Persia and Turkey, tottering themselves, cannot protect her. The grand contest, commenced centuries ago, between the two hostile civilizations, between the sword of Mohammed and the cross of Christ, to-day touches its term. Of the different oriental tribes, these endeavor to revive themselves by the contact of our arts and sciences, those intrench themselves behind their mountains and their deserts; but these powerless barriers cannot hinder European activity from reaching them. They are, moreover, condemned to inevitable ruin by barbarism, superstition, and fatalism, which form the basis of their character and their creeds, the populations, bent under an implacable despotism, consider even the encroachments of Europeans as a benefit, their faith, moreover, delivers them without defence to misfortune, to tyranny, to the joke of the stranger, for it persuades them that an inflexible destiny, against which the will of man is powerless, rules the lot of individuals and nations. "Who can prevail agamst the Nasib?" said to Vambéry an unfortunate man whose wife and children had been carried off. "It was written!" replied the Mussulmans when their most beautiful provinces were snatched from them.
The European race, on the contrary, energetic and indefatigable, makes all obstacles yield before it; its science and industry transform nature into a docile instrument; difficulties stimulate its courage: "This sea I will cross," it cries; "I will level this mountain; this people, reputed invincible, I will subjugate." From antiquity it had raised upon its flag this proud device, which made the grandeur of the Roman world: "Audaces fortuna juvat." Afterward, Christianity, in elevating minds, and pouring upon all hearts sentiments of tenderness and charity heretofore unknown, brought new elements to this expansive force. It showed God respecting, even in their errors, the liberty of men; it showed the sacrifice of Jesus, this Son of the Most High come upon earth to suffer all griefs, yet voluntarily powerless to save man without his concurrence and his own participation. This noble morality not only regenerated consciences, it developed individual action, made known the value of the hidden force which we call the will, and contributed largely to the social and political progress of the western nations. At the same time, it is true, the Christian dogma preached resignation in sufferings, but this pious resignation resembles as little the oriental indolence as the calm of death resembles that of strength and health.
Such are the causes of European supremacy. The Asiatics, not less gifted by nature, have stifled, under the double influence of fatalism and a sensual morality, the germs of civilization which might have given them a durable life and glory. To-day, as we learn from the intrepid traveller who has penetrated into the very heart of Turkestan and returned again safe and sound, everything among them is in decay; their cities and institutions, alike, offer nothing but ruins.
From The Lamp,
UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.
CHAPTER I.
"Mr. Thorneley presents his compliments to Mr. John Kavanagh, and would feel obliged if he would call in Wimpole street this evening at seven o'clock. Mr. Thorneley wishes to have Mr. Kavanagh's professional assistance in a matter of business.
"100 Wimpole street, Cavendish Square,
"Oct. 23, 185--"
The above note lay amidst a heap of letters awaiting my return from a pleasant mountaineering tour among alps and glaciers, perpetual snows, and ice-bound passes. Yes, it had been in every sense of the word a delightful excursion, a real holiday to me,--me, a dusty, musty, hard-working lawyer, living in chambers, poring over parchments, and deeds, and matters dull and dry to all, save them whom those things concerned,--me, a middle-aged bachelor, a solitary man, with little of kith or kin left to surround my dying bed or follow my old bones to their grave. It was a renewal of youth and early days to climb those mountains, to face those majestic peaks, to scale those rugged passes, and feel the fresh clear air fanning my brow as I raised it to God's heaven above, whilst all that was of the world worldly seemed to lie beneath my feet. My two months' holiday and repose from labor, when I packed my modest portmanteau, locked up my papers, left my rooms to the care of clerk and laundress, and took my ticket at London Bridge for Dover or Boulogne, bound for Chamouni, Unterwalden, or the Simplon,--these eight weeks of pure enjoyment were the oasis in the desert of my life. But now, for this year at least, it was over. I was back to busy life again; to work and daily duty; to my calf-bound volumes, my inky table, my yellow sheets inscribed with the promises of one said party to another said party--how soon to be broken, God only knew--or the blue folio pages stating how this said man is to bully that said fellow man, and how there is to be war between two Christian beings, not to the knife, but to the bar, the judge, jury, prison, and future ruin of one or the other fellow heir to the great inheritance of a hereafter. I had returned to it all--this turmoil of strife and struggle, out of which quagmire I got my daily bread, like hundreds of others cruising in the same barque on the sea of life; and my table was heaped with the business correspondence that once more was to induct me into my ordinary avocations. There were communications from old clients about affairs of long standing, and familiar to me as my morning shave; and letters from new clients promising fresh labor and new grist to the mill, but I scanned them all with the same feeling of weariness and disgust--casting many a regretful thought to the scenes I had left behind me,--inclined to throw business, law, and clients wholesale and pell-mell into the Red Sea. It was in this frame of mind that I opened the above note, but as I read it, my ennui and lassitude gave place to the keenest interest and curiosity. That old Thorneley should send for me professionally, when I knew for certain that all his affairs were completely in the hands, and he entirely under the thumbs, of my highly-respected brother lawyers Smith and Walker, was enough to rouse one from a mesmeric sleep. Old Thorneley; who [{405}] lived like a hermit, never meddling with anything nor anybody; whose last intentions were supposed amongst us in Lincoln's Inn to be hermetically sealed up in a certain tin box, lodging at Messrs. Smith and Walker's; whose frugal house-keeping and simple taste could involve him in no pecuniary trouble,--what could he want with the professional advice of one who was almost a stranger to him, whose standing in the law was of much later date and whose clientage much less distinguished than that of the firm above mentioned, and who had been his legal advisers during his whole lifetime?
Again I referred to the note--"Oct. 23;"--the interview was asked for that very evening I looked at my watch--it was half-past six, the hour named, seven. Tired with travel and hungry as a hunter, I was little inclined to leave my cosy fire, my tender steak, my fragrant cup of bohea, my delicious plate of buttered toast, and face the raw air and mizzling rain of an autumnal evening at the beck of a man whose hand I had never shaken, at whose table I had never sat, and whose foot had never crossed my threshold. But curiosity and interest prevailed at last, and these were induced by two motives. 1. Thorneley was a millionaire--a man whose name Rothschild had not scorned on 'Change, and whose breath had once fluttered the money-markets of Europe. 2. And a far more powerful one,--he was the uncle of Hugh Atherton. O Hugh, best of friends, thou man of true and noble heart, if these pages ever meet your eyes, and you look back through the dim vista of intervening years, bear witness how mournfully I stand by the grave of our buried affection, opened on this night, how tenderly I touch the fragments of our wrecked friendship! and from your heart, O lost comrade and brother, believe that, whatever of pain lay between us two, severing our lives, no thought disloyal to you ever crossed my soul or shook the fealty of my honor and reverence. Hastily I despatched the meal, made a few changes in my dress, threw myself into the first hansom, and knocked at 100 Wimpole street, at five minutes past seven.