggary.
[247]
V
A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK
‘“What course of lectures are you attending now, ma’am?” said Martin Chuzzlewit’s friend, turning again to Mrs. Jefferson Brick.
‘“The Philosophy of the Soul, on Wednesdays,” replied Mrs. Brick.
‘“And on Mondays?”
‘“The Philosophy of Crime.”
‘“On Fridays?”