[135]. Koran iv. 81, “Whatever good betideth thee is from God, and whatever betideth thee of evil is from thyself”: rank manichæism is pronounced as any in Christendom.
[136]. Arab. “Zukhruf” which Mr. Payne picturesquely renders “painted gawds.”
[137]. It is the innate craving in the “Aryan” (Iranian, not the Turanian) mind, this longing to know what follows Death, or if nothing follow it, which accounts for the marvellous diffusion of the so-called Spiritualism which is only Swedenborgianism systematised and carried out into action, amongst nervous and impressionable races like the Anglo-American. In England it is the reverse; the obtuse sensitiveness of a people bred on beef and beer has made the “Religion of the Nineteenth Century” a manner of harmless magic, whose miracles are table-turning and ghost seeing whilst the prodigious rascality of its prophets (the so-called Mediums) has brought it into universal disrepute. It has been said that Catholicism must be true to co-exist with the priest and it is the same with Spiritualism proper, by which I understand the belief in a life beyond the grave, a mere continuation of this life; it flourishes (despite the Medium) chiefly because it has laid before man the only possible and intelligible idea of a future state.
[138]. See vol. vi. p. [7]. The only lie which degrades a man in his own estimation and in that of others, is that told for fear of telling the truth. Au reste, human society and civilised intercourse are built upon a system of conventional lying; and many droll stories illustrate the consequences of disregarding the dictum, la vérité n’est pas toujours bonne à dire.
[139]. Arab. “Walí’ahd” which may mean heir-presumptive (whose heirship is contingent) or heir-apparent.
[140]. Arab. “Yá abati” = O my papa (which here would sound absurd).
[141]. All the texts give a decalogue; but Mr. Payne has reduced it to a heptalogue.
[142]. The Arabs who had a variety of anæsthetics never seem to have studied the subject of “euthanasia.” They preferred seeing a man expire in horrible agonies to relieving him by means of soporifics and other drugs: so I have heard Christians exult in saying that the sufferer “kept his senses to the last.” Of course superstition is at the bottom of this barbarity; the same which a generation ago made the silly accoucheur refuse to give ether because of the divine (?) saying “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” (Gen. iii. 16). In the Bosnia-Herzegovina campaign many of the Austrian officers carried with them doses of poison to be used in case of being taken prisoners by the ferocious savages against whom they were fighting. As many anecdotes about “Easing off the poor dear” testify, the Euthanasia-system is by no means unknown to the lower classes in England. I shall have more to say on this subject.
[143]. See vol. iii. p. [253] for the consequences of royal seclusion of which Europe in the present day can contribute examples. The lesson which it teaches simply is that the world can get on very well without royalties.
[144]. The grim Arab humour in the text is the sudden change for the worse of the good young man. Easterns do not believe in the Western saw, “Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.” The spirited conduct of the subjects finds many parallels in European history, especially in Portugal: see my Life of Camoens p. 234.