Richard's character presented a singularity in the Levant, wondered at by all, condemned by many, approved of or not by those who would suffer or rejoice under his rule. He was a perfectly honest man—I do not allude only to money. His enemies rejoiced at it, his friends trembled for him, whilst indifferents were only astounded at his folly. An attempt was made to console him with the hazy promise of a future, which seemed, however, rather to consist in the good opinion of good men than in anything tangible or useful. For him, truth to a principle meant self-annihilation. He had always done the noble thing, and now, because he did those noble things, he was virtually regarded as unfit for the very employment for which God and Nature and his own life had peculiarly fitted him.
My old friend Charles Reade told us that "in less than two hundred years the first stone of honesty in biography" will have to be laid, and then he proceeds to relate how his "hero and martyr" has been treated by the world; how he had earned the gold medal of the Humane Society twice, and the silver twelve times; how he has never received either, but is a blind and destitute old man, living in a chimney corner, deserted and forgotten by the world, and shunned by those he has saved; how his only public honour is being permitted to cross a certain bridge without paying the common toll, from whose waters beneath he has saved so many lives at the risk of his own. He describes his hero as one of Nature's gentlemen, fit company for an Emperor, a man without his fellow, who adorns our country. He was earning thirty shillings a week when charity towards his fellow-creatures induced him to throw away his sight for the public good, and the parish allows him three and sixpence a week. He tells us that he better deserves every order and decoration the State can bestow than does any gentleman or nobleman whose bosom is a constellation; "yet," he says proudly, "not a cross or ribbon has ever ascended from the vulgar level. Why? because," he adds, "this world, in the distribution of glory, is a heathen in spite of Christ, a fool in spite of Voltaire." I quote Charles Reade's story to show that nowadays England does not confer honour on merit in any class of life. The higher and lower orders share the same fate. Honours follow a certain red-tape routine, not noble deeds, and often mock their wearer; whilst many a noble brow looks up to heaven with patient, uncomplaining dignity, adorned only by God and Nature, and by a life of chivalrous actions. The English public are, however, seldom wrong when once they know the truth, and perhaps the best and truest honour is their good verdict.
Whilst here, we saw the Oriental papers every fortnight, and all the accounts we read of our old home were of "Arab raids, of insults to Europeans, of miserable, starving people, of sects killing one another in open day, of policemen firing recklessly into a crowd to wing a flying prisoner, and a general fusilade in the streets; of sacked villages, and plundered travellers." We read of Salahíyyeh spoken of as a "suburb of Damascus, which enjoys an unenviable reputation;" of innocent Salahíyyeh men being shot down by mistake for criminals, "because the people of Salahíyyeh are such confirmed ruffians, that they are sure to be either just going to do mischief or just returning from it." That is the place where for two or more years we slept with open doors and windows, and I freely walked about alone throughout the twenty-four hours, even when my husband was absent, and left with Moslem servants.
Having lifted any possible cloud which may have hung over the real history of Richard's removal from his Eastern post—the only suitable one he ever held—it is unnecessary for me to enter into any further explanation of the causes of the base detractions from which he has suffered. His case is not altogether a new one in the human history, and the true explanation—the only real explanation—of it, which can face the light of day, has been admirably expressed in the lines written by the most brilliant statesman the Foreign Office ever sent to the East—the "great Eltchi," whom I and all lovers of the Orient speak of with admiration, respect, and pride—Lord Stratford de Redcliffe—and which are applicable to Richard in every sense, except that, so far from ever "spurning the gaping crowd," he always sacrificed himself for the poor, the ignorant, and the oppressed.
"Nay, shines there one with brilliant parts endowed,
Whose inborn vigour spurns the gaping crowd?
For him the trench is dug, the toils are laid,
For him dull malice whets the secret blade.
One fears a master fatal to his ease,
Or worse, a rival born his age to please;
This dreads a champion for the cause he hates,
That fain would crush what shames his broad estates.
Leagued by their instincts, each to each is sworn;
High on their shields the simpering fool is borne."[11]
[1] Lord Granville, a courteous and easy-going peer, complaisant to the great and unmindful of the little officials, soon found an excuse to recall him. When he did recall him, he did so without the trial usually allowed to accused people to prove their guilt or innocence, or to defend themselves, and from that date began the ruin of Damascus and the visible and speedy decline of Syria.—I. B.
[2] Men who know the ground will know what that ride means over slippery boulders and black swamps in the dark.—I. B.