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EASTERN FRUIT ON WESTERN DISffES.

THE MOEALS

ABOU BEN i^ DHEM.

Edited by p. R. Locke

(Pbtrolxum v. Nasbt),

** Whatever sceptic cotild inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore."

HUDIBKAS.

TORONTO ;

BELFOBD BROTHERS.
1876.

Property of the Library

ripw-

HUNTBR, ROSK & Co.,

Printkrs.

WHOSE DIBIirrBRESTED SBBVICBS IN CABINO FOB

MY WIFE

i DURING BSVBN OBITIOAL PERIODS,

AND LIKHWIBB ■

OARING FOR SEVEN CHILDREN

DURINO >

TEETHING, MEASLES, MXJMte, SCARLATINA, AND OTHE^piSEABES
INCIDENTAL TO CHILDHOOD,

RBOBIVINO THBRBFOR

ONLY WHAT SHE ATE;

MERIT NOT ONLY PRAISE BUT ADMIRATION,

AND ■ • •**

WHOSE LEAVING MT HOUSE, UMBRELLA AND ALL, ALWAYS AT THE

PRECISE TIME WHEN THERE WAS NO MORE HARD WORK

TO DO, WAS CONSIDERATION ITSELF,

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. *

• /■

AS THE LEAST THAT I CAN DO IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT,
SWEARING, HOWEVER, NEVER TO FORGET HER,

While Catnip blooms, Soothing byrup is mfvde,
And Reason holds its throne.

Uahoh 16, 1876.

The Editor,

CONTEIfJTS.

Introduction . . . . . . .

I. The Ambitious Young Man . .17

11. Thb Faithlessness of Woman . . . . 27

III. A Persian in the Government .... 35

IV. The Value op a Life . . . 42
V. The Young Man of Cairo 49

VI. The Tenacity of Love 61

VII. The Discontented Peasant . . . .68

Vin. The Lost Maiden of Ispahan . . . 76

IX. The Inutility of Truth 87

X. The Shadowy Nature of Fame . . .95

XI. How TO WIN Success in Literature . . . loi

XII. The Wise Old Rat 109

XIII. Wealth . . . 117

XTV. The Philosophy of Eoab 124

XV. Trie Danger that lies in the Naming of Chil-
dren AFTER Great Men . . ... 131

XVI. Old Times and New ...... 136

XVIL The Utility of Death . . ... . 143

. /

'r.

PAOE.
. 9

XVIII.

XIX.
XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

CONTENtd.

PAOI

. 160

A Vision of tha Hbrbaftbr

RSMOBSB, THE NaTUKE OF THE AVBBAOE AbTIOLB 166

A Lesson for Husbands . . . . . 162
The Shortest Road to Fame .... 172
The HiBtory of Zodiac, Queen of Persia . . 189
The Story of Jobba, the Avarioious . . .187

Two Obituaries . 195

The Fidelity of Zamora 202

The Amateur Drama in Phobnixvillb . . 209

The Struoole of Kodosh 216

The Disappearance of the Sagk .... 221

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INTRODUCTION.

« ♦.

MANY years ago a man of sad aspect, of more than
owlish solemnity, and of ponderous gravity, made
his appearance in the village of — I will not give its name
— in the old and honored State of New Jersey.

Many men have, at divers times, made their appearance
in that same village, albeit i^ is remote from railroads, but
never a man like this one.

He was a tall, spare man; with a pale, thoughtful face, a
full beard as white as the driven snow, aong white hair
descending in great masses to his very shoulders, keen,
piercing black eyes, which had the peculiar faculty^ of
taking in everything in range, thin lips drawn tightly
over white and shining teeth, and a sallow, hollow face
that gave one the impression that the flesh that should
' be there had been wasted by days of denial and nights of
study. ^ - '

Peculiar as was the physique of this man, his outward
garb was more so. He did not wear the garments of the
ordinary New Jersey man ; in fact, his attire was of a
style totally unknown in that region. On his head he

INTRODUCTION.

woro a voluminouB turban of white, and his only other
outward garment was a flowing robe of a black material
that dropped to his slippered feet, confined at, the waist
by a plain leathern belt.

The appearance of such a figure, so clad, did, as wan
natural, create a positive sensation in an interior village of
New Jersey. Only in moral circuses or instructive men-
ageries had a mortal so garbed ever been seen in that
vicinity.

But if his appearance was an astonishment to the peo-
ple, the announcement he made concerning himself was
still more so. When Jabez Pettingill, the landlord of the
Eagle Hotel (at which the mysterious stranger took his
abode), asked his name, he replied, —

" Abou ben Adhem."

" Aboo been what ? " was the reply of the astounded
Boniface.

" Abou ben Adhem, I say. I am a Persian, a philoso-
pher and magician. I am the possessor of secrets unknown
to xsommon men. I possess the power of prolongation of
life, the secret of eternal youth, and of the transmutation
of metals. I was born before Noah. I have seen the
empires of the ancient world rise, fall, and decay; I
have—"

Mr. Pettingill at this point uttered a howl of conster-
nation, and rushed to the room of his wife, who, having
seen the stranger enter, was on the very crown and sum-
mit of exp3ctant curiosity.

" Who is he ? " she demanded.

INTRODUCTION.

*• I ain't certin," replied the puzzled landlord, " whether
it's Melchisedek or Abimelech ; but — well he sez he wuz
bom afore Noer, and kin transmute metals."

*• Jabez," returned Mrs. Pettingill, " see to it that he
transmutes metal, and good metal too, afore he gits a
thing to eat in this house. Sich men pay in advance
they do."

Alas for genius ! Plodding dullards go on quietly on
credit ; only aspiring genius is required to pay in ad-
vance. Why is this ? Is it because genius never stoops
to matters of money ? Is it because plodding has in it the
elements of money-making ? I do not know. There are
several things that I do not know. Pay in advance !
What crushing words to him who has not the wherewithal
to pay. How much of genius those cruel, cruel words
have mashed ! Homer begged his bread, Goldsmith often
suflered for food, and I — but I will not complain. This
is a cold world.

The speech of the stranger had its effect, as did his sub-
sequent action. He purchased a tract of land in a lonely
locality outside the village, and erected thereon a house.
This was, he sn-id, in deference to the horrible climate ;
and he dwelt in ix, in the winter, though in the summer
he lived mostly in a tent which he erected on the lawn in
front. ^ •

From the beginning his movements were closely ob-
served, and excited great surprise. The man himself, his
surroundings and his methods, were all of a nature to pro-
voke remark and comment. The curious villagers would

INTRODUCTION.

lurk about his lonely dwelling in the night, and watch
him as closely as though they had been paid for the ser-
vice. Paid ! Curiosity will do more than pay. Men
hovered about that house rainy nights, for nothing, who
could not have been induced to do anything useful at such
a time for any money.

They reported that they had seen him gazing at the
heavens all night, through a telescope ; that he had been
seen all the night long watching with great interest " a
pot b'ilin' on a furnis," with other equally mysterious and
startling occupations.

One man, more daring than his fellows, actually forced
his way into the house, and was horrified at the array of
grinning skulls and ghastly skeletons that confronted
him ; and in a laboratory he saw a furnace, with metal
that had been melted scattered about it, and on the walls
a vast variety of stuffed birds, lizards, alligatoi's, and every-
thing else that was horrible.

I, the editor of these pages, was the only one to whom
the mysterious stranger extended anything like con-
fidence. A lucky accident brought us together, and hav-
ing been of signal service to him, he tolerated me to a
certain extent. He was reticent and guarded, but I had
opportunities of studying him which others had not. He
invited me to his house, and in his living-room would
converse with me for hours ; but into his laboratory I was
never permitted to go.

To my shame be it said, I once permitted my curiosity
to get the better of me, and taking advantage of his ab-

INTRODUCTION.

sence, I did, one day, make my way into the forbidden
rooms. I did not find a telescope, but I did find a paste-
board imitation of one, which to the goggle-eyed villagei*s
answered as well. I found the skulls and skeletons to be
precisely such as itinerant lecturers on phrenology and
physiology use for illustration, and the " pot b'ilin' " was
a crucible which bore evidence of having been frequently
used. I picked up a piece of metal which looked marvel-
lously like an imitation of the nickel five-cent piece now
in circulation, from which I inferred that my Oriental
friend did have some knowledge of the transmutation of
metals, but that he confined his efforts to the baser and
more common kinds.

Then I found packages of letters in the room that read
queerly to one who was asked to believe in the Orientalism
of the stranger. Many of these letters were addressed to
" Zephania Scudder," and were postmarked at a village in
Maine, and were signed, "Your distrest wife, Mariar."

Others were from various other parties, and relate ^. to
lecturing on a vast range of subjects, extending from
Millerism to horse-taming ; there were letters that indi-
cated that the party to whom they were addressed had
sailed under various aliases, and had been in turn a teaoher
of dancing, of singing, had been a dentist, a speculator in
almost everything, had edited a newspaper, had been- a
preacher, and, I am sorry to say, had gone from wild-cat
banking to the twin business of counterfeiting.

Possibly I should have investigated to the point of con-
cluding that his present garb and professions had been

INTRODUCTION.

put on to conceal some pursuit not altogether lawful, had
not his return put an end to my examinations, if not to my
conjectures.

Another reason why I doubted his Oriental origin was
his rather queer use of names. In relating his histories I
observed that the names he used were only such as are
found in that marvellous book, " The Arabian Nights'
Tales," which book I noticed in his library. When he
spoke of money, T was astonished that I had never read of
such coins in my encyclopsedias. and his geographical in-
formation was of a most perplexing kind. ''

But if he was an impostor, his imposture was a very
safe one, for his auditors knew as little of Persia as he
did.

But no matter who or what he was, he impressed the
people with awe for a distance of twenty miles around,
which is rather a wide-spread reputation. I had my
opinion of him, but the people had quite another. They
believed in him, and regarded him with wonder. An
empty barrel looks just as full as a full one, and may pass
for a full one if you keep far enough away from the bung.
I had got close to the bung ; they had not. The world is
full of empty barrels.

But, believing in him, the villagers came to him for ad-
vice and counsel on all conceivable subjects, and he always
gave it freely.

They believed all that he said of himself, because, I
suppose, he said it. They admitted his claim, because he
claimed it, which is the most common thing in life.

INTRODUCTION.

Plain John Smith has no credit as plain John Smith ; but
let John Smith buy a safe, and rent an office to put it in,
and put up a sign, the legend whereof shall be " John
Smith, Banker," and people make haste to deposit with
him. They know nothing as to his responsibility or his
integrity : a banker should be a man of integrity and res-
ponsibility, and as John Smith adds " Banker " to his
name, they take it for granted that he has both these requi-
sites ; and the fact that he promptly breaks up and goes
to Europe with their money does not prevent Thomas
Brown from doing the same thing next year. So as this
singular being claimed to be Abou ben Adhem, a Persian,
and a philosopher and magician as well, and by his tele-
scope, skulls, and peculiar dress put up a sign to that ef-
fect, the people of the locality accepted it all in childlike
trust.

The discourses which follow this introduction I heard
with my own ears, and put upon paper afterward. The
stranger preferred to have me sitting by him when he
received calls of this nature.

There will be found much that is good in them, — indeed,
I have myself been benefited largely by them. I found
his advice, as a rule, sound, aiid with all that relates to
the virtues and graces I have lived in strict accordance,
as my neighbors will testify. And I have discovered by
actual experience that real happiness can only be found
in the exercise of the strictest virtue. < .; ? \

The Editor

Septkmbeu 15, 1874.

^•'-••<^:,\'

lam

[OMLS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

THE AMBITIOUS YOUNG MAN.

BOU BEN ADHEM, the Seer of New Jersey, was
sitting one morning in front of his tent, meditating,
was his wont, when a young man of prepossessing ap-
sarance and good address, but whose travel-stained habili-
lents bespoke a long distance travelled, appeared before
dm.

" Do I stand before Abou ben Adhem, the Seer, whose

fame has extended even unto the northern counties, where

do dwell, and whose name all men pronounce with awe

md fear and respect, and such ? " asked the ingenuous

'^outh.

" I am Abou ben Adhem," replied the original modestly.

f" What wouldst thou with me ? "

*' Mighty Abou," returned the youth, bowing three times
bill his nose clave the sand, as is the custom of the Orien-
ils, " I have walked many weary miles to crave a boon."

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" Speak on. The tongue of the suppliant never wags
to me in vain."

" Mighty Abou, I have wasted my life thus for, selling
goods in a country store ; but I have a soul that loathes
calico, and soars above molasses and mackerel. I would
BE OBEAT ! All things are easy to thee : put me, I pray
thee, in the way to achieve fame."

" Fame ! My son, you are to be pitied. Take my ad-
vice, go home to your calico and molasses, and be content.
Fame is a delusion. He is happiest who knows the least
and is the least known. The wise man hates himself, be-
cause he only knows what a consummate ass he is, — which
is not cheerful for him. I have been powerful and mighty ;
I did once own the cattle on a thousand hills ; I owned
half the stock of the Ispahan and Cashmere Railway ; I
was thrice in the Legislature of my State, and enjoyed all
that belonged to a legitimate Persian ambition, but it was
hollow ! hoPow ! hollow ! At the time I was at the height
of my grandeur I would have exchanged it all for gross
ignorance ; gladly would I have been aa Ethiop, who is
made happy by the undisputed possession of a warm fence-
comer and a bottle of the strong waters of the Franks,
that can be procured for a dirhem. Tell me, into what
particularly thorny path does your ambition lead you ?
Wouldst be poet, politician, or conqueror ? "

" Mighty Abou, I would be a politician. I would mix
in public affairs, and leave a name to posterity."

" Posterity ! " said Abou, bitterly. " Would being gov-
ernor satisfy your ambition ? "

SfORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

it never wags

" Governor I Qreat heavens ! That's higher than my
jwildest hopes reach." ,,,;>.+

" Are you a young man of ordmary intelligence ? Did
rour parents take their, county newspaper ? "
" Yes^ great prophet."

" How many governors of New Jersey canst name to
[me ? "

" All of them, great Sage. There's Governor Parker,

[who is governor now, and before him was — that is — Gov-

jernor — ^what's his name — Governor — " , ,? . .

" Young man, you see what fame is. In two years you

[will forget the name of the present governor. It would

[take five volumes to write the biography of Gen. Grant

[at this time ; in twenty years oile volume will ariswer ; in

a hundred, one volume will do for all the generals of that

[unpleasantness, on both sides; and in three hundred,

[there will be a couple of lines in an encyclopaedia in which

[Grant's name will be spelled wrong, and he will be put

[down as having been born in New York instead of

Ohio." >/>P

Abou paused, and took a draught of sherbet.

" Listen to me, young man. You are not the first who

I has preferred this request, nor will you be the last. Four

centuries ago a young man came to me, as you have done,

and asked of me what you have asked. I determined to

j grant his request, for methought he would be taught only

by experience. I passed my magic wand three times over

his head, and his whole appearance changed ; his voice

became pompous, his eyes sank back into his head, his eye-

MOR/LLS OF ABO(J BEN ADflEM.

?jrow3 became bushy, his lips became thick, and his abdo-
men increased in siie. He departed and I wl.. alone.

*' Five years elapsed, and again he stood before me.

" * Mighty Abou,' said the ambitious youth, * thy work
was well done. I have been member of the council and
governor of my province, and still further promotion is
before me. But I am not satisfied : I see men wield with
money a power which I cannot with the arts of the poli-
tician, and they seem to find in that a happiness which I
cannot in my pursuits. Qreat Abou, make me a money-
king like Dan-el-droo, or Ja-Qoold, or Stoo-art, or Tom-
scot, or any of those mighty men.* j

" Once again I waved my wand over him, saying, ' Again
I grant thee thy absurd requ 3st. Qo, and bother me no
more.'

" \nd again the young man changed : his eyes turned
to a cold gray ; his head became narrow and long, his lips
thin and bloodless, and his fingei*s long and constantly
clasping at something.

" Five yaars rolled by, and the young man stood before
me again.

" ' Mighty Abou, I have realized all that I hoped for and
more. Everything I have touched has prospered with me.
I went into stock-raising : my cows took premiums at
state and county fairs. I married the only child of a re-
tired physician whose sands of life had nearly run out;
and he was accommodating enough to die a month there-
after, making me his sole executor. I was elected trea-
surer of a life insurance company. I speculated in oil

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

stood before

[stocks, and sold out when they were 200. I bought oil
(lands, and my wells always flowed. I was appointed ex-
lecutor of no less than nine large estates, the heirs to which
[were all infant females. I speculated in gold and railroad
stocks. I busted the Ispahan wheat operators, and am to-
lay counted the coming man ; but — '

" ' But what ? ' I said. * Art not satisfied ?' "

"'Satisfied? Alas, no! After all. what is wealth?
[What are stocks and lands and tenements? Nothing.
[My soul yearns for something higher.' "

'•'What wouldst thou be ? What is thy next whim ?'

"'I would be famous in literature. I would write for
[the newspapers and magazines. I would have my name
)n the dead walls in big letters and in many colors. I
[would have tho populace say, "There goes the author
[of — say, 'The Rival Plug Uglies,'" I would — but you
[know what I would.' ? ^

" Again I gratified liim. I passed my wand over his
[head four times, — it takes one more pass to transform a
man into a litterateur than it does for anything else, —
and he went out from the presence in a seedy blaci^ coat,
[with an expansive forehead and dreamy eyes, and a turn-
lover collar, smoking a meerschaum in an abstracted man-
(ner.

*'Five years roHed around, and again the young ma,n
[appeared.

"•'What!' said I, 'you here again ? What wouldst thou
[now? Three times have I granted thy wishes ; three
times have T given thee the means to make thyself happy,

MOBALB OF ABOIJ BEN ADHEM.

I r I I

as thou supposedst. Art satisfied ? dost thy yearning soul
still yearn ? Speak ! or forever hold thy peace.'
* "'Mighty Abou ! I would crave something, but I know
not what. I have been successful in literature^ as I was
in politics and money. I have made myself a name and
fame. I have won distinction and worn it. My poems
are pronounced sweet; my plays are acted, and d|:aw
houses ; my novels are read from Greenland's icy moun-
tains to Indians coral strand, and my histories are text-
books. But what of it ? Each step I took I felt an in-
ward dissatisfaction with what I left behind ; my increase
in knowledge was just sufficient to show me what an
egregious ass I was ; and if I gained a step in the appre-

> ciation of the Beautiful, the satisfaction was poisoned by
the thought that there were Heights I could not climb
and depths I could not sound. I pined for immortality,
and once methought I had attained it, and I would cease
my labors and rest on my laurels. For a month I did
nothing, and the public promptly forgot that there ever
had been such a person. The bill-poster went blithely

" fortfi, and over the posters which had my name on them
he plastered others announcing a new name. I was
buried alive. What, thought I, is fame, when it's at the
mercy of a bill-sticker ? And when in the zenith of my
glory, it was gilded misery. I opened letters by the
bushel, from the Lord knows who, inviting me to lecture
for the benefit of the Lord knows what, and they did not
enclose postage-stamps to prepay replies. I spent one
half my time in sending autographs to m^ admirers ; and

MOR.'L8 OF ABOU BKN AUHEM.

the other half and all my money in sending photographs
to people who have shoved them out of their albums long
since to make room for the next famous man. And this
is fame! Ha! ha!* . ,>. , » h. •

" And the young man stamped his feet, and tore several «
large handsful of hair from his head, which he should not
have done, for severe labor and bad habits had made
him nearly bald already. _ ..

. " Then I spoke and said, —

" * My son, I knew in advance what would come of the
favors I have granted thee. Wealth, political prefer-
ment, and literary fame are three of the most unsatisfac-
tory styles of lunacy mankind is afflicted with. Had I .
been angry with you, I should have married you to an
old widow with money ; but I chose, rather, to let you
run the several courses you selected. All men, my son,
are on a road which begins with the cradle and ends with
the grave. In most instances, the world would be the
better were the distance between the two shorter ; but I
waive that. Flitting before as is a parcel of butterflies,
which, observed from the youth-end of the road, are" gor- •
geous insects. We are at infinite pains and trouble to
catch them, and we succeed ; but alas ! the getting of them
knocks off the gold and crimson, and we are disgusted at
their unsatisfactory appearance. They are valueless the
moment we grasp them. I have lived something over
four thousand years, and know whereof I speak. Wealth I _
it is good just as far as you can make use of it. Politics I
I never knew but one man who ever saw any good in it ;

"» -*

MORALS OP ABOU BEN AOHBM.

he remarked that he liked it, becaiine, next to counterfeit-
ing and biglamy, — two things he doted on, — there waa in |
it the grandest opportunity for developing dormant ras-
cality. And literary fame ! My young friend, bottled I
moonshine is granite for solidity beside it. Shakespeare
was supposed to be entitled to a permanent place in the
memory of man ; but there are those in each generation
who write books to show that it was not Shakespeare but
some other fellow who wrote his plays and things. And
at the Shah's Theatre, the "Blak Krook" fills it, while |
" Julius Caesar " is played to thin houses.

" ' Then, again, the fame that men yearn after and strive I
for is not satisfactory after they get it. If a man, from
love of his kind, or from a desire to do something for his
associates in misery, or from a sheer love of his work,
does a large thing, the world applauds, but such an one
cares nothing for the applause. Applause was not the|
motive, and consequently is not the reward.

"'The eminent Switzer, Winkelried, when he rushed I
npon the Austrian spears with the remark, "Make way|
for liberty ! " had no idea that school-children would de-
claim it all (JvBr Persia, as they have done ever since, orl
he would not have done it. Winkelried was not caringi
for posthumous fame : it was the Sw'is of that identicall
day for whom he took into his bowels more spears than
were comfortable. Had he thought of posterity, had he
been figuring for a reputation, and waited before making!
his grand rush till he could decide upon appropriate last!
words which would sound well in history, he would eitherl

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

have changed his mind or lost the opportunity. So it
was with that other Swiss, William Tell, and others whom
I could name were I so disposed.

" ' But on the other hand, look at the men who labored
for reputation. iVaron Burr tried to make fame ; Bona-
parte was working for a reputation : but they both went
under and died miserably, — ^a warning to all after them.
If I should desire fame I should do a big thing, and, while
I was feeling good oveit it, die immediately with neatness
and dispatch. '

"And I disenchanted the man by passing my wand
over his head three times in the opposite direction.

" Son of New Jersey, take warning by him. Go back
to Sussex County, and get into your little store again.
Never long for fame again. Go to singing-schools ; play
checkers with your customers ; marry an auburn-haired
young lady in book-muslin with a blue sash about her
waist ; take your county paper ; be Squire ; have not
less than ten children, half like you and half like their
mother ; and finally, when your time comes, and the grim
messenger taps you on the shoulder, lie down like a man,
and thank the Lord that your lot was cast in New Jer-
sey, a country from which a man can go without a regret,
perfectly sure that whatever other worlds he finds he can-
not get into a worse one. Go, my son ! Draw molasses
and be happy."

The young man turned away sorrowfully, and Abou
went in to his breakfast, remarking to me that if the pub-
lication of this conversation would keep on*^ ycmg man

• . B '

jiHirt

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

from ruining himself in Wall Street, one young man from
making himself a nuisance by mixing in polities, or one
young man from imagining he was a poet, he would give
it to a family newspaper, for two hundred dollars. This
he would do for the good of humanity, and add one more
to the many obligations he had already piled upon an
unappreciative world. ; ■ ; :

." , ^hrip'm'Wif'.-^--^^ ■!!'■ I/-' ^'^R'n

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MOBAtiS OF ABOr B£N ADHEM.

v,:aym;7;i

■ i. ? J

THE FAITHLESSNESS OF WOMAN.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was bothered more by disap-
pointed lovers than by any other class of people.
Every day he was called upon to apply the salve of wis-
dom to the burns inflicted by love.

One morning a young man came to him with a pitiful
story of cruel disappointment. He loved a beautiful girl
in Hackensack, who had imposed conditions upon him
which, one after another, he had fullilled, only to behold
her marry another man after all. What should he do ?

" Listen," said Abou, " to the story of my life. -

" I too have loved,-;-! too have been disappointed.

"For a time life had no charms for me, for I lost faith
in humanity.

" My pitcher went to the well once, — it was broken,
and it seemed to me that it never could be mended.

" Life was to me an empty egg-shell

" Some centuries ago I was a gushing vouth of twenty-
two. I loved a vest of many colors, I doted on per-
fumery, and a tooth-brush was my '^oung man's best
companion.' I do not, I cannot, inveigh against tooth-

iim

\mw

nil

III

MORALS OF ABOIT BEN ADHEM.

brushes, but only against the motive for using them. It
was appearance, in my case, not cleanliness. I suffered in
No. 7 boots, when comfort and private good demanded
No. 10s. Corns now remind me of my folly. So true it
is that the excesses of our youth are merely drafts upon
our old age. I wore linen of the whitest, coats most
faultless, — I was, in short, young and a fool. Alas, that
one never discovers that he is a fool till it is too late to
avert the consequences thereof ! . > [-;

" Of course I was in love ; no young men of the style I
have indicated are ever out of it. Love prompted the
flaming vests, the snowy linen, the tooth-brush, and the
tight boots.

" Her name was Zara. She was beautiful as an houri
and as skittish as a young colt. ' Skittish * is not an
elegant word, but it is expressive, and I use it. In my
youth I sacrificed utility to elegance : I reverse the order
in my old age. She was skittish. She flirted with all
the young men in the neighborhood. Her father was
rich, and consequently all the young men in the neigh-
borhood were in love with her. They all longed to revel
in her charms, and to revel in the old gentleman's money,
when Death, that hard-hitter, should finally send him to
grass. She played her cards so skilfully that she had
twenty of as, all wearing tight boots, each fixed in the
belief that he was the favored man. Each looked upon
the old gentleman's acres with a proprietary look, and be-
came interested in his cough. I was an intimate friend
of the village druggist. I took a cheerful satisfaction in

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

looking over her father's drug account from day to day.
I was melancholy only when it was running light.

" I proposed to Zara and was accepted, — that is, condi-
tionally. She told me she loved me, but that filial love
was, with her, above any other variety of the article.
There was an obstacle. * My Pa would never consent,*
said she, ' to my marrying you, as poor as you are at
date. Go and accumulate ducats ; return and claim me.'

" ' Wilt be faithful, wilt wait for me till I return ? *
said I. ,4

" * Faithful forever ! said she.

" I rushed from her presence frantically. It was eight
o'clock in the evening. I did not see Agha ben Dad ride
up and dismount, just as I mounted and rode away. So
closely run the threads of life. »,, , .^ --'^^lfe>

" T ^ossed in my bed all night.* Various schemes of
lucre-gathering suggested themselves to my levered mind.
I thought of highway robbery, of patent-right business,
of forgery, of life insurance, of writing for magazines, and
of a dozen other quick roads to fortune, but I rejected all
of them. Hindostan I That was the correct thing. I
would go to the land of gold. I would turn up shining
nuggets. T would say as I pouched them, * Zara,' and so
forth.

^' I read yellow-covered novels in those days. Alas that
I cannot now believe that they were tales of real life !

" I packed my valise and was at the station next morn-
ing. I met Agha ben Dad also with a valise. I asked
him where he was journeying. He answered me. He

'If: I

lii

MORAI': OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

had tired of the farm, and his soul loathed the country
store. He was for Hindostan and gold !

" Fool that I was ! I told him likewise, and we agreed
to go together, work together, and be partners in all things.
I did know that Zara — but I anticipate.

" We started together, we were sea-sick together, we
recovered together, we arrived together. We made our
way to the mines, and set to work at once.

" We each noticed that a great change had come over
the other. At home we had been great spend-thrifts.
No one had squandered the hard-earned sixpence on the
quarter section of moist gingerbread, on training days,
with more freedom than had Agha, and no one for the
yeasty cider had paid his threepence more like a man
than had I. We had been, at home, roysterers ; and aged
crones had wagged wisely their heads, and predicted that
nothing good could come of such spendthrifts and ne'er-
do-weels.

"But here it was different. Every cent was saved.
We did not even buy clothing. We were not like the
lilies of the field, for we did toil, and if the lilies were not
arrayed better than we, they were a shabby set. A rear
view of Agha s pantaloons, when he stooped over his work,
was far from pleasant, and I was very like him.

" One day at noon — shall I ever forget that day ? —
while we were pensively eating our fried pork, I happened
to ask him why he ever came to that God-forsaken coun-
try. His answer is printed on my soul as though it had
been branded with an iron heated to a red heat ;-^

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" * My girl would not 'marry me till I had made raoney.
1 am here to make it — to go hack and marry her'

"'Shake!' I replied. 'Singular, but I too am here
aiMler the same circumstances. It is a coincidence.

Shake!* •, ..>.:...^:.:r^^r' r- ■■ r-.- i, ,.^ '^n., . ' ,;:; .,

" It was more of a co'acidence than I supposed. Agha
took my hand fervently, remarking, — . >

" ' It ^s a coincidence. Let us to our labor. Let us
make our pile and get out of this. Let us go back, you
marry your girl, I'll marry Zara, and — '

" ' Za>rsi I ' shrieked I, ' Zara who ? ' ,■ . , .

" ' Why, Zara the daughter of Musteef the bellows-
mender. Who else?' -

" We understood ea.ch other. From that moment we
hated each other. In quest of Cupid's gold, we had jumped
each other's claim. We were each prospecting on ground
claimed by the other. We scowled at each other as
young Persian tragedians always do when they wish to
express loathing, hate, and scorn. > -

" I am a man quick of action. Hastily gathering up
all I could lay my hands upon, I took advantage of Agha's
going up the mountain after a valuable deposit we had
there, to spring upon the partnership mule and hie me to
Kuldud. Little cared I for gold or deposits of any kind*
Zara was my gold-mine, and to get back to her and claim
the fulfilment of her promise was my only thought. *

" I hoped I had stolen a march upon him, for we had but
one mule. He, too, was a quick man. He promptly
utole another mule of st neighboring camp and followed.

MOIULS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

We arrived together. A steamer was just on the point
of sailing. We embarked on her.

" Twice on that horrible passage I attempted to throw
him overboard. I would have committed murder. His
superior strength thwarted my kind intentions. He threw
me overboard, and regularly the sailors inteiposed and
restored me to life and misery. vv^ ,,

" Why did they, ah ! why ? Life is a mystery. Will it
ever be solved ? If not, why not ?

" At Ispahan we took the river boat. It burned at
Mahrout, but, woe to me ! we were saved. Fate again.
Escaping the perils of the hotels there, we made our way
to Baklon, and, utterly reckless of life, took passage on
the Bulbul Road, which was then strap-rail and given to
indulging in snake-heads. I cared naught for snake-
heads. I would laugh sardonically as they would rip
open the bottom of the car, grazing my leg. They did
not mash me. It was written that I should be spared for
something worse. I was to fulfil my fate. I was doomed
to drain the cup to its dregs. We were in the same car.
We came to the station nearest our village. Springing
from the car we made our way to the livery stable. There
were two teams in, and we engaged them. We started
from the stable together. Our driving was furious. The
prize at the end of the race was Zara. What cared we
for horse-flesh ?

*' We drew near the mansion of Musteef. It was 9 p. M.
For what was the venerable mansion so brilliantly illumi-
nated ? Why that array of wagons and horses tied to

MOtlALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

the fence in front ? We sprang to the door, our right
hands grasped the knob.

"* She is mine !' hissed I. ' , , .

" * She is mine !' hissed he. ; . w

" We grappled in a fierce embrace. Down I went as
usual. It was written that I should always go down. I
fell against the door, tumping it open. We lay in a death-
grapple, half our bodies inside the room.

" What did our eyes behold ?

"A great company assembled. On the floor of the
square room was a maiden in white, by her side a young
man in black, and in front of them a mufti, who was pro-
nouncing these words, — '

" ' Whom God hath joined together let no man put
asunder.* ,,

" As we heard those words, Agha relaxed his hold upon
my throat, and, not to be outdone in generosity, I took my
hair out of his left hand. : - « ; > .

" ' She is not mine ! ' said he. r - . ^ . .'.

" ' She is not mine ! * said I.

" ' She is not either of ours ! ' said we both in chorus.

" And we added objurgations, at which she laughed. ,

" Need I say that the maiden in white was Zara ? Need
I relate that the young man in black was the tax-gatherer
at the village ?

" Need I relate what Agha told me, that within an hour
after Zara had plighted her troth to me, conditioned upon
my acquiring filthy lucre, she did the same thing to him ?
Need I narrate how she had done the same thing with e^
dozen others? No! I need not.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADUEM.

>. ,

"For a time the world looked very dark to me. I
thought I was a broken man, and said, * If I ever marry,
it will be for a. nurse in my old age.' It seemed to me
that on the. garden of my love Untruth had sown salt.

** I was despondent for an age — that is, for four days.
But by degrees the aspect of things changed. I concluded
that I would not die, but that I would live, and work my
way to such a height of grandeur that Zara would never
'cease to regret that she jilted me. In two weeks I found
myself totally indifferent to her, and in a month I was re-
joiced that I had escaped her ; for her husband discovered
that she hnd a tongue, and, to use an Orientalism, she
made it warm for him.

" What shall you do ? By the bones of the prophet, do
nothing ! It is one of those things that, be chesm, do
themselves. Your lost love is neither the beginning nor
the ending of life. Several things remain to you. She is
false, and you are the victim. Very good. Nature is not
going into bankruptcy. The sun will rise and set just
the same ; corn will giow, birds will sing, and rain will
fall as before. My experience is that it's a toss-up that
you are not the better off without her ; and, doubtless,
it's a toss-up if she be not better off without you. Every-
thing is right as it is, my son.

" Go about your business. Philosophy is the pill for
your mental system, and labor is the tonic to follow it.
> These tw will restore you to your normal condition. Go
^ly son, and be as happy as possible. Go," „

MORALS OF AROU BEN ADHEM.

. >

: >'. *.

:^ L.ti.-i-f\^' i.,,;-/- ■'■■'■•

i ' 1 !■

A PERSIAN IN THE GOVERNMENT.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was not in good humor. Ar-
dent summer had given place to voluptuous
autumn, which in turn had been scourged out of the world
by the fierce blasts of winter. He was always unhappy
in the winter, for he shivered — sighing, as he shivered,
for the balmy breezes of Ispahan; and he had men-
tal as well as physical troubles to contend with. He
had deposited a large sum of money in a bank in New
York, which bank had suspended, in consequence of the
strong desire of the cashier thereof to view the antiqui-
ties of the Old World. As the cashier had conducted the
bank without consultation with, or instructions from, the
directors or stock-holders, the fact that he took with him,
merelj'- to bear expenses, something over half a million of
dollars, was not to be wondered at. The bank, of course,
suspended, the directors were very sorry, but Abou's
money was non est. He was not in good humor. " - *

While in this state of physical and mental discomfort,
a man from Albany approached, bowing profoundly three
times, .

',-?

:!i i

! ill

1:11

lillii

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

"Mighty Abou," said he, " I am a member of the New
York Legislature." f rr, / <.

"Away, man! Avaunt, fiend ! I have no job to put
through ; I have no need of votes ; I have no money to
spend. I have no desire to be severe ; but, sir, when-
ever I see a member of a Legislature, I promptly think
that Nature is not economical. There is a good deal of |
lightning wasted. Away!" . - . .f ..vv .s.v :

"Mighty Abou, you mistake me: I am, it is true, a
member of that Legislature ; but I am an honest man.
If you will take the trouble to remember, you will recall |
the fact that there were two or three such."

Abou regarded him with a long stare of painful astonish- 1
ment, ending with a prolonged whistle of expressive in-
creduHty. * • ^-^^^

' " I am an honest member of the Legislature of the State I
of New York,'" continued this man, "and I desire advice]
and enlightenment that I may be of some use to my fel-
low men. Tell me, O Sage! tell me, what can we do in I
the way of law-making that will roll back the flood of
crime that is sweeping over the country? Is there no|
cure for it ? Is there no balm in Gilead ?"

Abou regarded him closely.

"I will trust you," he said, at the conclusion of his pro-
longed scrutiny. "I will believe that you are an honest I
man, despite the position you are in ; and I will give you |
the information you desire.

" Sweet sir," continued Abou, " three centuries ago there!
was a kingdom to the north of what is now Persia, — thel

MORALS OP ABOIJ BEN ADHEM.

' of the New

inhabitants of which were of the same race with tiie pre-
sent Persians, — in which these things of which you com-
I plain very seldom occurred. In that blessed land there
was no crime to speak of — no accidents, no mistakes, no
nothing. Life there was like a calmly-flowing river ; the
people lived happily and died regretfully, disliking very
much to leave, — which is quite different here. I helped
to organize that community. I was the author of the
system that brought it about. I — "

" Three centuries ago?" queried the stranger,

"Three centuries ago,— did I not say so ? " '

" I beg your pardon ; but, O Sage antediluvian, give me,
oh give me, the system by which this most desirable state
of things was worked." ^ t.^^ ;

"I will. We had in Koamud, which was the name of
the kingdom, no penitentiaries, no reform-schook, no civil-
service examinations, no Boards of any kind, — nothing ol
the sort. If the Government wanted a postmaster, we
will say, it did not go blathering about qualifications or
anything of that sort. It simply posted up on the door
of the vacant post office a printed statement of what
would be required of the postmaster. Then the first man
who said he wanted the place was appointed."

"Were not bonds required of him ?"

"No. He took the place, and went on with his duties."

"But suppose he proved a defaulter ?"

"He was immediately caught and hanged." ;

"HTug for a defalcation ? "

"Certainly, and for a mistake as well. If there was an

ill

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

j;t:

, error in his accounts, by so much as a pound of wrapping-
twine, he was hung out of hand."

" But suppose his irregularities were the result of bad
business qualities ? "

" Then he was hung for being a bad business man.
What we wanted was honesty end capacity ; and as we
did with postmasters, we did with everybody else. Sup-
pose a railroad train ran off the track, — a coroner's jury
was convened over the bodies of the killed. Suppose they
discovered the fact that a rail was out of order, or that
the road was not properly patrolled, we hung the presi-
, dent, directors, and superintendent. If the accident was
caused by any slip on the part of the conductor, he was
hung ; and so on. Once we hung all the officials of the
Teheran and Ispahan Boad, and from that time there were
no accidents on that line. Their successors were tolerably
careful; the superintendent slept very little; and the
company hung up a miniature gallows ill the cab of every
locomotive to remind the engineer of his certain fate in
the event of trouble.

" Then we carried the same rule into everything. The
people deposited with the First National Bank of Picalilly.
Very good. The bank suspended one morning. Exactly.
The authorities took the president, cashier, and board of
directors all out and hung them, because they had been
guilty of suspension.

"*I didn't steal a dollar of this money,' said the
president. ' It was lost in speculating in Persian Gulf
Mail.' 1 - -

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

"'Divil a difference,' said the judge, 'where it wa« lost.
Ye haven't got it' : . . , .♦ > ., : v

" ' But you won't hang a man who has not stolen, will '
you ? * says the president.

" * I will hang you, my jooel, for bein' an idiot. I shall
hang you for riskin' mopey that was not youra to risk.'

" And up he went. ' ... .

" In fact, they hung them more mercilessly for being
fools than for any other crime. If a man said, * I stole
it,* they felt a sort of pity for him. If ho said, * I lost it,*
they felt none at all, and strung him up in a minute.'*

" Did they hang always for murder ? "

"Certainly; all they wanted to know was that the
killing took place." ..;.</-

" Did they never admit the plea of insanity ? "

" Not any of that. If a man put in that plea, they
hung him for being insane. They were wont to remark
that it was not safe to have insane men running about
loose with revolvers and clubs and such things, so they
hung them for fear they might endanger some one else's
life."

" What, pray, was the effect of this vigorous hanging
on things in general ? "

" Splendid. Bank officials made no mistake in their
figures and none in their business. The officers of the
Government were rather careful about their accounts, for
they were hung for mistakes as well as for thieving. The
presidents and directors of railroads kept their tracks up,
and a more watchful and careful set of men than the con-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

ductors, engineers, and switchmen you never saw. There
being no plea of any kind permitted, the fact being all
that was considered, there was a wholesome care used in
all departments of life. ' \ . '

" The effect was good in another way. This system
reduced the population terribly, but it made a magnificent
race of men and women. You see, the vicious and the
careless — which is to say, the naturally depraved and the
weak-minded — were all hung, leaving only the industrious
and clear-headed to live and perpetuate the species. Con-
sequently it was a splendid people. I am, perhaps, a fair
specimen. There were no lunatics, idiots, triflers, or dis"
honest men left to spread mischief and danger. The
population was sorted and sifted." .^ . .

" Is that Government still in existence ? "

" Alas ! no. There sprang up a class of people who got
to pitying criminals. They got into a way of visiting
them just before they were stretched, and sending them
bouquets, and begging the governor to pardon them ; they
got up sympathy for them, and finally some escaped.
Then the game was up. The moment there was any doubt
as to the certair^ty of punishment, men became almost as
bad as they are here. Then I left the country.

" Go to Albany, my friend, and make but one penalty
— hanging — ^for all crimes or blunders, in public or private.
True, it would ciitail a heavy expense on each county for
a gallows ; it would probably make New York one of the
smallest cities, in point of population, in the country, and
in a week you probably couldn't get a quorum in the New

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

saw. There
act being all
I care used in

This system
a magnificent
sious and the
aved and the
le industrious
species. Con-
erhaps, a fair
dflers, or dis*
:anger. The

York Legislature ; but the ultimate efiect would be
splendid. The next generation would be fifty per cent,
better than this, and the improvement would go on and
on to the end of time. I have said. Leave me, for I am
weary."

And Abou went into his inner chamber and got into
bed that he might be warm. The stranger went awa;y
sorrowful. ii.^-;^:'.-.^ ■ ^i, '•^el:'^ ■-.!'''n, . i-..>-:,--v:.}i::';:...m'^'

" The idea is good," said he to himself, " but I dare not
urge it. Were hanging the rule for crimes or blunders,
how long would my children have a father ? " . , . ^

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MOllALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

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IV.

; . , THE VALUE OF A LIFE.

ABOU BEN ADHEM, the magician, was sitting un-
der his own vine and fig-tree, in front of his tent,
in New Jersey, one bright morning in May. He was in
an admirable frame of mind. He had killed two life-
insurance solicitors the day before ; he had subscribed for
the last book that had been put in the hands of canvassers ;
he had his hired man, armed with a double-barrelled shot-
gun, at the gate on the main road lying for patent gate
and lightning-rod men, so he had a fair prospect for a
quiet day. He was musing on life, and trying to solve
that great problem, wherein he was doing a most foolish
thing ; for life is a riddle which will solve itself, if you
wait long enough. Death is the t^eat solver.

The solution can be hastened somewhat by late suppers
and whiskey, but it will come to all, sooner or later, with-
out these or any other aids. Wise as Abou was, it never
occurred to him that if there be a future he would know
all about it in time ; and if there should not be one, the
matter would not bother him much after )iq had got
through with the present. In dwelling on this subject.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

■3tf' vb,(?il>6 i

janvassers;

the summit of Abou's physical structure was not horizon-
tal. But all great men have their weaknesses. The
editor hereof presumes that a critica,! examination of him-
self would develop some trifling faults.

But Abou's dream of an entirely quiet day was not to
be realized. He was just smoking his second pipe, when
a young man, whose intellectual face was overspread with
deep concern, appeared to him.

" What wouldst thou with me ? " said Abou, haughtily
" Speak, man, speak !" « ,; ; . . :. ; .. l

" Mighty Abou, I need thy help. I am dying, Egypt,
dyjng. I have a cough which is tearing me to pieces ; I
have also dyspepsia, liver complaint, bronchitis, asthma^
consumption, Bright's disease of the kidneys, and neural-
gia, with a few other diseases too tedious to mention, and
they are all growing worse daily."

" Hast tried the regular physicians ? "

"I have." ^'"■"-' ■'*'"'.. x^ '"'

"The irregulars?" , ; ,. ,;:,&;;■ :,#

"Verilv"

" The patent medicines ?" •'' , '; ,

"All of them." . V /

" The retired physicians whose sands of life have nearly
runout?"

"Yes."

" Then go home in peace. If you have tried all these
and still live, I know of nothing that can kill you."

" But, mighty Abou, T am dying nevertheless."

" Well, why not die then, without bothering me ? I

..^' v~'

'M \f\<^-:,

;p;^:V^

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

am no bairn in Giiead, nor am I a liealing balsam. I liave
power, it is true — " " • -^ ^ • ^^ i*

" Mighty Abou, I know you have, and that power exert
for me. I care not to live for myself, but for my fellows.
I am the leading man in my native village. I edit the
weekly paper ; I am mayor ; I run the Church and am
president of the School Board. If I should die, New
Athens would go as straight to ruin as a pigeon could fly.
It would not survive me."

Abou had him now. He had an opportunity to moralize,
and in good square moralizing Abou was equalled by few
and excelled by none. It was his best hold, and he never
missed an opportunity. So he lighted a fresh pipe and
went for the young man.

" My young friend, you fancy that, should you die. New
Athens would go to ruin. Listen.

" Long ago, in the dim years before the flood, I was
sailing on the Persian Gulf in the stanch A 1 clipper ship,
the ' Mary Ann.* Suddenly there arose a terrible storm.
The winds howled like an Irish riot, the lightnings flashed
with a vividness which was appalling, and the thunders
rolled as though the demons of the air were playing con-
tinuous games of ten-pins. It was a fearsome night.
The darkness was so intense that . the lights on the head-
lands showed not, and we were plunging through it, help-
less, in the power of the tempest, on a pitiless coast. The
captain — Perkins was his name — hadj^sl his reckoning,
and the * Mary Ann,' uncontrolled and uncontrollable,
was speeding on to her doom.

( '

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" Captain Perkins stood at his post calm and self- -
possessed. * So long ez we hev sea-room/ said he, in his
marked Afghanistan dialect, * so long ez we hev sea-room
and kin keep shet uv the pesky rocks we're all right.
The " Mary Ann" can't be swamped nohow. But this is
an ugly coast.' And Captain Perkins took a fresh chew
of tobacco, and peered anxiously into the darkness.

" Just then the passengers began to learn of the danger
they were in, and came rushing up the aft binnacle quar-
ter-deck, in wild confusion.

" * Captain,' shrieked one, ' save the vessel ! save her ! I
am the editor of the " Ispahan Morning Herald," which
has the largest circulation of any paper in Persia. If I
perish, the " Herald " perishes with me. Save me for the
sake of Ispahan ! ' ;: ,' ^ , , ; ^-., ^,,^„ -

" ' Go to ! ' outspoke the bold captain. * You bet I'll
save the vessel — ^for my own sake. Be chesm, on my
head be it. Rest easy.'

" * Save the ship ! ' shrieked another. * I am the gover-
nor of a province. If I perish, who shaU rule it ? An- *
archy and confusion ensue, and wide-spread woe follows.
For the sake of the province save the ship ! '

" * Save the ship ! ' shrieked a third. * I am the presi-
dent of the First National Bank of Ispahan ; if I perish,
down goes the bank.'

" * Save the ship ! ' yelled a fourth. * I am the president
of.the Cashmere and Bulbul Railway Company. If I go
down, who can manage that great corporation V

" ' Save the ship I ' cried a fifth. ' I am president of

4.1

MOKALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

the Everlasting, Equal Benefit, Remunerative, Life and
Trust Tnsuiance Company. Who can run that machine
if I am taken V , , .

" And these excited Orientals howled to the captain as
to the terrible consequences of their untimely taking-off
to that degree that they actually impressed me. I felt
that never vessel carried so much greatness, and that if
it should be lost, with its passengers, Persia would be
ruined. ,

" The vessel was lost, nevertheless. The * Mary Ann'
was on a dangerous coast, and Captain Perkins knew it,
but went to his state-room to sleep. She struck, and I
was the only one saved, thanks to my magic art— and a
hen-coop. I swam ashore safe, but somewhat damp.

" I made my way to Ispahan, but I could not stay there.
As these men had all perished, I supposed, of course, that
ruin, wide-spread, would ensue. I supposed the * Herald '
would — ^to use a vulgarism which I detest — peg out, that
the bank would (to use another) bust, that the Railroad
.and Insurance Company would stop, and that rebellion
would break out in the provinces ; so, before the news got
about, I sold my property and came to New Jersey.

" My son, the moral is coming now, so wake up. I had
been here six months when I got letters from Ispahan.
There wasn't ruin to any alarming extent in Persia ; things
seemed to go on about as usual. A new governor was
appointed over the province, and the province fared better
than ever. There was less plundering than before, for
the new governor was vigilant ; he refused to let the

i r

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

members of the provincial legislature vote themselves
back-pay, and he squelched two Credit Mobiliers. As he
was rich when he was appointed, it was not necessary for
him to steal much, and he had no relatives. The stock-
holders of the 'Herald' elected a new editor, and the
paper was better than ever ; the new man was the first to
introduce interviewing into Ispahan, and he organized an
expedition to find Livingstone. The Railroad Company
elected a new president, who put on palace and sleeping
cars, and actually made the line pay a dividend ; and as
for the bank, bless you, the drowned president was dimi-
nutive tubers compared with his successor. He brought
the concern to a smash-up in half the time it would have
taken the old one, which enabled the stockholders to
retire with fortunes in middle life. The new life-insurance
president was a vast improvement on his predecessor.
He was a man of broad views. He devised the brilliant
idea of arming his solicitors with Derringer pistols.

" So you see, my friend, things went on the better for
the drowning of these important men. Indeed, the peo-
ple of Ispahan swore that if they could be sure of so
great an improvement every time, they would like more
shipwrecks ; and they got into a habit of praying Allah
for high winds ever}'^ time the dignitaries of Ispahan went
out on the Gulf on an excursion.

" Young man, go home. If your life is of any use to
yourself, save it ; but if you are trying to save it out of
regard for your fellows, spare yourself the trouble. There

:4i.

I It

\ .

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

were men in New Athens before your lime, and there
will be after. , -. . . -

" When you are as old and as wise as I am, you will
know that one man is of very little account in this world,
no matter who he is. Do you doubt this ? If so, die,
and as you look down, or up, as the case may be, from your
spirit-abiding place, you will realize the humiliating fact
that in a week no one will realize that you are gone ; in
three weeks the few who do remember the event will
probably be glad of it, and wiU be sorry you did not die
sooner. Go to, young man, go to ! "

And Abou waved him off haughtily, and went in to
his dinner. . ■,-_.-, 1/14.^';-': ^^j.^^/:-- v:*., .?;x-.v.i.j ^r^-.-'-

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MORALS OF AB0X7 BEN ADHEM.

1 J

;■!>:.

THE YOUNG MAN OF CAIRO.

■>.t->

ABOU BEN ADHEM was approached one evening
by a young man who propounded to him an un-
usual question.

" Great Abou, is there any such thing as everlibSting
constancv in woman ? "

Abou was comfortable. The night was beautiful, over-
head the stars shone brightly, the air was balmy, and his
chibouque was smoking freely and the tobacco suited
him.

'* Young man," said he, " I will answer thy interroga-
tory after the manner of the great and genial Lincoln,
whom may Allah ever have in his keeping ! I will tell
thee a story of real life. "

" The scene is laid in a deep grotto in the garden of the
proud merchant of Cairo, Ebn Becar. Nature had spread
herself in fixing up this identical spot for a garden, and
when Nature had run out of material and patience. Art
stepped in and completed the job. The orange and the
spruce mingled their leafy boughs, while the fragrant date,
the whispering pine, the umbrageous palm, and the wide-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADIIEM.

spreading fir added to the beauty of this Paradise in
miniature. Hanging on the boughs of these trees, the
turtle-dove, the nightingale, and the bulbul answered the
lute with which Zara, the daughter of Ebn Becar, the
Wealthy, accompanied her sweet voice. The nightingale
sang one strain and subsided into silence. ' What ip my
voice to hers ? ' sighed the bulbul, as he sadly cut short a
roulade and listened. And the nightingale turned green
with envy as he heard her.

" But sweet as was the voice of Zara, sweeter was her
person. Peerless in beauty was she. Nature ne'er be-
fore had made a face so sweet or a form so fair ; never,
combined in one young female person, had there been
such eyes, such hair, such teeth, such complexion, et
cetera.

" ' Wilt thou love me now as then ? ' sang she ; when a
manly voice exclaimed, * You bet ! ' and Yusef Thaher,
bounding from the thick foliage which surrounded the
grotto, stood before her. f v» : * ;

'' * Yusef! ' exclaimed she, dropping her lute.
>• " * Zara ! ' retorted he, pressing her to his manly bosom^

" And with their lips glued together, he drinking in
the sweetness of her breath and she drinking in the sweet-
ness of his breath (he had joined the Band of Hope in his
infancy, and had never used tobacco in any form), they
stood for several minutes. ■

" "Yusef Thaher was the only son of a widow, living in
the suburbs of Cairo. The mother of Yusef was a noble
dame, who had seen better days. Her husband had been

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

formerly an officer in the Janiss.irie.s, but he wasn't at the
time I speak of. Some years before ho had embarked in
a little conspiracy against the reigning caliph, which, be-
ing prematurely discovered, left him short a head, and
he retired from active life to a cemetery, where ho re-
mained cool and quiet. His possessions were confiscated
by the caliph, as is the custom of the country ; his wife
was bastinadoed, which destroyed all of her bear ty ; and as
with neither beauty nor money she could not marry again,
she drowned her sorrows in a washtub, out of which ves-
sel she extracted her daily bread.

" Yusef resembled his lamented father to a degree quite
complimentary to the virtue of his mother. He was a
youth of genius, and consequently despised labor ; and
spent all his time, and as much of his mother's hard-earned
money as he could coax out of her, in idling with the gay
gallants of Cairo. His clothes were always of the latest
style and of the best material. They were not always
paid for, —in fact, several tailors had gone into premature
bankruptcy bj'' having too much of his patronage. But it
was ever thus ! Genius is expensive to somebody. At
theatre and concert, at nigger minstrels and balls, Yusef
was always to be seen, and his merry laugh was always
heard above that of his companions. He was having
good time. ^^■-ak^s,.;.:' v-v..: .:^^>/-- •.-A:-

"At a lecture of the Mercantile Library Course, Yusef
first beheld Zara. He had reserved seat B 22, which cost
him seventy-five cents (which money his mother had
given him to buy soap with), and Zara had th^ seat im-

' It

■'1
■ ■ 'ill

'■ 1

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

ii' !:

mediately behind him. She was struck with the exacti-
tude of the parting of his back hair, and from that moment
she loved madly, devotedly. She coughed a small, faint
cough, he turned, their eyes met, and the work was done.
Cupid had shot his sharpest arrow, and two young, fresh
virgin hearts were transfixed.

" Little did they heed that hapless lecturer. Sc far as
they were concerned, he might have been discussing the
Kansas question, or the tariff ; he might have been re-
citing Thanatopsis or singing Joe Bowers ; they heard him
not. Happy would the average lyceum lecturer be, could
his audiences be always made up wholly of people affected
as were they ! He would be invariably invited to return
the next winter, and the committee would not ask an
abatement of his fee. - ^^ * ' '^ •'

" While the lecturer was droning on, through her mind
floated visions of a life-time with a man whose back hair
parted straight, and whose clothes were always a fit.
Poor dreamer ! She did not realize — ^youth never does
— ^that hair turns gray and disappears, that age shrinks
limbs and humps backs, that Time sets the tailor at de-
fiance, and makes futile his best efforts.

*' He was dreaming of something more substantial. He
dwelt on her beautiful face, but his principal thought was
of ducats, and an eminently wealthy father-in-law, stricken
in years, who must shortly be gathered to his fathers.
The beautiful face was a luxury, the rich father-in-law a
necessity.

" At the close of the lecture he followed her to the

MOllALS OF AHOir URN ADIIKM.

a.s

Htrcot, proHHirij^ hor liand on the stairs, and for fear sho
would escape him he hung on behind her carriage, and on
its arrival at the proud ducal mansion of her father, he
put down street and number in his memorandum book.
Clandestine meetings took place in the garden, and love,
madness, and desperation followed suit as a matter of
course.

" That is how Yusef Thaher happened to be in the gar-
den of Ebn Becar, the rich merchant of Cairo.

" ' What happiness ! ' muttered he. ' Ah ! my heart's idol,
my soul's delight,* said he, speaking in the flowery style of
the dreamy East, ' wilt ever love thy Yusef, eh ? If cruel
fate should tear thee from me, or me from thee, which it
wouldn't make any difference, wouldst love me still the
same ? If I should by any unforeseen calamity be histed
out of this, and should be gone ten or twenty, or forty or
fifty years, and should come back old and decrepit and
gray-haired, would I find my Zara here, waiting and
trusting? Would I ?'

" ' Yusef,' said she reproachfully, * canst doubt me ?
Didst never read in novels of true love ? Aren't you aware
that, like base-burning stoves, love never goes out ? Ah,
Yusef! when the stars grow dim and fade out of the
heavens ; when the moon sinks out of the sky, and the
sun refuses to shine ; when water will not run and grass
not grow, then will I cease to love thee; but not till

then!' - ' vt,,v,^ ■;-•.;. ^ ._;v,^r'.-- -n'..-^^u ^.„, ,-.;.-u :,...„,,■.■., . . '- ..

"And overcome with emotion, Zara laid off her bonnet
and fainted in his arms. She was from her earliest iu-

I '•.»■ t,

:a7I

MORALS OF ABOU ,BEN ADHEM.

fancy a tLoughtful and prudent girl, and very careful of
her clothes.

" ' Zara ! I doubt thee not, but swear it. Swear that
through good and evil report, for time and eternity, thou
art mine ! Swear that you love me now, and that, with
me or away from me, thou wilt love me forever ! '

" * I swear ! ' returned Zara, ' forever and forever.'

" And they fell into each other's arms, and wept glad
toars of joy down each other's backs.

" Yusef was straining her to his manly bosom, and was
figuring in his mind whether he hadn't better s^/ear her
again that they might again fall into each other's arms,
when he was aroused from his dream by a touch upon
the shoulder. He turned fiercely on the intruder, and
immediately turned back, not so fiercely. It was an officer,
a shoulder-strapped hireling in military clothes, who held
a paper in his hands.

" ' Art Yusef Thaher ? ' said this oppressor.

" ' I am,' proudly said the youth ; at which Zara, who
had come to the conclusion that she had been fainting
long enough, awoke with a sigh.

" * T have been searching for you, my buck, high and
low,' said he. ' You're drafted, and must go where glory
waits you ! ' '

« c Wretch ! ' retorted Yusef, ' thou liest ! The quota of
our ward was made up a week ago.'

" * Ha ! ha ! ' sneered the hireling, * nob so fast. In truth,
you thought so, and faith so did I, but we want more men,
and the caliph revised the figures for a dozen of the wards,

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

this among the others. The draft v/as drawn this morn-
ing, and you were hit.'

" %Why this haste ? ' said Yusef. * Canst not wait till
thou hast the evening paper ? Perchance he will figure
again and let us out.'

" * It won't do,' said the officer, ' we can't wait. We
must have men. Come t '

"'But I am physically unfit. I am — '

" ' I. know what you are going to say. You are ruptured,
have a cough, have varicose veins, and are near-sighted,
etc. It won't do. We have reduced the causes of exemp-
tion to barely one.' ^

"'And that is—' ' :^ ^^r.

"'Death before draft.* >' ; V ;^^v

"'Is there no escape?' ' 'v' , s ^ " "* ; ^ * '

** * Nary. There isn't time to get substitutes, and if
there was — ' - ~ ;. - ^ •

" ' I haven't got the stamps, you would say, but delicacy
prevents y?u. True, too true ! '

"'Here!' shrieked Zara, tearing the massive jewelry
from her ears and fingers, and arms and bosom, ' take the&3
glittering gauds, and give me back my Yusef! '

" The officer looked at them, and returned them with a
perceptible sneer on his finely-chiselled features, with
the significant remark, ' Dollar store ! '

" All hopo was gone !

" ' At least, ' said Zara, ' let's do the regular thing.'

"'Yusef!' , -:,{'.

"'Zara!' -U

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

"And they fell into each other's arms, mutually assuiing
each other that, through weal and woe, th^y would be
true to each other, forever and forever.

" In the course of four minutes Yusef Thaher was on
his way to join his regiment, leaving Zara fainting on the
sward.

" Did she remain true to him ? We shall see.

" One year elapsed. A gallant soldier was standing at
the door of an humble cottage. 'Twas Yusef. He had
returned unscathed by L diet, bayonet, or shell. He had
been in the commissary department, and had snuffed the
battle afar off

" ' Mother ! ' hissed he, ' tell me, Zara — *

" * Was married precisely eleven months ago, my son, to
one of the first gentlemen of Cairo, who made a big thing
out of an army contract.*

" ' Married ! ' hissed he, through his clenched teeth, and
smiting hiinself twice on the forehead, ' Married ! '

" * Certainly, my son,' replied the mother, wringing out
a shirt calmly, ' about a month after you were drafted.'

" * Tell me, did hor paternal parent on her father's side
compel her thus tc> sacrifice her youth and beauty, thus
to break her plighted troth, thus to go back on herself
and me ? '

«^No.'

" ' Did not her father speculate in pork, and get caught
on a falling market ? Were not his notes going to pro
test, and did not this rich villain offer her the dread alter-
native of her father's ruin or her hand ? '

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

*" Nary. She laid for him until she gobbled him/

" * Did she never speak of me ? Has she grown pale
and wan, and so on ? ' . > ; - , : •; v • 'v : ^ r

" ' Not a wan. She's as fresh as a peach and the gayest
of the gay. The bnlbul sings not more sweetly nor the
nightingale more frequently/ replied the old lady, putting
more soap on a dirty wristband. 'She flaunts at the
opera, while I wash shirts at fifty cents a dozen. Bis-
mallah ! Such is life/ . ,v / y ^; . '; - < ^ ^

" ' Destruction I ' muttered Yusef ' I will meet her
I will confront her, and taunt her with her faithlessness,
and then — ' And uttering a despairing shriek he flung
himself from the house.

" * There was a sound of revelry by night ! ' There was
a ball in progress at the Spread Eagle Hotel, at which
were all the ^lite and hon ton of Cairo. That none but
the elitest of society should be there, the managers had
put the tickets at twenty shillings. ^ "

" Zara was there, in the highest spirits. Her baby had
been dosed with soothing syrup to keep it sleeping ; and
relieved of care on its account, she was rushing things.
She had just finished a waltz, and was waiting, panting,
while her cavalier was bringing her a goblet of water,
when a manly form approached. He was clad in blue,
but his features were hid by a slouched hat drawn low
down, and an immense military overcoat, which he kept
over his face, as Claude Melnotte does in Sir Edward

i !1

ii- -;='■ €-:^'v i-«^ ;^i;i-:'; -

•:.<*\'h>

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Bulwer Lytton's justly celebrated play of the * Lady of
Lyons/ \' ■-,.■-. .■-^■.■' ;'^';:'>v'. -'•■;>,,;■.,■. ,;.;,;•':■,.•..

" * Zara ! * hissed this singular figure.

" * Who calls me by that name ? * said she, drawing her-
self up to her full height.

" ' Zara, dost remember the garden, — the orange grove
in which the bulbul sang and the fountain squirted ? '

" ' Ah, sir, whoever you are, my papa has such a garden,
but the fountain squirts no more. The hydraulic ram is
busted ! '

" * Like my hope ! ' hissed Yusef, in a fierce whisper.
* That hydraulic ram the patentee warranted to endure,
like your love, forever and forever. Dost remember me 1 *
said he, seizing her by the arm, and throwing off" the
cloak, and striking an attitude.

"*You! Pardon me. It strikes me as though, some
time, I had seen your face somewhere ; where, I can't re-
collect. Your name, sii* ? '

"She was as cool as condensed cucumber. Not an
emotion was visible on her countenance.

" Yusef had supposed that coming at her in this melo-
dramatic shape would wring her bosom ; but it didn't
wring. The poor wretch looked with a puzzled expression
at her face, as beautiful as ever, but which had in its lines
no love for him. You see, he had believed what she had
said to him a year before about her love enduring forever
and forever, and it rather astonished him to have her ask
his name, and remark that she rather thought she had
seen him, but where she couldn't recollect. Besides, he

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

wsks in debt and had counted on marrying her. All in all,
it was a staggerer.

" He uttered one exclamation of despair.

* * Lost ! lost ! ' he shrieked, and disgusted he left the
hall precipitately. The doorkeeper offered him a check,
but he hustled him aside. * Check ? Ha ! ha ! I've had
one to-night that'll do me. Make way ! ' he cried, ' Make
way ! ' and he rushed out of the hall. Baring his head to
the wind, he rushed on and on. Pedestrians turned to
see the desperate man, with madness in his eye, dart by
them; the policemen would have arrested him, but he
dodged them. On and on ! The river-bank was gained,
— the wharf-boat ; two vigorous jumps achieved its deck.
He turned, and shaking his clenched hand in the direction
of the Spread Eagle Hotel, whose lights he could see, and
the sound of whose revelry floated to him through the
ague-laden air, he shrieked * Zara ! lost, lost ! ' with some
other remarks which the reporter didn't catch, and sprang
into the boiling waves. There was a splash, a gurgle,
and the water ran as swiftly as before. The cat-fish
caught in that vicinity were extraordinarily^ fat for a
week. Zara lived on comfortably all her life, growing
fatter and fatter as each succeeding year rolled on. Her
appetite was always good.

" This, my young friend, is the end of the story, and it
contains a full and explicit answer to your question. The
tale will do as well for the Occident as for the Orient. I
have narrated it in the Oriental style, for I cannot help

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

hurliag the flowers of Eastern imagery over the dry
skeleton of instruction ; but it makes no difference.

" Instead of Cairo, Egypt, make it Cairo, Illinois. . v,

" Change Yusef Thaher to Joseph Thayer. . ' :

" Change Ebn Becar to Eben Baker. ?

" Change Zara to Sarah,

" And it will do just as well for New Jersey as for
Egypt. It's all one ; men and women are precisely the
same the world over. What happened them a thousand
years ago, when 1 was younger, is happening now, there
and here. *

"And sex has nothing to do with constancy. Had Zara
gone away and had Yusef found a richer and fairer female
on whoxn he could have fixed his love, he would have gone
back on Zara, and she would have found him at a ball
on her return, and would have been the drowned party.

" Go, my young friend. Humanity is humanity, and a
precious weak article it is. Go to, I would sleep.'

"/r.

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MORALS OF ABOIT BEN ADHEM.

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VI. ^

THE TENACITY OF LOVE.

ABOU BEN ADHEM, the wise magician, does not
leave his home in New Jersey to go off to water-
ing-places in the summer, for the reason that life is uncer-
tain. Should death overtake him where there was any-
thing to make life worth preserving, he thinks it would
annoy him to go into the dim hereafter ; hence he remains
in his tent philosophizing on life, and making Jfe entirely
undesirable by giving audience to his neighbors who hun-
ger for advice, — which, as is the custom of mankind, they
go to great trouble to get, but never regard. Bothered as
he is by these seekers after wisdom, he is kept continually
in a frame of mind that causes him to regard Death as a
rather pleasant deliverer.

One morning in May, just before the mosquitoes drive
all of New Jersey in-doors, a man, dusty and travel-
stained, rode up to his hospitable door. Abou was sitting
outside his tent, and had been solacing himself with the
Elixir of Life. With great presence of mind he put the
bottle behind his chair, before it could have been observed,
that expectations which were not to be realized should

•v!i

-•>. ii

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

not be awakened in the mind of the stranger, and with
great skill assumed the thoughtful expression that is
always seen in photographs of young ministers and
lawyers. ^ . >

" Great Abou," said the stranger, " I want advice." .

" State your case," replied Abou, blandly. " You
have come to the right shop. Advice is my best hold.
As ccH adviser I am equalled by few J»nd excelled by
none."

" I have a daughter," waid the stranger, " who is passing
'<iir. Her hair is like silk, her eyes are blue as yon arch
that bends above us ; the gazelle is not more graceful in
movements ; in shape — " ' "^ - ^ ;

" Cut it short," said Abou, impatiently. " I know all
about it. I have read novels. Your girl is pretty, I pre-
sume. I will concede it. To the point, garrulous man,
to the point?" ^. > .^ .. . . ,

" T am rich, T am a bloated aristocrat. I have blood,
and Keturah Jane, my daughter, is entitled to mate with
the highest and per-roudest. But, great Abou, a dry-
goods clerk — a nameless counter-jumper, on a salary of
$500 a year — has lifted his presumptuous ej'^es to Keturah
■Jane — " ••■_,-• -^-..^^ .^. ,.,-_,.- _.,..-,^..,.„, ,.^ ..,,._

-■"And she?" 'v/^.- .;:, .;■,-;.- ^ -- ., y.^.a,:.Mu :^k^^^,/'

" She lowers herself to him. He has black hair which
he parts in the middle ; ho has a broad white forehead,
white teeth, and he wears No. 5 boots, which are always
of patent leather; he brushes his teeth regularly, has
alv; ays a white shirt-front, and — " - ^ *-.

MOHALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM *

" What a tiresome ass thou art ! " interrupted Abou ini'
patiently. " By the bones of the Prophet ! man, dost
think I know not the fellow ? Be chesm, say at once he
is a village fop ; say he is a clerk in a dry-goods store, a
photographer, a dancing-master or writing teacher or that
he runs a singing-school, and shall I not know all about
him ? If thou sayest to me ' My cow is a Durham,' must
you go on and tell me of her hair and horns 1 Mankind
most stupid ! runs in kinds, as do cows. Say to me of
a man, ' He is a New York ward politician,* and do I not
at once know that he has a bottle-nose, a diamond pin, a
prominent abdomen, a revolver, and a broken nose on a
face which is a record of broken commandments ? Say
of another, ' Lo, he is a member of Congress and is popu-
lar with the masses,' and do I not know he weareth a per-
petual smile, and that his hand hath two motions — one as
if shaking the hand of another, the other as if patting a
baby on the head ? Do not nature and education put on
all men their stamp, which he who runs may read if he
has eyes ? By the dust of my ancestors ! you tire me.
He is a dry-goods clerk. Go on."

" Mighty Abou, I bow in the dust before thee I Pardon
the stupidity of thy obtuse slave. Truly, wisdom cometh
noi with money, nor acuteness with lands and herds.
But Keturah Jane fancieth this man, and will not wed
Jenkins, whom I prefer. She will hear of no one else but
this dry-goods clerk, and because i forbade him the house
and hoisted him off my front doorstep with the toe of my
boot, and set my dogs at him, and shot at him with a

: ;.il

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

double-barrelled shot-gun, loaded with bird-ahot, she
mourneth and refuseth to be comforted."

"And the man?" : . • ... v ■

" Like a tick sticketh he. The mosquito of our beloved
New Jersey is not more persistent. Bludgeons, shot-guns,
and bull-dogs have no effect upon him. He lurks about
my dwelling by day, and maketh my nights hideous with
serenades. Mighty Abou, he sings tenor, and knows but
one song, which is ' Ever of Thee.' Eighty- two nights in
succession has he sung that song under her window. Life
is in consequence a burden to me. "

" Listen," said Abou, lighting his pipe, and fixing the
unfortunate man with his eye. " In the dim years long
since fled, I, too, had a daughter. No damsel in Persia
was fairer ; Ispahan could boast no lovelier. Her voice
was that of the bulbul,her form was as slender and grace-
ful as the young cypress, she was as round as the apple ;
her eyes, by the bones of the Prophet ! the sloe was not
blacker, and her hair — " " n ^ "* ^ - 7- ^ : • •

" Mighty Abou, — ahem ! — do not girls run in classes,
as do cattle ? Say she was a pretty girl, and I shall know
all about her."

" Wretch ! is there no difference between the descrip-
tion of a describer, and that of a clod like you ? Go to !
Am I talking, or are you ? I was rich as are you. I had
been in Congress twelve years and we had voted our-
selves back-pay every session ; we had a mighty nice slice
out of th3 Bulbul andJCashmere Railroad, to say nothing

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHKM.

• <

of the dip we had in the Ispahan Navigation Coniijany
I was, 1 may say, the Oakes Ames of Persia.

" My daughter loved and was loved by a youth of Ispah-
an, who was a mere seller of shawls. He stood in the
bazaar on a small salary, with chance to steal but little,
and was therefore poor. His master, a Jew from Cairo,
paid him but four dirhems per month, which hardly kept
him in kirboshes. He kept up style, however, by bilking
his landlady and borrowing. His capital was cheek. The
immorality and dishonesty of the lower classes is some-
thing terrible. Baba, my daughter, loved him neverthe-
less. She would steal out into the garden at night to
meet him ; she would go to the mosque to meet him ;
and he even, once, penetrated to her chamber.

" I remonstrated with the young fellow, but to no pur-
pose. I desired Baba to wed with Hassan, the rich mer-
chant ; but he was old and ugly, and she preferred the
penniless young man. I pointed out to her the probability
of Hassan's dying and leaving her a rich widow, but she
was immovable.

" * Papa,' said she, * I will never desert Ilderim till he
deserts me, which he never will. I can die, but what is
death j It is merely a change : the body moulders in the
silent tomb ; but the Spirit, the Eternal Essence, returns
to, and becomes a part of the Supreme Entity from which
it originally sprang. Your cruelty may drive me to an
immediate return to my native heaven, but as for marry-
ing Hassan — not for Joe.' . ;• ^. .,,. . . . , ,,

" I was determined that she should not wed with Ilde^

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

rim, but did not resort to bludgeons, and double-barrelled
shot-guns, and bull-dogs, and things of that unpleasant
nature. Not any. I was an astute old gentleman, whose
eye-teeth had been cut. I met Ilderim cordially the next
day ; I invited him to my house ; I said to him, * Take
Baba to the minstrels and to the Young Men's Christian
Association Lectures, and other places of cheerful amuse-
ment,' and I slapped him on the back and remarked that
I liked young men of spirit. ' '

" But just at that time a story got into circulation that
I had been speculating in stocks ; that I had been led into
trouble by Jimfisque and Ja.ijould, — two railroad finan-
ciers of that day, who could clean out an honest man in
less time than it would take him to write an assignment ;
that I had confided in Da Neldroo ; and, in. short, that I
was busted. And the next time that Ilderim came there
were officers of the cadi in the house, who were, as he en-
tered, appraising Baba's Steinway piano. I fell on his
neck and wept, and told him I was ruined, and asked
him to see if he could not get me a place as a scribe for
his master, for I was now poorer than he.

"I need not dwell on this painful theme. I was sur-
prised to observe Ilderim's vacant look, as he remarked,
* It is a queer go ! * and pained to see him absent himself
without even asking for Baba. And two days after I
heard Baba, speak of him as * a heartless wretch,* which
remark she made just after seeing him promenading
gaily • with Zobeide, the daughter of Zamroud, the rich
candle- maker. Baba married Hassan the next week.

MORALS OF AROU BEN ADHEM.

Ilderim was disgustod when ho discoverod that I had not
lost my shekels, — that not a dirhem had left my pouch,
and that the officers he saw in my house were my own
slaves in disguise ; and he accused Hassan and myself of
having ' put it up on him/ as he expressed it. Possibly
we did. Mind is stronger than muscle; the cunning
dwarf can do more than the stupid giant. Management
will accomplish what kicks and bludgeons cannot. Kicks
never reach the seat of reason.

"Go home, fond father, go home. Spread the report of
your failure ; get it noised about that you have been a
week in Wall Street, and see how long it will take your
dry-goods clerk to jilt Keturah Jane. Then will Keturah
Jane wed whomsoever you will. Her head is set on ma-
trimony ' and she must marry somebody. The moment
her present young man goes back on her (to use a phrase
of the ancients) you may nominate his successor; for
marry somebody she will, if for no other reason than to
spite the man that jilted her. Once set on matrimony
they marry. The flame of Hymen in a girl's bosom never
goes out, never. Follow my advice and she will be Mrs.
Jenkins in a week. Away, dotard, away ! "

And Abou ben Adhem gathered up his pipe and bottle,
and went into his tent for his siesta. . ^

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

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THE DISCONTENTED PEASANT.

No philosopher or oage in any period of the world's
history enjoyed a better or more wide-spread re-
putation than did Abou ben Adln^m. From the frozen
North, even beyond the Skowhegan, men came to him for
counsel and aid, likewise from the sunny South and bound-
less West; and no worthy applicant ever went away
without receiving what he came for. True, he was be-
sieged by " dead beats " (as the Orientals in their flowery
and figurative style characterize impostors) ; but as he
never gave anything to any one but advice, they got very
little the better of him.

One bright morning in leafy June, Abou was stanciing
in front of his tent, musing, as was his wont, upon the
mutability of human affairs. He was in a comfortable
arm-chair, with his feet upon a wooden bench, and the
smoke of his clay pipe floated off" lazily in little clouds,
which hung in the air a moment and then faded into the
elements. , ;**>« ;^ -; '.:.

Abou always smoked a clay pipe. He was wealthy and

> MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

could have afforded a meerschaum, but he preferred the
simple ^d mexpei>sive clay. He was not a bloated aris-
tocrat and pampered son of luxury.

*' How like life ! " he said, as he watched the constantly
ascending and constantly fading smoke- wreaths. " How
like life ! The cloud has an appearance of solidity at the
beginning, but when we grasp it, we find we have noth-
ing in our hands. There is a strong smell, a color, and
the elements absorb it, — it is nothing. Be chesm, it is
like the work of a Congressional investigating committee.
Is it to be ever thus ? It is a conundrum which can only
be solved by the end-man of the celestial minstrels. I
give it up How now ? Who art thou, and what ^vouldst
thou with me?"

The concluding sentence was hurled at a young man,
who had approached so silently that Abou had not noticed
him until he stood in front of him. '

" Art thou Abou ben Adhem ? " interrogated the stran-
ger. ^ : • ■■ ■,

" So m.en call me," replied Abou. " Thy business ? "

" Behold in me one who is dissatisfied with his lot," re-
plied the intelligent and ingenuous youth. ' = >'

" All men are so, my son," replied Abou, promptly ; for
he saw that the young man did not want to borrow money.
" You can see such in any grocery. One wants riches,
another fame ; some chase one fleeting shadow, some an-
other ; but discontent is the accompanying fiend of all.
We hie us to Wall Street and invest in Harlem. Harlem
goes down, — we lose, and curse our fate ; it goes up, we

\ *

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,-ii

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

double our money, and we repine that we did not go into

oil and treble it. But wlia,t wouldst thou with me ?

•

Wouldst be president, poet, or what ?"

*' Mighty Abou, I cannot be President, for I am not
available as a nominee. I was not born in a log cabin ; I
did not study arithmetic by the light of a pine knot ;
neither did I wade ten miles through deep snow, without
shoes, to borrow ' Plutarch's Lives,' I had the misfortune
to be bom in a good house, of parents fairly off, and was
given a good education. I am not a self-made man, so
you see the stump orators would be at a loss as to what
to say of me. * My name is Norval ; on the Grampian
Hills my father fed his flocks, — a frugal swain.' A year
ago he died and left these flocks to me, — his only son. I
put up a monument to his memory, and on the enduring
stone his virtues did I carve. Being a truthful man, and
having been well acquainted with the old gentleman, the
inscription took but little space, and — but this is a di-
gression. I shear those sheep, wash the wool, and card it
into rolls, and spin it, and weave it into cloth, and of that
make garments. Why all these processes ? If the sheep
could produce wool in the form of rolls, it would save me
much trouble and labor. I could have more time to play
billiards — that is to say, to improve my mind, and I could
have more means to keep trot — or rather, I mean— that
is — to devote to charitable works, and iLt short — "

" I understand you," said Abou. " Your request is a
{singular one. Sheep with nicely-carded rolls on their
backs instead of matted wool would be a convenience.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

The breed would be valuable, and would take diplomas at
agricultural fairs, — yes, and possibly cash premiums, if
enough remained after paying purses to trotting horses.
Go thy way. I grant thee thy request. Henceforth thy
sheep shall grow rolls instead of plain wool. Go, my son,
and be happy." -- .1 .5 : '

The young man sprang gayly away, and Abou filled
his pipe again, jand settled back again into his chair in a
dreamy reverie.

A week passed by, and Abou had nigh forgotten the
young man ; when one morning, to his surprise, the
bucolic youth marie his appearance before him.

" What now ? " ejaculated Abou. ** Was not thy wish
gratified ? "

"Verily it was," replied the high-minded citizen.
" When I reached my humble home in the vales of Sussex,
I found my sheep with beautiful rolls on their backs ; all
JL had to do was to cut those rolls and spin them." '

" Well, then, what more wouldst thou have ? "

" Great Abou," and the young man bowed three times
before the great magician, " I have an improvement to
suggest. If the (sheep can grow wool in roUs, why not
wool in yams as well ? While Nature is about it, why
can't she spread herself over a trifle more ground ? Think
what an advantage it would be to have sheep with yarn
on them, all nicely tied in hanks."

Abou put his finger to his left temple, as though he
were sitting for a photograph, and thought for a moment.

"Young man, after careful consideration and mature

MORALS OF ABOU ^EN ADEEM.

deliberation, I have decided to grant this, thy second re-
quest. Go to thy native mountains. Thy sheep shall
grow fine yarn of many colors. Go and leave me."

One week after the date of the last interview Abou
y was aroused from his slumbers in the morning by vocifer-
ous knocking. Looking out of his window, his affrighted
eyes beheld the young man from Sussex.

" Again here !" said Abou. " Young man, thou art as
importunate as a life-insurance agent, or a lightning-rod
■' man, or a man who sells farm rights for a patent gate. I
would let loose my bull-dog on thee, but for the fact that
I have had him but two weeks, and alas ! he is trained
only to kill life-insurance solicitors. Wert thou a mis-
sionary, whose duty it was to call a sinful world to repen-
tance, and shouldst thou be as persistent in that calling
as thou art at worrying me, the enemy of mankind would
throw up the sponge, and howl in baffled rage. Once for
all, what wantest thou \ " vv . r > ^^^ ,

"Mighty Abou, I bow in thp dust before thee! All
things are as easy to thee as turning jack from the
bottom of the pack was to me in my unregenerate days.

; You ordered my sheep to grow yam : they do it, and good
yarn it is. But why stop at yarn ? If they can grow
yarn, why not grow cloth ? Ah ! then it would be good
indeed. I should but have to strip it off, and cut it, and
sew it into garments ; and think how much labor it would
save me. Mighty Abou, grant me but this ! "

i "Be it so," replied Abou, "but bother me no more.
Come here again at thy peril. I am chairman of the Exe-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

cutive Committee of my ward, and the election is but
three weeks off. Go thy ways, cloth it is. Git ! "

And Abou shut down the window and returned to his
slumbers, happy in the thought that he was rid of that nuis-
ance for ever. But he was mistaken. Just one week
from date the young man turned up again, with a front
of brass and cheeks unblushing. '

" Mighrty Abou "— r , -

A shoe-brush hurled with terrific force was the answer.

Calmly dodging the missile, the young man resumed : —

« Mighty Abou— "

" Young man," said Abou impressively, " you have no
sense of delicacy — ^not a sense. I presume that during
my natural life I shall see you once a week. When my
last moment comes, when Azrael is waving his black pin-
ions over mo, when my friends are weeping, a^d calculat-
ing mentally how my estate wiU pan out, I suppose I shall
be called to life for a moment by the familiar words,
* Mighty Abou.' Three times have I given you what you
desired, but you are here again. Well, say it, and be ^
quick about it." >> <

" Mighty Abou, at thy bidding my Merinos, which I
imported from Vermont, have yielded, first roUs, then
yam, then cloth. So far, so good. But the same power
that made them do this can make them do more. Why
stop at cloth ? Why, O Abou, should they not grow — "

"What?" shrieked Abou, bewildered at the young

man's impudence. - ^^ -

The young man was not bewildered, or dashed, or in
£

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

any way moved. He was as calm qs a summer's morn-
ing. Taking Abou by the "button-hole that he might not
escape him, he fixed him with his eye, and proceeded, —

" Why should they not as well grow ready-made cloth-
ing, with an ^Lmerican watch in the vest-pocket, with a
pocket-book filled with greenbacks and a plug of Caven-
dish tobacco handy in the trousers-pocket ? This is what
I now want. Grant me this, and be chesm, I swear by

Bismallah " ^ f^-- .-:./■ -. *. i.^ ■ -• .x..■j^•*^^vvi. .;>;f-,r',^.>:,>•a>:^J^■
" Away, ungrateful dog, and let me see thy face no
more ! " shrieked the indignant Abou, his eyes glowing
fiercely, like the head-light of a locomotive. " Three times
have I granted thy absurd wishes knowing full well that
it would come to this. I yielded to thy importunities
solely and entirely for the purpose of teaching thee a les-
son, — one that every young man must learn before he can

be happy. r«:Y.:,^^- k'^\-^ktiy--^Mi.:^^^^:..i.::^-'.-.i{'o^-

'* Nature, wretched man, did for us, at the beginning, all
that. was needed, — all that our imperfect being could en-
dure. She gave us the raw material to work on, and the
ability to work on it, and then very properly let us alone.
She gave us stomachs, but did not stop there. She gave
us cattle, and wheat, and things of that character. I sup-
pose she could have put up cattle ready roasted; she
might have had sirloin roasts on four legs rambling pen-
sively on the hills, waiting to be eaten ; and each stalk of
wheat might have had a French roll on its head, and so on :
but she knew better than that. It is our business to
utilize her gifts. Nature provides corn : it is for us to

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADKEM.

convert that corn into bread and such other products as go
to su^in life. ..■.•■«:■■;< .;-'^).-:, , :„■' ,■ ■ .:,., .;-.t;<ir'" s,,;;

" Suppose, O miserable ! for instance, that I had given
you all you asked : what would you have had to do, and
how would you have done it ? You would have become
lazy and worthless ; you would have frequented groceries;
you would have intiansified your taste for intoxicating
beverages ; to kill time you would have resorted to faro
and keno, two sinful games that will floor a man quicker
than anything in this world, as I know ever since I made
tJie last trip to Trenton, where I lost — ^but no matter; you
would have mixed in politics and become a nuisance to
yourself and a pest to your friends. -y_ ^ - v j ^ < •;-

c;«j, " Labor, wretciied man, is Heaven's first law and its kind-
est. The curse of Adam was no curse at all. A busy
man has not the time on his hands to contemplate him-
self ; he never realizes what a miserable insect he is, which
reflection would lead inevitably to suicide. ,,, , , ,

"Go thy way. Your sheep are, from this moment,
divested of the qualities I gave them, and grow common
wool again. Shear, wash, spin, weave, cut and sew, and be
happy. Avaunt!" ' ;' .. ^

And Abou went into his tenii with the remark that it
Wiis not impossible that somewhere there might be found
a more unreasonable man, but he doubted it.

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THE LOST MAIDEK Oi ISPAH/N.

ABOU, the sage, was discussing with me, one morn-
ing the question of beauty. I held that a sensible
woman cared nothing for beauty, but concerned hei-self
more about the symmetry of her mind than about her face
and figure.

1 Abou replied that this kind of talk was, to use a Persian
phrase, bosh. " There is nothing," he remarked, " that a
homely women will not do to be handsome, and nothing
that a handsome woman will not do to avoid becoming
homely. Listen to a story of real life in Persia, which
illustrates this point."

And putting his slippered feet on an easy-chair, Abou
narrated as follows : — ' -

" It was midnight in Ispahan ! A wild storm raged
violently over that city, a thing which often occurs in the
fall of the year. In a neat but unpretending boarding- .
house on a secluded street, sat, in a room on the second
floor in the rear of the house, a maiden, o'er whose head
had flown thirty-eight summers. Time had not touched
her lightly Her cheeks were sunken, wrinkles yawned

MOUALS OF ABOIT BEN ADHEM.

hideously across her forehead and lurked maliciously just
at the cor 's of her moath ; her hair was scanty and thin,
the pale rt;«i contrasting unfavorably w'hh the white skin
of the sc- p, wVich shone through pretty generally; her
Udck was like the swan's- -not much ; and her arms were
skinny and her shoulders scraggy. The only handsome
point about her was her teeth, and those were good.
She had good taste in teeth, and bought the best she could
find ; they cost hor forty-two dollars and a half, on which
she had at different times expended twelve dollars in re-
pairs ; so they were as good as new. -'' - Pi- ' ,?

" Zobeide was a high-minded seamstress ; and whoever
said she was handsome lied in his throat, like a bas
false-hearted traitor as he was, and in his mouth likewise.
She was originally homely. In her infancy she was said
to have been the homeliest child in the village in which
she was bom ; in her girlhood her vital energies were all
expended in her hands and feet ; and in womanhood she
had grown thinner and thinner where she ought to have
grown thicker and thicker, and vice versa, which h Latin
for otherwise. In addition to these charms, she had ac-
quired a habit of squinting, and was afflicted with a per-
petual cold. « vr.fi

" Zobeide was sewing, which she continually did for a
living ; and, as she plied the needle, a bitter tear fell on
the garment which she was making. Something was
wrong with her. Some great grief was preying on her,
some untold woe, some desii'e unattainable, — something
«,iled her. The faster hue plied her needle, the faster the

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MORALS OK ABOIT BEN ADHEM.

tears fell, — as though she was a thin pump, and her right
arm the handle thereof. ' ' *' *•

" At this critical point, while her tears were flowing
faster than ever, there was a terrible peal of thunder, and
as she started in terror from her seat, she observed sitting
in front of her, on the other side of the table — A man !
She would have shrieked, but terror tied her tongue.
How did he get there ? No door had opened, and of his
presence she was unaware until he had dawned on her
sight. What was he there for ? No human being wear-
ing pantaloons had ever sought her presence before ; and
unable to solve such a staggerer, she sank back on her
seat and sobbed more violent than ever. ■ .t^t

" The mysterious intruder was a pleasant-looking, mid-
dle-aged gentleman, dressed scrupulously in black, with
patent-leather boots and a white vest, and a white hat
with crape on it, and a gold chain that hung over his
vest, 'and a cane which he carried rather jauntily than
otherwise. His countenance, to use a mercantile phrase,
was 'fair to middling.' It was undeniably handsome,
though his eye glittered cruelly, something like a frozen
mill-pond in winter. Such eyes, by the way, always in-
dicate disagreeable death under them. His lips, too thin
for genuine good humor, kept wreathing themselves into
a smile which bad nothing in it, — such as a rattlesnake
might smile as he charms a bird, or a tiger indulge in
when he is satisfied he has a sure thing on the unsuspect-
ing gentle gazelle which is approaching his, lair. And had
Zobeide been behind him, she would have observed that

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADIIEM.

he was at great pains to keep curled up under his coat-
skirt a genuine tail, with a barb on it, and that his boots
were not just as they ought to be.

" ' Maiden,' said he, in a gentle, winning voice, at which
word she started, for that was the secret of her trouble ;
* maiden, I know what grieves thee.'

" She spake not, but looked at him fixedly.

" * I know what grief consumes thee,' — and he added to
himself, * and it hasn't much more to prey on except
hands and feet.' ' I know why thou Aveepest.'

" ' Speak on,' saiJ she.
1 " * Thou wouldst have beauty, thou wouldpt be even as
other maidens are, fair to look upon ; thou wouldst have
thy hair as black as the raven's wing, without buying
dye, which thou canst not afford at the present price of
making shirts ; thou wouldst have a plump face and a
general plumpness all over ; thou wouldst have thy feet
reduced, and the material wasted in them placed where
it would show to better advantage; thou wouldst lose
those freckles, which are neither useful nor ornamental ;
thou wouldst have youth, and gay attire to adorn thy
youth, and gold galore, and silver and precious stones, et
cetera.

" ' Thou weepest, Zobeide, because last night, at mosque,
thou sawest each maiden have her escort, and they went
off two and two as the animals entered the ark ; but not
one looked at you, and you wended your way homeward
through the rain, alone and uncared for. You would
change all this. Is it not so ? '

•I VJ

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MORALS OF ABOU HEN ADHRM.

" And bending her head like a sunflower in a gale, she
whispered, ' It is.'

" ' Maiden,' said he, seizing her by the shoulder-bone,
and fixing his eyes on her with a hungry intensity, ' I can
give thee these and more.'

" * 0, sir I ' said she, ' whoever you are, give them to
me ! give them to me ! But,' and a doubt crossed her
mind, ' what price must I pay ? What must I do to gain
all these ? ',

" * Only sign your name. Here, maiden, is the docu-
ment, sealed with a notary's seal, with a revenue stamp
on it, and a place left blank for your name. See how
beautifully the blank is printed ! I have them done here
in Ispahan, so as to have them handy where I do the most
of my business. Sign, Zobeide, sign ! '

" ' Read it to me,' said she, * read it to me.'

" He read it. It was an article of agreement in which
he promised to give her youth, beauty, wealth, as much
of those articles as she should order, on demand, for the
space of ten years, in consideration of which she should, at
the end of that period, become his, soul and body.

" * And who are you ? ' asked she, trembling, her system
shaking like castanets.

" * The Devil, Zobeide, himself, in person.'

" ' Avaunt ! ' she cried, drawing herself up to her full
height, as all heroines do when they say ' Avaunt ! '

•*' Shall I go, and leave you here — yellow-haired,
freckled, and scraggy, Zobeide ? ' said he, sardonically.

"She had been revelling in a dream of bliss while he

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MORALS OF AROU BRN ADHEM.

had been talking, and in imagination had been all he had
painted her, and the thought of going back to her old
condition was too much. She thought of the church the
night before ; she remembered that she had never had a'
beau but once, and he was a lame kobosh-maker who
never came the second time, and in a fit of frenzy she
exclaimed, ' I will sign ! ' and tried to fall, overcome "^^
with emotion, on hie neck. ' t-Mu

"'Not any of that,' said he, dodging. 'Business is
business, but please don't' ; and he whipped out a lancet,
and tied up her arm so that she shouldn't bleed too much ;
for it always was the regular thing for such contracts to
be signed in the blood of the victim, — though I don't see
why red ink wouldn't do as well, if it wasn't for the pre-
cedent, — and she signed. •• -^-' — -'! ^^lii. .« ^w hi

** As the final curl was put to the tail of the * e,' there
was another clap of thunder, in which he seized the fatal
scroll and vanished as he came, without going through
any door, and leaving behind him a perceptible odor of
sulphur. '■.'/.

" The next morning Zobeide was missing. Quietly she
packed her trunk, and bought a ticket for Teheran.

She was never more seen in Ispahan.

•■1^-55

"Teheran. Zobeide Wt.s at her toilet in a luxurious
mansion on the Avenue of the Faithful, which she had
bought nine years and eleven months before, and was
occupying. She wasn't the Zobeide we saw at the open-
ing of this legend, not by any means. A more beautiful
female never stood before a looking-glass. Her teeth had

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

grown out again ; her hair had come in thicker and longer
than any you see on the labels of the Hair Restorers ;
her skin was as pure as alabaster, her neck was truly like
the swan's, and her arms were rounded as they ought to
be, her feet were shrunk into 3s or 3Js ; and altogether
she was allowed by good judges to be the most perfect
piece of femininity in those parts. She didn't powder,
because no powder could improve her complexion ; she
didn't paint, because no paint could rival the natural
roses in her cheeks ; and 8he didn't embellish her figure,
because there was no necessity for it. When the Devil
makes a contract of this kind, he always fulfils his part
to the letter. Lovers ! she had them by the thousand.
Half of the noble youths in Teheran were at her feet.
They sighed for the possession of her matchless charms ;
they sighed for her wealth, with which to go into the oil
business : but to all of which she turned a deaf ear.
Her motto was ' Excelsior,' and she was waiting for
some noble Lord, aome Grand Duke, or some Princely
Potentate or Power, to fall at her feet. And besides, she
had grown capricious and wayward, and it was a source
of sererie pleasure to her to have them dangling after
her. '-"■■

" One night Zobeide stood at her toilet preparing her-
self for a gay assemblage, at which she was sure to be
the admired of all admirers. She was just putting the
last touch to herself, and was admiring the effect in tJ **
mirror, when, horror ! there was another face beside hers
in the glass ! She shrieked, for it was the identical face

(( (

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

which she had stood before ten years before, in her deso-
late chamber in Ispahan. *^ '^ *^' 1. vL *>.*.; j3?v^*

" 'Zobeide,' said he, * I have come for thee. Didst think, *
Zobeide, when thou left Ispahan, that I could never find
time to come here after thee ? Foolish girl ! Know that
two-thirds of the inhabitants of that city come to me of
their own accord ! Here is the contract, but ' — a frown
o'erspread his countenance — * I am mistaken in the date.
Thou hast yet a month before thou fallest due. Never
mind/ said he to himself, * the time isn't wasted. I never
yet failed to make a trip to Teheran pay. I shall be
here again in a month. Be ready.'

" Zobeide went to the party,, nevei-theless, and was the
gayest of the gay. Ah ! could those who envied her hair
have known by what means she became possessed of it !
Could those who noticed the heaving of her bosom have
known how heavy the heart she was carrying underneath
it! But they did'nt. They never do. - ^ ^^

" That night was one of unmixed agony. She paced
the floor till the dawning of the day, and wept and tore
her hair, and tore her hair and wept. Was there no way
to escape him ? Could she hot outwit him ? Was there no
flaw in the contract ? Were such contracts binding under
the laws of Persia? To all these questions sbs got no
answer, and finally, in her despair, she went to the mufti
of the mosque in which she had been sleeping ever since
she had been in Teheran, as all people do when the Devil
gets af ar them. She told him her story, weeping till the
carpet was soaked. • - - , .. ^

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" ' Zobei'le,' said he to her tenderly, as is the custom ot
ministers when they are giving advice to young and pre-
possessing females, ' thou didst foolishly. What are the
transitory things of life ? What are beauty, wealth and
such, if thou canst not enjoy them forever V

" * True, father,* said she, * but I've had a good time of
it for ten years. You cannot appreciate my situation.
Owing to your sex, you never can be a scraggy female,
yellow-haired and freckled, and running mostly to hands
and feet. If you had been such, you would have done as
I did.'

" * Zobeide, one way remains, and only one. When the
arch-fiend cometh, give him back all that he gavest thee ;
tell him to restore thee to thy normal ugliness, and the
contract is at an end.' p...*,vt «^. t,v*

" * But what shall I do then V 4^^

' " ' If you are too ugly to move in good society, turn
reformer, my child, and go to lecturing on woman's rights.
Why didn't you think of that before ? '

"And she took his advice. Precisely as the clock struck
twelve, on the night of the thirty-first of the twelfth
month of the tenth year (she was in her chamber), before
her stood her visitor, — this time without his coat and hat
and gentlemanly attire. When the Devil makes a bar-
gain, he always appears fixed up ; when he comes for his
pay, he is not such a pleasant-looking individual. I
learned that once in a fit of delirium tremens, caused by
being a candidate for a county office.

■■ • ■■'(

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

"'Avaunt!' said Zobeide, 'I rue the bargain. I will

" * My dear/ retorted he, * it's too late. You can't back
out. Here ! See ! Here is the contract duly signed and
sealed, and the stamps sufficient. My dear, you must

" * Place me,' shrieked she, * as you found me. Take
back this wealth, this beauty, this hair, these teeth, and
give me back my old set, which was as good as new. I
WILL NOT GO ! Our arrangement is at an end.' ' ^

" ' Zobeide,' said he, smiling sardonically, and fixing on
her a wicked eye, ' look at this ! Ha ! ha ! '

" And he held before her a photograph which had been
taken ten years ago, and which she thought she had des-
troyed. There was the yellow hair, the wrinkles, the
freckles, the skinny neck, the hands, and the feet which
even hoops were insufficient to hide ; and as her eyes
were glued on it, the Devil smiled still more sardonically.

" ' Would you be again like this, and be again beneath
the notice of a lame kobosh-maker ? ' said he. v :^ 5m;

" ' Never ! ' shrieked she, ' take me ! ' and she fell faint-
ing into his arms. ' ^ ; '

" When the servants came up the next morning at 11
A. M., to awaken their mistress, she wasn't there. There
was, however, a strong odor of brimstone pervading the
apartment, which completely overpowered the Night-
Blooming Cereus which stood open on her table. The
servants helped themselves to her clothes and jewelry,
and all of them married well and had large families. The

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

house was sold for taxes, as is the custom of the city, and
was finally converted into a boarding-house.

" My friend, there are several morals to be drawn from
this legend, the principal one of which is, that the un-
quenchable desire for being handsome and rich is what
generally sends women to the Devil ; and so long as men
are idiotic enough to hold beauty, which can only endure
a few years, superior in value to other qualities which are
eternal, I cannot say that I blame them. Every Gill must
have her Jack, and the Gills all desire that which has most
power over the Jacks. So far, beauty has done the trick,
and therefore they want beauty.

" But I am tired. I will lie me down."

And the Sage went into his tent and laid him down on
his divan.

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IX.

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THE INUTILITY OF TRUTH.

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ABOU BEN ADHEM was notin good humor. He
was away from his home, and missed sadly the
comforts and conveniences of his tent. He took with him
the editor of these pages, that in genia^ companionship he
might mitigate the suffering that to him always accom-
panied change, but he was not happy. He was out of his
place, and was therefore as uncomfortable as a faro-dealer
would be in a prayer-meeting, a member of Congress h,t a
reform convention, or a lobster in hot water. The dweller
in Fifth Avenue, used to the conveniences of modern
civilization, ^o^'ld not be comfortable in the simple tent
of the Persian sage ; so, likewise, the Persian sage was
not comfortable in the gorgeous room which he was occu-
pying in a hotel at Trenton. When the heat became in-
supportable, he could not lift the bottom of the cloth of
his tent and get a free circulation of air ; at Trenton he
had to depend on a raised window. ' '

" They talk of improvements," said zVbou to himself, as
he hung panting out of the aperture, gasping for breath.

J**.)

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

, ' '• " Has the world made progress ? Is this hole better than
all out-of-doors ? "

It was while he was thus musing, in an irritable frame

of mind, that a stranger entered, which interruption, of

/ all things in the world, was precisely what Abou did not

want. " -

, . " What is the matter with you, my buck ? " said Abou,

' unconsciously dropping into the fervid Oriental style of

expression. •. :: .-v

"Mighty Abou," said the stranger, "I would confer

with you. I would be perfect. I would live close to truth.

I would so train my mind that truth should ever be in it

. — my tongue, that it should ever utter it. This is what

I yearn for — truth."

, " Young man," replied Abou, impressively, " to remark
that you are an ass would be a very mild statement of
your condition. But I will waste a little time on you.
Listen.

, " In the years gone never to return, I was a young man
in Ispahan. I was the son of loving parents, who sent
me to the school of Blohard, the perfectionist, to be in-
structed in morals. Blohard held and taught as a first
principle, that truth, absolute and undeviating, should
govern all men ; and that imder no circumstances could it
be safely disregarded. I believed him, and went out into
the world to practise his teachings. .

V -i, " I had a maiden aunt, who had property to which it
was expected I would be heir, and my parents had parti-
cularly instructed me to show her deference and honor.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Woe is me that I ever saw Blohard, whom may seven
thousand fiends torment ! I was at her house just after I
had received this lesson from that prince of quacks.
Everything was propitious for me. She was seventy-one,
and had a cough which was tearing her to pieces ; and to
make it absolutely certain that she could not long survive,
she had three physicians in attendance upon her. As her
will was made, leaving all her estate to me, the song of the
bulbul was not more agreeable to my ear than that cough ;
and the three physicians were more pleasant to my eye
than a vision of Paradise.

" On the morning in question, I found her absorbed in
the fashion-plates of the Lady's Magazine of that period.
My son, here is a fact thrown in gratis, — no woman e er
gets beyond fashion-plates. It is a provision of nature
that a fashion-plate delights the feminine mind so long as
it is incased in the feminine body. My aunt was reclin-
ing on a sofa and arrayed gorgeously. She had on a pink
mauve poplin, berage moire antique, cut bias down the
back, with heart-shaped bodice, low in the neck, and with
short sleeves trimmed with asbestos lace. It was a dress
appropriate for a young lady of fifteen with flesh on her
shouldei-s.

" * Abou,' said she, with a death's-head grin and a para-
lytic shake of the head, ' doth not this dress accord with
my style of beauty ? '

" I was about to reply like a man of the world, when

the precept of Blohard (whom may fire consume !) occurred

to me.

MORALS OF ABOi; BEN ADHEM.

" * I am sure it does not^ aunt ! ' I replied. ' You are
too fearfully old and ugly for such a gay dress. The
; beauty of the apparel calls unnecessary attention to your
^ general ghastliness ; you are too bony for such dry-goods,
' and the cut thereof adds to your horrible boneiness in-
stead of hiding it. A skeleton, no matter l^ow perfect a
skeleton it may be, should never be dressed low in the
neck ; for shoulder-i)lades, when they seem to be forcing
their way through safiron-colored skin, are never pheasant
to look upon. Now, aunt, in all candor, I would suggest
that instead of dressing yourself so absurdly in lace, you
swathe your shrivelled remains in flannels, thus com-
pellinsr art to furnish what nature has denied, — a sufficient
cc vtoixiig for your bones. It is absurd for a hideous old
virgin like y^arself to ape the style of a girl of fifteen.
Go to, vain old woman ! Instead of indulging in such
vanities, prepare for Death, who stands waiting for you.*
" The old lady did noi> appreciate my truthfulness. She
flew at me like an attenuated tigress, and called me a fool
and a beast, and ordered me out of her house. The ex-
citement was so great that she fell into a fit of coughing
which killed her. She lived, however, long enough to
alter her will, leaving every dirhem of her estate to the
Society for the Conversion of the French to Mohammed-
anism. I never saw a kopeck of it.

" This was somewhat discouraging, but I determined to
persevere. Blohard had dwelt so strongly on the necessity
of absolute truth that I could not think of going back on
it. So I gritted my teeth and waded in.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" I had an uncle, a very rich man, who was afflicted
with poetry. He was troubled with the idea that he was
a poet, and spent the bulk of his time hacking away at
his verses. He had finished a poem of thirty-six cantos,
and he invited me to hear it.

" ' My son,' said he, ' I have confidence in your taste
and judgment. Now, I am going to show this poem to
you, and shall abide your judgment. If you say it is
good, I shall so esteem it, and publish it ; if you say bad,
I shall accept the decision, and bum it.'

" * Fire away ! ' I answered, in the Oriental style, which
is more fervid than your form of utterance in this deliber-
ate and unimpassioned West.

" The old gentleman read, and read, and read. I strug-
gled manfully to keep awake, and succeeded. When he
got through he paused.

" * Your honest judgment, my son.*

" I determined to give an honest opinion, but I said to
myself, I will draw it mild. I will not hurt the old
gentleman's feelings. I will treat him tenderly.

" * Uncle,' said I, * the poem may have merits, but I
fail to discover them. It is defective in rhythm, utterly
' and entirely devoid of sentiment, and atrocious in design.
A more stupid, senseless performance I was never bored
with. It is hog-wash. It is idiocy — it is deliberate
^ idiocy. It was conceived in weakness and brought forth
in inanity. I would, for your sake, that I could call it
lunacy ; but it lacks the strength and fire that an over-
turned intellect would have given it. I cannojt say lunacy

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MORALS OF ABOTT BEN ADHEM.

in connection with it, for to say lunacy presupposes intel-
lect, of which this performance gives no token. It is
drool. It is drivel. For the sake of your family, do not
publish it.*

" I did not expect this criticism to produce the effect it
did, for ii was entirely honest and just. But it did not
strike the old gentleman at all pleasantly. He glared at
me a moment fiercely, and raising a chair, felled me to the
floor. He kicked me out of the house, protesting the
while tbfj t a more insulting dog than I was did not dwell
in Ispahan.

" He did publish the poem, however, but the public of
Ispahan sustained my criticism. The wits of Ispahan
and Teheran made him their butt for weeks. But when
he died, he left me, who should have been his heir, a
bound copy of the accursed trash. '

" I followed up this thing for a year. I told an orator
that his peroration was bosh and his entire speech was
clap-trap. I told a dervish that his whirling and howling
were only half as good as they had been a year before.
In the most candid manner, I informed an actor who had
invited me to witness and criticise his performance, that
he was the worst I ever saw. In short, in that year i
made an enemy of every man, woman, and child in Ispa-
han ; and what grieved me was, that in all that time I
held closely to the truth, never deviating from it a hair's-
breadth. ]' , ^ : ' u ^'

" And finally I came to blows with Blohard himself.
He asked my candid opinion of a lecture he had delivered,

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

end I told him what I thought, as he had instructed me.
I merely remarked that the badness of the thought wan
only equalled by the badness of the execution, and that
both together were exceeded by the badness of the de-
livery. Instead of thanking me, he Hew into a rage.

" My son, truth is not the highest wisdom in ordinary
hands, but silence is. Only very rich men can atlbrd to
spread truth about recklessly Truth is too precious for
every-day use. When a rich man says, ' I am a plain,
blunt man, and am used to speaking the simple truth ; I
call things by their right names, I do/ — set him down as
a disagreeable old brute, who goes about making people
uncomfortable, because he can do it safely. When a poor
man says the same, set him down as a fool. I do not ad-
vise lying, but beware of too free use of the truth. It
nee ds to be handled judiciously. Were the world perfect,
— were everybody as free from weakness as, for instance,
myself, — it would answer, for truth would then be plea-
sant ; but as it is, beware of it.

" Silence, my ingenuous friend, is your best hold. Sil-
ence will conceal the fact that you are an inferior being,
and will offend nobody.

" Let silence be your rule — speech the exception. Then
shall you prosper and be counted as one of the wise. But
leave me now, for I would rest." , ^

And Abou, after the manner of the Eastern sages,
mixed him in a tumbler the strong waters of the Giaour
with lemon and sugar and a very little water (for the
W£^ter of Trenton is not healthful), and swallowed it, say-

IMAGE EVALUATION
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MORALS OF ABOU BEN: APHEM.

ing, " Be chesm, but it is good. It warms the midriff and
makes one charitable. For an excuse to repeat, I woulcl
be willing, almost, to heave out another chunk of wisdom."
And with this Oriental ejaculation, he clambered into
his bed.

MOBMiS OF ABOU BEN ADBfEM.

THE SHADOWY NATURE OF FAME.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was called upon one morning
in the last moon by a young man of nineteen, who
had walked all thd way from Sussex County to consult
him.

Ahoii was not in the humor to shed wisdom, for he had
been disappointed. He had been trying the experiment
of trammuting metals, hoping to arrive at the secret of
manufacturing gold. He had the required ingredients
in the crucible, he had repeated the magic formula, and
' at the sritical moment, when the star Xermes was enter-
ing the remote apex of the sublunar coDstellation Capsi-
cum, he had dropped into the seething metals the required
ctmse of virgin gold.

/ For the sake of effect he had used for this purpose the
head of a cane, which had been presented to him by a
cf^in corporation, for his services in lobbying through
Ine Legislature a most vHlanous fraud in which it was in-
terested. He could have used other gold, but he thought
the effect would be better to use this. He wanted to see
a picture of himself in the illustrated papers, breaking off

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

this gold head, with an account of how he had spent all
his means to carry on the experiments, until finally, just
' at the threshold of success, he had to have an ounce of
gold. Where was he to get it ? Ha ! There was the
cane ! True, it was a valuable memento, but, in the in-
terest of science, it must go ! That was his idea.

To his surprise the result was not gold, and he wondpied
at it till he investigated. Then he discovered that the
head of that cane was nothing but Milton gold, and that
the whole affair had been bought at a dollar store. Then
did Abou inveigh against the frauds and deceptions of a
wicked world.

Abou looked up and saw the young man, and knew his
Errand at once. He had a broad, white forehead, a turn-
over collar, and wore his hair long in ringlets.

''Well," said the magician, with an unusual degree of
acerbity, " what wouldst thou with me ?"

" Mighty Abou," replied the youth, prostrating limself
three times, " my name is James Parkinson Peters, My
first business is to offer, as a tribute to your genius, —
which is only equalled by your goodness, — ^this pSiCkags
of the distilled product of the New Jersey orchard;"

Abou unrolled it, smelled it, and remarking to himself,
" Apple-jack," said, —

" I accept it in , the spirit in which it is tendered. Dear
to the heart of the sage are the words of approval of
young.men of taste; dearer is the distilled juice of the '
apple — when it is old and mellow,* But what else dost
come for? What says, Hafiz, the Seer of Sangamon

MORAXS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

County ? ' He who comes full-handed expects to go away
fuller-handed.' Be modest in your asking, young man,
lest I repent me of taking your nectar. Drive on your
cart, gentle youth."

" Mighty Abou, tell me, ah ! tell me, is there any such
thing as winning a name that will echo down the ages ? "

« Echo down the what ? "

" Down the ages, which is to say. Is there such a thing
as imperishable fame ? "

" Young man, I understand you. You hanker for im-
mortality ; you would have the name of J. Parkinson
Peters remembered to the end of time, as it were. Is that
the desire that is consuming you ? "

" Mighty Abou, it is."

" J. Parkinson Peters, a more asinine thought never en-
tered an idiot's head ; but we all have it at some period
of our respective lives. I know of but olie cure for it, and
this fortunately I have about my person. Here, J. P. P.,
is a brick. That brick is from Egypt and is only perhaps
five thousand years old. You see those characters ? You
can't read them — I can. That brick has on it a record of
the kings of the old Memphian monarchy which preceded
the Ptolemies. Those Memphian monarchs were no small
potatoes. In the art of scooping other nations they were
equalled by few and excelled by none. Their names filled
the world in their day, and every monarch of them died
supposing his name would go echoing down the ages.
Now, you are a young man of ordinary intelligence.
Well, did you ever hear of Wunpare ? He was the first

MOILALS OF ABCU BEN ADHEM.

of them. No ! Well, he had armies, axxd generals, and
comjnissaries, and was actually a great king. He gave
battle to Toopare and was beaten. Toopare was in turn
Ibeaten by Threeze,\who was ignominiously routed by
Strate, who succumbed in turn to Phlush, who was beaten
iby Acephull, who held on a little while, laying out Fore-
phlush and Threjax, only to meet his doom at the hands of
Foreuvakind, who in turn was made a cold corpse by
Stratephlush.

" Now, my young friend, the great Stratepblush, beipg
the best of them all, was sure of his immortality, and he
really believed that future ages would celebrate his deeds
in prose and verse ; and the egregious ass built a pyramid
or two to perpetuate his name.

** Where now, O Idiot ! is Stratepblush and his memory ?
A few sages like myself, who know all things, know the
name, but no more ; and only such of us as can decipher
cuneiform writing. Practically the great conqueror
Stratepblush is no more known than is the tailor who
mad<e the breeches in which he went forth to do battle.
He made history, and what is it : A line in a dull book,
and a brick I Even we sages cannot come at the time of
his reign into a thousand years. He lived, fought, ruled and
died. He went to death with philanthropists, tailors, den-
tists, lightning-rod men, reformers, life-insurance agents,
missionaries, cabinet officers, prostitutes, explorers, adver-
tising agents, preachers, auctioneers, and lecturers. The
cold waters of oblivion cover them all. Stratepblush is no
P)orQ ren^en^ber^d than is the Beii Butler of his Congress,

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

and neither of them are any better known than are the
people they swindled. The skull of Stratephlosh and
that 'of his shoemaker cannot to-day be distinguished.
We thought we had Stratephlush's skull, but it turned
out afterward that it was a woman's skull, which was de-
termined by the filling in the teeth. Imagine the feelings
of the ghost of Stratephlush when he saw the sa/vc s wor-
shipping a woman's skull supposing it to be his !

" As it was with the ancients, so will it be with the
modems. The Brobindmg nag of t6-day will be the Lili-
putian of the next century. I do not suppose that even
my name will livo forever.

** My son, aU this that you are hankering after is a de-
lusion and snare ; but life is not barren, for all that. I
believe there is a Aiture (as everybody does), for the rea-
son that I hold this life to be altogether too short to re-
ward me for my virtues, and that an eternity is not too
long to punish my enemies. I make this life of use in get-
ting up my moral muscle. I am in training in this world
to make as respectable a ^host as possible in the next.
But I am not going for fame to any extent, nor do I care
about being noted. I leave that for showmen and patent
medicine men. I indulge in no visions of monuments anid
vanities of that nature. I wouldn't give a brass sequin
for all the stone that could be piled up to commemorate
my virtues. If a grateful people want to build a monument
for me, after I am gone, let them come to me now, and
say BO, and I will discount the cost of it twenty-five per
cent, for c^h in l^and. I can usq thQ shekels now } after

100

MOAALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

I am gone they will never do me a particle of good. The
statue will not be like me, and if it is I shall not have
the ability to thank them.

" Qo home, young man, go home. Qo about your legi-
timate vocation, whatever it may be, and stick by it. Live
right along, take all the comfort you can, be as happy as
possible, and when you die, count it as certain that, so far
as this world is concerned, you have died all over. Qo
and be happy ! "

And Abou dismissed him, and resumed his experiments.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

101

HOW TO WIN SUCCESS IN LITERATURE.

A BOLT BEN ADHEM had a mortal dread of young
literary persons. Whenever he saw a man of
tender age, with long hair, a turn-over collar, and fine
dreamy eyes, he was in the habit of calling loudly for his
shot-gun. He disliked them more, if possible, than he did
book-agents or life-insurance solicitors.

It was with great surprise, therefore, that one morning
I saw a young man of this description enter his enclosure
and approach the sage without the latter indulging in any
ferocious demonstrations.

« Well ! " said Abou.

" Qreat man, Light of the world I may say — ^help me,
aid me ! I have a call, a mission. I have within me
yearnings for the. Good, the True, the Beautiful. The
Grand inspires me ; the Sublime exalts me. I would
write for the weekly papers. How shall I achieve my
purpose ?"

" Young man," said Abou, " I was once like you. I
wrote for the sake of Suffering Humanity. The check
which I received for each article, though it shed a ray of

102

MORALS OF AJSOV BEN ADEEM.

light over the heart of my landlady, was not the impell-
ing motive, it was merely an agreeable incident.

** A desire to benefit Suffering Humanity always guided
my pen. It was a sweet thing, I found, to live solely for
the good of others. That is what I did. It wm. my best
hold. I wrote for the good of the human race. When I
did not publish, I did what good I could by reading my
work to a friend (a man of great bodily strength and won-
derful powers of endurance), that at least one might be
benefited. I took the manuscript of an article to him
once, and, to my great grief, found him sick with a fever.

** * My dear sir,' said I, ' how much, for yo'ir sake, do I
regret this unlucky illness ! Were you well, I should read
you this manuscript/

"'Is it yours ? * he asked, feebly.

"'Itis.' • - ^

" * Were I well you would read it to me ? *

*** Most certainly.'

" A smile illumined his wan, pale, fever- wasted face, as
the light of the sun struggles through the rifts of a leaden
cloud, and glorifies the'^brow of a gray rock. There was
in that smile a wonderful commingling, as it were, of re-
signation, thankfulness, and joy.

" * Were I well, you would read me your manuscript,
eh ? How kindly Providence has arranged things ! The
bitter is not altogether bitter, nor is the good altoigether
good. Even typhoid fever has its compensations.'

" I am willing to waste some time on you, for I presume
it is your intention to elevate the tone of American litera-

MORi.^ OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

lOS

ture. It needs elevating, and I have been waiting in vain
for some one to elevate it. What have we, in the way of
maf^azines or papers, that are proper exponents of the best
thought of the country ? What kind of an idea would
the lUerati of the Old World have of American literature*
if they saw only the issues of the periodical press of the
country ? Echo answers. The * Atlantic Monthly ' has,
as a rule, some good things in each number, but is too
lights too airy, too frisky. The 'North American Re-
view ' suits, of course, a certain class of readers, but its
levity is unendurable. It lacks that weight, that dignity,
that a quarterly ought always to possess ; and as for the
other magazines — ^well, I will say nothing about them, but
I have my opinion.

" Writers are ne ded who do things with a purpose.
For instance, if you write tales, let them be always moral
tales. Have your village maide*^ always in simple book-
muslin, with a simple blue sash about her waist, tripping
in a simple manner to the grove beyond the green, to meet
John Perkins, the brawny bricklayer, her lover. Have
her many him, despite the warnings of her guardian, who
has discovered that John Perkins plays se ven-up at a quar«
ter a comer, and five-cent poker, and other sinful games,
and what is still more heinous, invaria Jly loses. After the
wedding, have John Perkins go on from seven-up to to-
bacco, frova. tobacco to rum ; make him the frequent father
of cherub children, who shall always be in rags ; make
him whip his wife regularly; and finally, when at the
iQwest round of the ladder, have him saved by an itinerant

104

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

temperance lecturer, to the great delight of his wife, who
shall suddenly grow young again, and shall adopt book-
muslin and blue sashes, and lean trustingly on his arm, as
she did in the days before the fall, and have John go into
the temperance missionary business himself, and so forth.

" This style of writing is done easily when you are once
ready for it, but it requires a deal of prepaiution. A man
of ordinary intellect would require a month of the wild-
est and most debasing dissipation to reduce his mind to
the level for it. But in the interest of moral writing, you
should be willing to do even this.

" If you write stories of real life, indulge in no vaga-
ries. In your stories the young man must always marry
the girl, and the would-be seducer must always commit
suicide when he faila in his hellish designs, leaving his ill-
gotten gains to the young man who was his nephew,
though no one knew it or suspected it till he came to the
point of expiring. Right there make an impressive moral
picture. The young man must refuse to take the blood-
stained gold, and must say, • Never mind it, Sophia ; we
are poor, but I would beg on the streets rather than live
in luxury upon money, every piece of which is dark with
the bel-lud of innocence, and rusted with the tears of the
helpless. We are poor, Sophia : let us be virtuous.' In
real life, he probably wouldn't say anything of the kind.
He would have taken the shekels if each individual shekel
had been voted its possessor as back-pay. He would have
set up a carriage, Sophia would have indulged in cargoes
of fine dresses, and they would have made it lively in

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

105

their neighborhood. But in your stories, always have
the hero say, ' We are poor, bat let us be virtuous.* The
poor generally are virtuous — is it because they haven't
the ducats to be wicked with ? It i» a conundrum of the
most exhaustive nature.

" And in your stories Virtue must always triumph over
Vice. Adhere steadily to Virtue. I have a respect for
Virtue. Familiarity with her has not yet bred con-
tempt. I believe in giving Virtue fair play ; and as in
actual life, Vice, as a rule, comes out winner by a great
many lengths^ I insist that in romance Virtue shall have
a show. If she doesn't get it there, where will she ?

" Avoid, carefully, all naturalness in writing. We can
get naturalness anywhere — we have a surfeit of it. Mud
is natural ; mix water and dirt, and you have it. But is
it attractive ? The people very properly want something
beside nature if they are expected to pay for it, for nature
they can get for nothing. Who cares for blue water?
No one. Let the bay turn to a bright red, and everybody
would rush to see it. We gaze at the sun only when it is
eclipsed. How many people would go a step out of their
way to see two perfectly formed, handsome men ? To
put this so that it will be pertectly plain to the dullest,
how many citizens of New York would go to see Roscoe
Conkling and myself ? None. But how many hundreds
of thousands of people paid half^-dollars to see that pigmy,
Tom Thumb, and those solemn, spirit-depressing curiosi-
ties, the Siamese Twins ? Had the tie been severed that

bound those willing hearts, not a man or woman in Chris-
*

106

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

tendom would have gone after them, unless to have seen
what was left of the tie.

"The attractiveness of Dickens' sweet little female
childreii consists entirely in the startling fact that chil-
dren of that style are not lying around loose. They are
seen only in his pages and in Sunday-school papers, where
the precocious prigs propound heavy questions in theology
to their gratified parents, and save up their pennies for
the heathen. If you write for children, draw all your
portraits from this class.

" You may, possibly, try a tale of the Revolution. If so,
you may depend upon it that the young ploughman who
left his horses in the field to join the patriots ^"rill always
taunt his captors with being red-coated tools of British
tyranny ; that he will always refuse a Brigadier-General's
commission in the British army, preferring starvation as
a private in the service of his bleeding country. In de-
scribing battles, you must always have the proud Bri-
tons two. to our one, and you must always defeat the
^>roud Britons, though the painful impression is on my
mind that history shows that whenever the Continentals
and British came together in a hostile way, your gallant
forefiEbthers were, as a rule, most satisfactorily whaled.

" You may, also, try your versatile hand on an Indian
romance. If so, the elegant triflers, fresh from Broadway,
must always excel the noble red man of the forest in rifle-
shooting and woodcraft generally, and must always suc-
ceed in circumventing and destrojdng the cunning savage
on his own ground, and with his own weapons.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" You must not startle anybody by going outside of
what is regular.

" But romance may not be your best hold. You may
prefer to cheer a despondent public with cheerful essays
of a light and playful character, on such familiar subjects
as * The Origin of the Human Bace/ * The Connection of
Animal with Vegetable Life/ or something of that sort,
straying from the path occasionally to pluck a few flowers
from the tariff statistics or the currency question. If so,
follow the same rule as in romance. AToid a fact as you
would the small-pox or a reformer. Let your theories
contain just the one point that will please the most peo-
ple, and generalize the words of six syllables in sentences
so long that the strongest memoiy will forget the begin-
ning before it comes to the ending. The reader will never
understand you, and will deem you truly wise. We al-
ways look up to that which we cannot imderstand. In
Persia, my young friend, were once a p^t of illuminati,
very like those you have in your country, who spake only
in six-syllabled words. I cursed myself for an idiot one
day because I could not comprehend a speech that one of
them made. After hammering on it for two weeks, I
thought I smelt something. I took my dictionary and
tackled the great words ; I translated it, in s^'^rt, into
the Persian of every-day u0e, and found what ? It was
an article of my own that I had written for the ' Ispahan
Morning Herald,' nothing more nor less. The meta-
physical fraud had merely clothed it in words of six
syllables.

108

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

" Bemember this : There is nothing like words of six
syllables to hide commonplaces and platitudes.

** Follow these directions, my infant, and in time, you
may get to the height of getting four dollars a column for
your work in the weekly papers, which is fame.

" Away, for I have done. Peace be with thee ! "

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHBM.

109

XII.

THE WISE OLD RAT.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked by a young man
from Boston this question: ''Is it possible for
man, limited as are his powers, surrounded as he is by
circumstances, driven hither and yon as he is by influences
outside himself, to lay out a course in life and follow it ;
that is to say, .can man, imperfect as he is, repressed by
the inevitable, circumscribed by the unscalable, and as-
sailed by the irresistible, go forward and rise into a
higher, purer, and better life in a straight line, or must
he deviate at points in his progress to evade obstacles,
and—"

^ State that again, young man, for I fain would com-
prehend you," said Ab6u.

" What I want to know is this : Cani^n, limited as he

18 —

" Now I comprehend what you want to know," said
Abou, promptly. " Why didn't you state it that way be-
fore ? Clearnesa in statement is necessary. I will answer
your question by a parable written by Oheesit, a sage of
Brownith, who was beheaded for embezzlement some two

110

MORALS OF AfiOU BEN ADEEM.

hundred years ago. The legend (it is a poem in the
original) runa thus :—

"Once upon a time, a wise old rat, whose gray hairs
attested his age, left his peaceful home in search of food
for his numerous progeny. It was a beautiful evening.
The sun was descending o'er the western hills, investing
their summits with a coronal of gold, and transforming
the banks of clouds into seas of liquid light. The birds
sang their vesper hymns, the dormouse chirped his faint
pee- wee, taking care to get into his hole as rapidly as
convenient, for the dormouse knew that he was a
toothsome morsel, and that the rat is constitutionally
hungry. The young chickens chirped cheerily, but they
too absented themselves wiih. alacrity at his approach, for
they knew that the softness of the evening, and the
general harmony, as it were, of things in general, would
not prevent that rat from taking them in. They would
have said as much could they have spoken. Alas ! that
there is no such thing as perfect peace. . The chicken eats
the worm, the rat eats the chicken, the terrier eats the
rat Is this the warring offerees, or is it stomach ? Is
it the eternal order of things, or is it appetite ? It is a
conundrum, — I gy^g it up. But it is sad.

" He tripped affig gayly, for the splendor of the even-
ing filled his soul. He murmured soinewhat at the lack
of confidence in the fat dormouse and the juicy chicken,
but not much. He was musing over the events of a long
life ; of the gi-anaries he had gnawed into ; of the dogs he

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Ill

had avoided ; and was repeating to himself that grand
poem of Zoo-Zoo's, —

* Life is real, life is earnest,' —

When the familiar sound * Hi ! ' startled him from his
pleasant revery.

" One glance and he took in the situation. He was in
a garden which afforded no opportunity for concealment,
and within ten feet of him stood a small but intensely
wicked boy, who had a brick poised in his hand, and was
about hurling it full at him.

" Whiz ! came the deadly missile. An adroit spring
backward saved him, when the boy gave chase. The
rat saw an old house near, and towards that he ran,
hoping to find in its purlieus friendly shelter. Alas ! for
the hunted fugitive. He made one mighty leap, and ex-
perienced a sense of falling. He found himself in the
bottom of a dry cistern, seventeen feet deep, whose smooth
walls it was impossible to scale. The boy saw the trap
the rat had fallen into, and was quickly on the spot.
Another brick was convenient, and that was immediately
hurled. Fortunately the aim of the boy was not perfect.
Ill had it fared with that rat if this had been ten years
later in life, when that boy, grown to iBa man, had run
with a fire company in New York, and had learned to
hurl the brick with unerring aim !

"A shingle lay near, and that he threw with no better
success than before, but as he searched for another missile,
he bethought himself.

112

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" * He can*t get out/ pondered this cruel boy. * I will
let him stay, and in the morning I will bring Nip, my
terrier, and chuck him into the cistern with the rat, and
won't he make that rat sick, though ? *

" By making that ' rat sick, though, * this vigorous but
unrefined youth meant to say that the terrier dog would
rend the rodent. He had never attended school, and had
not learned to express himself properly.

*' He turned away with a sardonic smile overspreading
his otherwise intelligent countenance.

'* The wails of the entrapped one soon brought to the
spot his wife and her multitude of children, who, falling
on their hind-quarters around the edge of the cistern,
wrung their paws in agony and cried, —

*' 'Bald-head, come up ! *

"'Verily would I,' returned he, * but how? No, my
children, it's up with me. My time is almost gone. With
daylight comes the boy, with the boy the dog, and I shall
- pass in my chips. I'm a goner, my time is short. Bless
you, wife of my bosom ! Bless you, products of our chaste
love ! I had hoped to live, my children, long enough to
have taught you the neatest way of gnawing through a
cupboard, the mo^ expeditious way of spoiling a carf let,
— ^my way, by winch it can never be repaired. I had
hoped I might teach you how to dodge a cat, how to avoid
a terrier, how to suck eggs, and all the learning that ex-
perience has brought me. But hope fails me ; it is all of
no avail. Fate is too many for me ; I succumb. But T
will die like a rat — with dignity. That terrier will bear

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

113

witK him marks of my claws. To superior strength will
I yield, to nothing else. My body may be shaken, but
my undaunted soul, never I I would 1 had a Roman toga,
that I might pull it over my head when I die, as Caesar
did. But one can't have effective accessories in a cistern.
It isn't a good place for a heioic death.'

** At this minute a heavy rain commenced.

" * Now,' said he, * I am surely destroyed. The cistern
will fill with water, and I shall drown. Oh, wi-etched
fate ! what a gastly corpse I shall make. For what is
more horrid than a drowned rat ! '

" The rain increased in severity, and soon the bottom
of the cistern was covered. In his despair the rat noticed
that the shingle, which the boy had hurled at him, floated,
and to prolong his life he sprang upon it, much to the dis^
appointment of his youngest, who had a natural curiosity
to see how their progenitor would look floundering in the
water. Perched thus, he began to disclose to his wife the
location of a cheese he had lately discovered.

" * My dear wife,* he was saying, * it wrings my heart
to leave you, but I must. Why, oh ! why must we be
separated just as life was becoming worth having ? Why
must I be taken just as I had learned to love you, and
you had learned to love me ? Oh, thei^agony of death,
now that I see you ! But take courage, dearest. There is
another world, and to that you will come« and paw in paw
we will go through an eternity in a land that has no
wicked boys or teiTiers. But I will make your stay as
comfortable as possible. Before I die^ dearest, let me say

114

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

that the cheese is in the pantry at Zaba's. Qo for it.
You will go through the sewer — *

" At this moment he observed that the shingle bore
him with perfect ease, and he immediately ceased to talk.

" * Go on ! go on ! * said his wife, horrified at the possi-
bility of a secret so valuable dying with him, * Go on,
go on ! '

'^' Shut up, you old fool you ! ' said he, resuming his
regular style with great promptness. ' If this rain holds
on long enough, I am as good as a dozen dead rats.'

" And sure enough, he did not perish. On that shingle
he held ; the rain continued until the cistern was quite
full, and he paddled to the edge with his front paws,
steering withhis tail, am . gayly sprang on terrafirma (which
is the Latin for dry land), and was safe.

" He had made his escape. The boy came next morn-
ing with his terrier, but the rat was not there to rend.
The boy was disappointed, and so likewise was the terrier,
but what was evil for them was good for the rat.

''That evening the wise old rat sat in his humble
domicile, contented and happy. He gathered his children
about him, and deduced from his late adventure the usual
moral lesson. He never forgot the moral.

" * Observe, my children,' said he, * that blessings come
to us very frequently in disguise. We murmur at terriers
which rend us with neatness and dispatch, and with a
celerity which is a perpetual surprise to me. But mark !
had not this wicked boy had a terrier he would have dis-
, patched me ^th bricks. He would h^l-ve heaved them,

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

115

and heaved them, till it was dark, and then he would
have gone and got a lantern, by the light of which he
would have continued to heave. Thus are the evil desires
of the wicked made to work good for the saints. I am
a saint.

" * How I dreaded those bricks ! Yet but for a brick to
stand on, the rain would have drowned me in the first
five minutes.

"'That shingle was another terror. Yet, but for that
shingle, your progenitor would have been that most dis-
gusting of all things — a drowned rat

" * The rain was to have been my destruction — that was
to have overwhelmed me. Blessed was that rain I With-
out that ra in of what good would have been that brick
and shingle ? That rain lifted me out of the pit into
whichp had fallen ; the flood which was to have drowned
me bore on its bosom to safety.

" * In conclusion, my children : Providence always fur-
nishes opportunities to every one. The truly great is he
who makes good use of opportunities, he who sees what
is worth his while to grab, and has the rerve to do it.

" * Never despair is an exceedingly good motto. Keep
your eyes peeled, your ears open, and your claws sharp,
and there is no trouble about your going through Hfe
with a wet sheet and a flowing sail My iate experience,
my dears, accounts for my nautical mode of expression.
Remember there is no evil but is mixed with good ; that
the wise turn evil to good, while the foolish sink under it.
Bless you, my children, I will seek my couch. '

116

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHBlf.

"My young friend," said Abou, ''this is the legend.
Does it answer your question, or are you not sufficiently
intellectual to comprehend parables ? I repeat, are you
answered ? " ^

The young man from Boston looked at Abou and
said, —

" What I want to know is this : Is man partially de-
veloped, imper — " •

" You told me all that once before, and my legend an-
swered it. Go to, young man ! Do you laugh at me \
Am I a man ? Bismallah I — "

And Abou's face assumed such an expression of ferocity
that the mild young man from Boston abruptly fled his
presence.

As he left him, a soft smile broke over Abou's counte-
nance, and the expression of wrath was gone.

" By hokey ! — that is to say, Be chesm ! — my answer
was as intelligible as his question, May Allah keep me
from young men of ' culcha * ! "

And Abou went into his lQ.boratory,

MORALS or ABOU BEN ADEEM.

117

XIIL

WEALTH.

ABOU BEN ADHEM sat in front of his tent one
beautiful morning in August, looking out calmly on
the scene that lay before him. On the one side were the
long ranges of hills; before him the beautiful stream
meandered cosily through the rich bottom, its sides dotted
yfiih sleek cattle, which, intent upon the rich grass, fed
quietly, unmindful of the mosquitoes that were buzzing
about them. Abou's soul was' tilled with the beauty of
the scene.

** Why," said ^*^, " should we not take a lesson from the
cows ? Why should we not enjoy Uie great good we
have, and not notice the small troubles that . beset us ?
Why should we not, with the wealth of delights we pos-
sess, permit ourselves to be absorbed in enjoyment, and
despise the trifling troubles of lif^ ? I loathe the man
who permits little things to make him lose his temper,
and — May Allah curse that evil-minded and altogether
aggravating fly ! What were such pests permitted for ? "

And Abou, vigorously slappir.g his cheek in endeavors
to kill the fly, poured forth a flood of the choicest Persian

118

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHVM.

profanity. Alaa! like uU philoHophers, Abou could not
follow his own philosophy. The contemplation of nature
upset by a fly I

Scarcely had he smitten his head thrice, in vain at-
tempts to kill the fly, when a young man appeared.

" Well ! " was Abou's greeting.

" Do I stand in the presence of Abou ben Adhem ? "

" You have that felicity I What will you with him ? *'

" Mighty Abou— "

" Don't say mighty Abou. Be chesm, it has become
monotonous. Change it, or cheese it I '*

(Abou frequently dropped into the Oriental style.)

** Oreat Abou (if that 3uits you better), I am an humble
suppliant."

" Qet at it now, get at it ! Of course you are an hum-
ble suppliant. You didn't come here to do me good. No,
indeed, no one ever does. But to business. What is your
particular form of idiocy ? "

** Great Abou, I would be rich. I would have gold, or
National Bank notes (I am not particular), and would en-
joy all that money can buy. I would — "

** Young man," said Abou, " that is a very common form
of insanity^, and very hard to cure. Every man who is
unable to lift himself up from the common level by any
other means tries to do it by accumulating money ; every
man who lusts after the pleasures of life yearns for money
to buy them. Then there is the grovelling man, who
wants money for the sake of money ; and the more dan-
gerous man, who desires it for the power it wieMd. I wiU

MORALH or ABOU BEN ADHEM.

119

give you five minutes of wisdom. When you hear me
say * I have done/ what you want to do is to get out of
this as rapidly as possible."

And Abou significantly cocked a double-barrelled shot-
gun, and set it down blandly within easy reach, and drove
on the cart of his discourse.

" To accumulate money, my young friend, is the easiest
thing in the world. All you have to do is to make a dollar
a day, and spend only seventy-five cents. Any grovelling
worm in worldly dust, any puller and hauler of the worldly
muck-rake who knows enough to realize that one hundred
cents ruake a dollar, and who, at the same time, is too in-
fernally mean to spend any part of it, may become as rich
as Croesus, if he don't starve to death too soon. To amass
shekels, all that is necessary is to live like a beggar, and
writ© the word 'grub * in your hat, if indeed you allow
yourself the luxury of a hat. You must, however, go
through the process of eliminating from your nature every-
thing in the shape of love, charity, mercy, tenderness,
liberality, warmth, geniality, taste, and all desire for en-
joyment of any kind. I have known men who had as
much money as they could use, who would deliberately
live away from their families ten months in the year, to
make more ; and this, too, when all the comfort they ever
had was with their families. Money must fill the entire
man, and the accumulation thereof be the sole pleasure
and passion. Accomplish this, and you will find your
money will grow as fast as you desire it.

" But you will decrease. The love, of mcoiey is a tape-

- 1> Fi

120

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEIL

worm, — it feeds on the body that carries it. Your soul
will shrink, and shrivel, and fade, till you -will have none
of it whatever. You have seen a tumble-bug in your
native New Jersey, rolling a ball of dirt. It rolls and
rolls till the bail is bigger than the bug, and it cftn't roll
any further, when it lies down and dies by the side of its
accumulation. Precisely so, my rash friend, you will roll
up money till it gets too large to manage, and you will
lie down and die by the side of it.

" There are, of course, other ways of accumulating. You
might take a revolver and go on the highway ; there is
forgery, pocket-picking, getting into Congress and voting
yourself back-pay, and other modes ; but being of a good
family, and expecting to have children of your own, of
course you wouldn't think of doing anything of the kind.

" We now come to the second part of this chunk of
wisdom. What are you going to do with your wealth
when you have it ? Enjoy yourself, eh ? Yes, they all
say so. But when your strength is all gone, what have
you to 6njoy yourself with ? Your table ? What good is
a French cook when your stomach, used up by the labor
of years, won't allow you to eat ? Society ? What good
is society to a man who has been educatiiig himself for
forty years in nothing but stocks and merchandise ?
Travel ? You wouldn't endure it a month, because what
you saw you wouldn't comprehend. Probably the most
touching sight in Nature is a venerable, gray-haired pork-
packer at an opera, or in front of a picture. You see, the

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

121

effort necessary to make money exhausts all the faculties
which you expect money to cater for.

•'It so "happens, or rather it is wisely ordered, that
trouble is the twin-brother of every one of the pleasures
that money buys. Champagne tickles the palate and
looks well in a glass, but gout hides in every bubble.
The smiling face of the scarlet womaix has an angel's look,
but — well, get one tacked to you and see what will hap-
pen ! The dinner of eleven courses makes a pleasant
show and a goodly; but behind the waiter stalks dyspepsias
grim and terrible. Your money brings it all ; you can't
take half and leave half; it goes all in one lot.

" Then what is it worth, anyhow ? The inexpensive
but thirst-quenching beer curls me as beautifully o'er the
beaker's brim as the costly champagne, and is, after all, as
good, if you only think so. The mysterious hash, flavored
with the long-reaching onion, is as appetizing as the 'pdti
define gras, — the one costing a shilling and the other ten
dollars. The kabob of veal, svhich in Ispahan can be had
for a kopeck, is as toothsome as the pilau of lamb for
which the true believer shells out a dirhem. One thing
my infant, is as good as another thing, and, doubtless,
* better. Were the waters of the rivulet champagne, and
were water worth four doUars and a half per bottle, with
a fee to the waiter, the men of wealth would all be smack-
ing their lips over wat^r. Whiskey rasps our interiors as
effectually as brandy ; the cne is within the reach of the
humblest purse, the other is so many ducats per gallon.
A carriage is a good enough thing in its way, but heavens !

122

MOBALS OF ABOU B£N ADHEM.

think of being a slave to a coachman ! And having the
carriage, you feel that you must ride in it whether or no.
Imagine a condition of things that compels you to ride

whether or no ! What a weight a carriage must be on
one's mind ! And then, Again, think of the terror that an
average servant in a black coat and white neck-tie must
inspire !

" My dear sir, a state approximating to vagabondage is
the state in which the most happiness is found. Happi-
ness means simply freedom from all care, save that which
delights you. I fain would be an Italian prince, exiled
from my native soil, gaining a subsistence by grinding a
hand-organ. Or I would be an Ethiopian, earning an
honest though precarious living by doing odd jobs about
houses and picking up such trifles as can be con^^eniently
reached. These men have no troubles. The sixpence of
the morning gives them a dinner, the five-cent piece of
the afternoon a supper, and a dry-goods box a bed. I
never heard of an organ-grinder who owned a big railroad
to worry over, or a boot-black who bought care in the
form of a steamship line. But they live, move, and have
being, and what more does Vabderbilt ?

" Go to, young man, go to ! Strive to be like me. You
probably never will reach the height of philosophical virtue
on which I repose, but you may come something near it.
Despise money ; do not waste a life in pursuit of it. Do
as I do, — learn to live without it, to care nothing for it,
and be happy."

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

123

And Abou, having finished his homily, sold a Durham
heifer to the young man at a bargain, and a hundred
shares in a Texas railway. And chuckling at the ease
with which he had taken him in for a thousand dollars,
he turned to his labor. , . ., ^

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124

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

XIV.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF KOAB.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was approached one day by
a young man who asked him as to the best method
of using up an inheritance he had just fallen into. Abou
looked at the young man ; he diagnosed the case, as it
were, and went for him thus : —

" Young man, I wiU tell you a story of Persian life.
Listen.

" Koab, the son of Beslud, the leather merchant, was a
young man of twenty when his paternal progenitor was
promoted to be an angel and assumed wings. Eoab did
not weep at his father's demise, for the old gentleman had
accumulated his lucre with great care and by great labor,
and consequently, was very, very close with it. He had
been a singular old man. He never knew the taste of
champagne, and always smoked a pipe,— excellent pre-
paration for death, methinks. With such tastes, what
was there for him to live for ? What was there in death
for him to fear ?

" But he left young Koab a fortune of an even hundred

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

125

thousand dirhems, which the young man lost no time in
transferring to his own keeping.

" Immediately KoaVs relatives gathered about him to
advise him as to what to do with it. ' -

" One sfiid, * Go into the grocery business and become a
a merchant prince.* Another strongly insisted that his
best hold was to go into railroads with his capital, and be
a Van-der-Built. Another advised, with tears in his eyes,
that he go into dry goods and be a Stoo-art or a Klaa-
flynn. Another was divided in opinion as to whether he
ought to start a daily paper or run a theatre ; but Koab
dismissed him with a frown. ' He hates me, and would
ruin me quickly,' quoth the sagacious young man.

" ' I shall do nothing of the sort,' said he. * I shall adopt
none of your suggestions.'

" ' You wiU be ruined if you do not !' shouted they all
in a chorus.

" ' As not one of you has succeeded in making a for-
tune,' retorted Koab, ' it strikes me that you are fearfully
competent to advise me. But T have marked out my path
in life,'

"'Whatisit?'

" * I shall, firstly, get rid of all my poor relations.

" * The relatives all discharged themselves of groans.

"*Then I shall invest what the old m — that is, my
poor father, left me, in safe securities bearing ten per
cent.'

" * Good ! that will give you ten , thousand dirhems per
year.' .

*4\

12«

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" ' True, but I shall not live on ten thousand per year.
I shall live on about twenty thousand a year. I shall
have horses, an interest in a yacht, shall join all the clubs,
shall never drink water when wine is attainable ; in short,
I shall go for pleasure in every possible way that pleasure
is to bo had/

" * But you will run through your fortune while you are
still young.'

" ' That is the time to run it through, while I am young
enough to enjoy it. What, O idiots ! is the good of a fine
dinner to a man whose stomach is worn out and who is too
much used up to eat it ? Wherefore wine to him whose
stomach can't abide wine ? Wherefore anything to a man
who can't take anything ? I would prefer it, had I income
enough, to live just as I desire without infringing upon my
capital ; but as I cannot, I propose to live my life anyhow.
Fate has been cruel to me in not giving me two hundred
thousand dirhems. I shall never feel pleasant towards
my deceased father that he did not labor harder and live
more savingly. He has used me badly. But I am a
philosopher. Koab proposes now to drain the cup of plea-
sure to its dregs.'

" Koab went in, in the language of the prize ring, in a
very spirited style. He kept a fast horse, he drank wine,
he gambled a little ; and if his feminine friends had been
virtuous in proportion to the amount of money he spent
on them, Caesar's wife would have been a drab in com-
parison with them. But they were not. On the contrary
quite the reverse.

« <

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADBEM.

127

" He had a severe fit of sickness, which nursed his es-
tate a little ; but he managed by hard work to get through
with the most of it in about ten years.

" ' Your money must be nearly all gone/ said his friends
to him one day.

" ' I have about a thousand dirhems left/ said he.
" ' Horrible ! ' said they.

" ' Beautiful ! ' said he. ' My stomach is also almost
gone. How lovely it is to have your money hold out as
long as your stomach ! Had one given out before the
other — I shudder at the thought. To have an appetite
and no money, or to have no appetite and cords of money
— I know not which is the worst. But with me it is
splendid. Things run in grooves, as it were. A few more
dimmers, a few more nights, and my stomach will be gone,
and my money with it. But I liave had a good time oT it.'
"< What will you do then ? ' t

" * Impious wretch, do you read Holy Writings ? "Suf-
ficient for the day is the evil thereof." In my case, I can
testify to the truth of that passage every day. Then
again, "Take no thought of the morrow." * •

"As he anticipated, in a few weeks Koab had not a
dirhem, not a kopeck left. He lived a few days on credit,
and then spent several days considering whether suicide
by poison or drowning was the more pleasant. After giv-
ing the subject mature consideration, he concluded that
he would not die at all, and accepted a situation as a por-
ter in a wholesale grocery store, whose proprietor had
known his father.

t -

128 MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

** He was rolling barrels one day, when his friends came

" * Ha ! * said they. * You see, now, we were right : you
are brought down to manual lab6r at thirty.'

" ' Precisely what my physician would have prescribed
for a wasted constitution like mine,' said he, cheerfully.
' I am gaining flesh under it.*

" They came in again, and saw him eating brown bread.

" * Ha ! ' they remarked. ' You are brought down to
plain food. We told you so.*

" * My friends,' said he, impressively, ' were I the pos-
sessor of millions, I should, after ten years of dissipation,
be compelled to eat plain food or die. O ye imbeciles !
can't you see that this is natural ? What difference does
it make whether I eat brown bread by the advice of a
physician, or eat it because I can't get any other ? What
difference does it make whether I exercise my ove iiaxed
body in a gymnasium, where I pay for the privilege, or
exercise it by rolling barrels, for which I get paid ? "Ex-
ercise and plain food," said my doctor long ago, " is what
you must have." I am getting both, ye sodden-brained
Job's comforters.'

" And Koab worked on, and got his health, and finally
got into busiijess, and made money, and had another for-
tune to spend ; and he spent H.

" This, my young friend, is all of the story of Koab, the
Persian, that I shall tell you. There is a moral to it which
probably you don't see. But I have a comfortable way
of fixing people who do not see the moral to the things I

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

129

say. I simply say it is because they lack the necessary
intellect.

** Far be it from me to advise young men to squander
their fortunes in riotous living, as did Koab. Koab's idea
was not wholly correct. He erred.

" But he erred no more than do those who go to the
other extreme ; in fact, he erred less.

" The people who grub through their entire youth, en-
joying nothing, with the idea that they will live to enjoy
at some remote period, err a great deal more, for the rea-
son thai they never enjoy at all. Grubbing unfits them
for enjoying, and therefore their labor is to no purpose.
Kunla, the Persian poet, who wrote * Go it while you're
young,' was not wholly wrong ; for youth has the faculty
to enjoy and the power to enjoy. The blood courses
freely ; there is strength, elasticity, and joyousness. But
alas! there comes a time when we cannot enjoy if we
would. The man of sixty, sans teeth, soma gastric juice,
sans stomach, thin-blooded, cold, and cynical, caii enjoy
but little at best ; and if he has grubbed in his youth, ten
to one but he has acquired a habit of grubbing which lasts
him through his old age, and his life may be said to be as
much of a failure as the other.

" If Koab had been a moral person, and had enjoyed
himself in a rational way, within his income, and had
done some business for the sake of others, I should mark
on his tombstone * Approved.' He should have had his
yacht; he should have eaten good dinners; he should
have had the fleet horses of Arabia ; and he should have

130

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

had pictures and all eke that pleases the senses. But he
should have avoided excesses and immoralities ; he should
have used some of his money in relieving the necessities
of the unfortunate children of the Prophet ; in short, he
should have paid the debt which we all owe to humanity.

"fiut as between Koab and the man who uses his in-
heritance only to double it, who live^ a life only to gather
dross without putting it to any use whatever, I give my
voice to Koab as the most sensible.

" My son, some day when I have time I will write you
a history of my life, which you shall read, and which will
be a lamp to your feet, and a sure guide.

" But leave me now, for I fain would rest. Awav ! **,

And Abou went in to count over the profits of a specu-
lation he had been in ; and he wrought at it late in the
night.

" Why do you so labor for lucre?" said I to him, "Do
you follow the lesson you gave the young man, O Sage ? "

" What says Hafiz ? " was his reply : " ' Chin-music is
cheaper even than that of the hand-organ.* Doth advice
cost? Goto!"

MOBALS or ABOU BEN ADHBM.

131

XV.

THE DANGER THAT LIES IN THE NAMING OF CHILDREN

AFTER GREAT MEN.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was called upon one day by a
person who desired to apply the suction-pun^p to
him. The man — ^for it was a male person — ^had with him
a bright-faced, intelligent boy of perhaps six summers,
who was restless and impatient, as such boys are likely to
be. The lad broke loose from his father, and ran' to chase
a butterfly that was lazily disporting itself in the warm
air, when the father, with tender solicitude, said to
him, —

" Schuyler Colfax, remain with your parent ! You
might slip up and soil your pants, my child." ^

As the father spoke these words, an expression of pain
flitted over the countenance of the sage.

" Your name is Thompson ? ".

"It is."

** And your che-ild's name is Schuyler Colfax Thomp-
son ?" '

"It is."

" Alas ! poor child."

" Why do you sigh and say * Alas ! poor child * ? "

13 J|

Hi4

132

MORALS OP ABOIT BEN ADHEM.

" Because Schuyler Colfax is not yet dead, and a grate-
ful country has not, as yet, bedewed his untimely grave
with tears. That's why I sigh for that sweet child.
Listen.

*' I was once a sweet child myself, — the pride of a lov-
ing father and of a darling mother. When I was born
Agha Dderim was the vast artiller}' of the province. He
was a member of the Council, he was the great orator,
and, in short, the coming man. My father was a warm
supporter of the great Agha Ilderim : he was on his com-
mittees at elections, and he attended all his meetings, and
rallied his voters to the polls, and brought in the aged and
infirm voters, and was as enthusiastic a supporter of the
great man as he could wished to have had. And it was
purely disinterested too. True, the fact that my father
had been appointed, by Agha, inspector of rat-terriers for
that district, was urged by his enemies as a reason for his
zeal ; but it was a slander.

" When I was bom Agha Ilderim was at the zenith of
his power, and my father, the momeni, the sex of the child
was ascertained, threw up his turban and named it Agha
Ilderim, and Agha gave me a silver cup and patted me on
the head, and predicted a glorious future for me.

" But alas ! when I was five years old there came a
trouble upon Agha Ilderim. There was a road that was
being built by the government and there was a huge
swindle in it. The Shah investigated it, and lo ! it was
discovered that Agha had had his ai'ms in it elbow-deep,
and once opened, it was discovered that this patriot had

MORALS OF ABf>TT BKN APHKM.

inn

been speculating and stealing in every possible way, for
years. And he was disgraced of course, and defeated for
the Council, and became of nought among men, and his
name became a hissing and by-word, and in his stead rose
Nadir el Abin, who took Agha's place and became the
great man of the province.

" My father became a great admirer of Nadir, and, as
he was continued in his office, did for Nadir what he had
done for Agha. Filled with indignation at the dishonesty
of Agha, he melted the silver cup he had given me, and
sold it, and spent the proceeds in strong waters, and im-
mediately changed my name to Nadir el Abin, and was
happy.

" But lo 1 in about four years the Governor of the pro-
vince desired to get through the Council a measure which
the people did not approve of, because it took away their
liberties. The members of the Council were implored to
stand firm against the usurpation, and Nadir was looked
upon as one of the most trustworthy ; but, to the indigna-
tion of the people, he voted with the Governor, and carried
the measure, and when they hooted at him he put his fin-
ger to his nose, for the Governor made him Collector of
Revenue for life.

" Then was my father's rage kindled against Nadir, and
he came home and said to my mother, —

" ' Lo ! Nadir's name is a stench in the nostrils of the
people. Be chesm, it will never do for our child to bear
the name of Nadir.'

" And as Akbar, the scribe, vaulted into Nadir's place

7P.i

"'I

134

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

in the affections of the people, my name was forthwith
changed to Alcbar.

" Akbar ran well for a season, but he went under. A
patent for tipping chibouqties was before the Council for
extension, and the people murmured at it, for it offended
them. The owners of the patent, however, cared nothing
for that. They appeared to the members of the Council
with arguments, in bags, and Akbar was possessed of
many bags immediately after he had voted to extend the
patent, and the people ho^ ted him and threw mud at him
in the market-place.

" As a matter of course it would not do for me to con-
tinue to bear the name of Akbar, and it was changed to^
that of Hafiz, and when he went under, to Katah, which
I kept till Katah succumbed because he voted himself
back-pay and was concerned in a ring for building a road.

" Then my father and mother held a council over me
one morning.

« ' I have tried,' said my paternal parent, ' to give our
child an honorable name.'

" * Verily,' returned my mother.

*' * But whenever I gave him the name of a great man,
that man suddenly deceased, that is, politically.'

" ' He did,' said my mother; * it is fate.'

"*What shall we do?' asked my father. 'The child
must have a name, and it seems to be risky to give him
the name of any one living. Advise me, O my wife 1 *

" * Let the great men go, for lo ! such is the construction
of the human mind, that greatness is as uncertain as rail-
road stocks. Let us call him Abou.'

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

135

" And they did it. Abou, my friend, is a name which,
in Persia, is as common as John is in New Jersey.

" And now comes the point. Change that boy's name
from Schuyler Colfax to plain James, John, or Thomas.
Never name a child after any living greatness. If you
must name him after a great man, take a dead one, and
select a very dead one. Go to your books and roust out
a deceased statesman. Avoid your recent ones. Go back
and find one who has been dead so long that all his vices
and peccadilloes have been obliterated by the hand of
time, and only his virta*^8 remembered. I would advise
you not to fasten on any one who has flourished since the
Roman Empire. It will not answer to take a living man,
for his balance-sheet is not made up till he is gone hence.
A gone-hencer is safe, and no one else is. Imagine the
feelings of that parent who, just after the battle of Sara-
toga, in your Revolution, named his innocent child Bene-
dict Arnold 1 The hero of Saratoga may always become
the traitor of Wet*t Point. To bring it down to a later
date, what is to become of the thousands of children who,
between the years 1860 and 1867, were named A. Johnson ?

" My friend, for names go among the dead men. There
lives are closed and their balances are struck. A man
dead, with worms at him, and under several tons of mar-
ble monument, cannot possibly get up and blast a fair re-
putation. So long as a man lives he is in danger. Folly,
and greed, and ambition'surround every man who lives.
I have to fight them off" myself.

" Change the raine of your child to Thomas at once.
And go, for I am weary."

ISf^

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHl^M.

,'tif

XVI.

.-j! ■'

OLD TIMES AND NEW.

THE Persian, Abou ben Adhem, was in a deep study
one morning, when a person — a male person —
from the village in the neighborhood came to him for the
purpose of conversation. ' -rf» .

" What wouldst thou ? " was Abou's remark.
" I would learn something ! " was the reply.
" That is to say, you would drop the bucket of your
ignorance into the well of my wisdom. Well, be chesm,
drop away ! what wouldst thou now ? "

• Great Abou, is there any way by which we degener-
ate sons of noble sires can get back to the good old habits,
manners, and customs of our forefathers ? Can we restore
the simple habits of the olden time — the good old time ? "
"What?"
Can we not go back a few hundred years, and — "
Ass ! " was Abou's reply. " Oh, what a fate is mine !
Such men as you come to me, and, as there is a punish-
ment lor killing, I am coinpelled to convert. Well, I sub-
mit.
" You sigh for the good old times, do you ? Do you

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

137

know what those good old times were ? Of course you
do not. Such men as you never do ! You have an idea
in your wooden heads that men were simple, honest be-
ings, who went about, in doublets, knee-breeches, and hose,
with silver buckles on their shoes ; and that women were
ditto — all but the breeches and doublets. You have got
the notion that as the world grows older wickedness in-
creases, and that all humamity is tending to a ghastly heU.
But I, who lived during those times, know better.

" O imbecile ! O ignoramus ! |0 unphilosophical reader
of bad poetry ! Don't you know that human nature was
precisely the same five hundred years ago that it is now ;
that humanity perpetually yearns for something better
and higher and nobler, and that precisely as knowledge
increases so does goodness ? You want to go back to the
good old times, do you ? What good old times ? To the
good old times of Moses and Joshua, who had a habit
when they made war of slaughtering all the men, women,
and children that fell into their hands ? No, they reserved
the women ; but it was no compliment to the florals of
those people that they omitted that much of bloodshed.
Do you want to go back to the good old times of the old
French kings — say Francis and the earlier Louises — when
the people were slaves, permitted black bread only, and
not half enough of that, and the nobles were tyrants,
wielding supreme power, and robed in velvets and silkd ?
Have you a fancy for the good old times in Germany,
when the barons, when they came in from hunting, had a
cheerful habit of having a peasant killed and his bowels

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138

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

taken out that they might warm their feet in the cavity 1
Or do you prefer the good old times in England, when
king and court were so shamefully dissolute that no pre-
tence of virtue was made, when chastity was a scoff and
concealment of sin a joke, when Londoh was ruled by
common stabbers, when might was right, and safety was
only found in cunning or strength ? How would you like
to trade your steamships for the old high-pooped sail-ves-
sels, the railroad for the cumbrous wagon, the macada-
mized road for the mud, the cooking-range for the bar-
barous fire, our cuisine for their fearful cookery, Croton
water for miserable wells, gas for torches of light-wood,
safety for danger, comfort for non-comfort — civilization for
barbarism, in short ?

" There wasn't any such thing as humanity in those
days, either in theory or practice. If a man got tired of
his wife, he simply dissolved the roatrimonial tie by cut-
ting her throat; if a woman got tired of her husband, she
hinted to her paramour the fact that Sir Henry was a
tiresome old muff, and immediately j Sir Henry had a
rapier run through him.

" How vast the improvement of these later days ! Now
the party disgusted simply ^^oes to Indiana or Chicago,
and, in a perfectly legal manner, the judge dissolves the
connection, and the party returns and marries the new
object of his or her choice, and everything is as serene as
the face of a mill-pond.

" In the good old times of which you are so enamoured,
if a man got embarrassed pecuniarily^ he mounted his

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

139

horse and loaded his pistol, — they didn't have beautiful
revolvers then, — and putting an ugly black mask over
his face rode out on the highway, and stopped the lumber-
ing old coach, and took purses at the muzzle of the pistol.

" Now how does such an individual do ? Why, he gets
a contract from the Government, he starts a life insurance
company, or, if he is a great genius, a genuine descendant
of Dick Turpin or Jack Sheppard, he gets into Congress,
and votes as his conscience and interest dictates, or he
gets hold of the Erie Railroad, or— but why enumerate ?
You see the difference, and how much to-day is better
than the days three hundred years ago.

** To bring it down a little later, how would you like to
go back to the days of the Puritan Fathers, those estim-
able old Liberals, who fled from England because they
were not there permitted to worship according to their
notions, and who immediately set up just as intolerant a
system in the land to which they fled ? It was all well
enough for the Puritans ; but how was it with the Quak-
ers, whom they exiled, after making them harmless in
disputations by boring their heretical tongues with ortho-
dox hot irons ?

" Or to go a little farther back, how would you like
to have the personal combat business restored ? That was
a delightful practice, wasn't it ? A big burly ruffian
claimed your farm or abducted your daughter ; then the
burly ruffian swore he was innocent, and demanded the
ti:ial by combat. He was used to weapons, and his fight-
ing weight was a hundred and eighty-five : you never

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"'H
U

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140

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

knew which end of a sword to take hold of, and weighed
one hundred and twenty-five. But you had to do it.
The first round, down you went, and the judges declared
him innocent, and you guilty of bringing false accusations.
He kept the girl, and your head was chopped oif, and
your property confiscated to the State. In those good old
days, the State meant the king and his pet mistress. It
is true there was a superstition that Providence would
protect the right ; but, as a rule, the burly ruffian in the
wrong made short work of the small man in the right.

" The thumb-screw, the x'ack, the stake, and all that
cheerful paraphernalia belonged to and was the exclusive
property of the good old times, — the good old times that
exiled the bold men who insisted that the world was
round and not flat, with other heresies. Do you want
them back again ? You point at municipal and govern-
mental corruption. I grant it bad enough ; but bad as
it is, it is better^ to have polite thieves than brutal ones
and it is a high compliment to the times that the people
are in possession of property to be taxed. In your good
old times, the State and Church took it all as fast as it
was earned.

" It took the world thousands of years to get to the
point of civilization that would admit of a jury, and hun-
dreds more to reach the sublime heights of a republic.
And it has just commenced at that. Both have yet to be
perfected.

" The mistake that men of your notions make is, you
don't seem to have any idea whatever that other men

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

141

know anything or have any sense. Because a woman
likes carpets on a floor better than rushes, is she less vir-
tuous ? Can't a man be as good, clad in decent broad-
cloth as in odorous sheep-skin ? Is dirt akin to godliness,
or does filth tend to enlarge the moral muscles ? Could a
man with a back-breaking sickle sing praises to the God
of Nature any more melodiously than he can now, mounted
on a comfortable reaper ? Nay, my friend, on a reaper a
man might thank Heaven he lived ; with a sickle, I ques-
tion whether he would feel that thankfulness.

" The more men know, the greater the inducement they
have to virtuous life. In the barbarous age, before law
was invented, if a man wanted a piece of land which an-
other man claimed, the claimants met with stone hatchets.
Both kept the lasd; — one of them on the surface, and the
other some three feet beneath, with a hole in his head.
As civilization progressed, the hatchet went out and law
came in, and the more civilization we have the Jess hatchet
we have. We have wars now, it is true ; but it is be-
cause, and only because, we are not yet fully civilized.
We have thieves and robbers now ; but it is because there
lurks yet in the human system a taint of the good old
times. Civilization has not yet fully physicked humanity,
and traces of barbarism remain. Napoleon was a varnished
barbarian ; Kaiser "Wilhelm is an Attila with veneering
on. Then down in Delaware the whipping-post is a mile-
stone in the path of the progress of the other States, use-
ful merely to make the better people of other localities
congratulate themselves on what they have surmounted.

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142

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" * Good old times,' forsooth ! Go to, wretched man !
To-day is the best day the world ever saw ; to-morrow
will be better, and its to-mon'ow better still. In five or
ten thousand years, this world will be a tolerably decent
place to live in. Do you know why men exposed their
lives so recklessly in battle in your ' good old times ' ?
Bravery ! you say. Bosh ! It was because there was no-
thing under heaven to live for ; precisely as I, feeling that
I must die some time, came to New Jersey, that I might
leave this world without a pang of regret. It was a
cowardly willingness to get out of the world, because there
could be nothing worse.

*• But leave me now. Instead of mourning for a
miserable past, tackle the splendid present, and try to
do something for a still more splendid future. Do
something for the world you live in. Do something for
the race you belong to. After hearing you talk, I might
properly suggest that the best thing you could do for hu-
manity would be to drown yourself ; but I forbear, i am
not in a sarcastic mood this morning. Go to ! I am weary ;
leave me. "

And the Sage went into his tent, and was soon in the
arms of Morpheas.

MORALS OF ABOU BKN ADEEM.

143

XVII.

THE UTILITY OF DEATH.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked one day by a
sorrowing man if there wasn't a screw loose
somewhere in the economy of nature, as regards the
duration of life. " Why, " asked this individual, " why
was Death permitted to come into the world at all ? "

Abou was never in so good humor as when he had an
opportunity to moralize, and this was one not to be
wasted. So he arranged himself in his easy-chair and
got the man safely under his eye, and, as the Orientals
say, « went for him. "

" Death, " said Abou " is not to be catalogued among the
evils of this world ; it is to be considered as the greatest
blessing the world enjoys, and as the most useful of all
the provisions of nature, — ^that is to say, when it is
taken into account how men are made.

"If men were all as honest, as true, and as good as I am,
for instance, Death could be dispensed with ; but as they are
not, it is an absolute necessity as a great equalizer. It is
the great balance-wheel and the great distributor. It is
the bad rich man's check and the poor good man's pro-

fit

144

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

tection ; it is the salvation of the State and the hope of
the individual.

" Listen to a brief history: —

" In Persia, a hundred years or more ago, lived Hogem.
Hogem, in his youth, sailed a small schooner on the gulf
of Persia, from Koamud to Bangay. He accumulated
dii'hems, in a small way, at the business, for he allowed
no competition. If another man started a schooner in
the same trade, Hogem's craft always got to sailing wild,
and was certain to collide with the new one, and burst a
hole in her side and lay her up. Accidents of this kind
got so frequent that no one cared to sail on Hogem's route,
and he had the whole trade to himself.

** Of course, Hogem learned the advantage of having
control of an entire trade, and he kept his eye out for it.
When steam was introduced into Persia, he was the £rst
to put on boats propelled by the new power, and he ob-
served the same tactics that he did with his schooner,
and of course made great piles of shekels by his steam-
boats. .

" Then came railways, and Hogem kept his weather-
eye cocked in that direction. He did not embark in rail-
roads at the beginning, for he was talented. He waited
till the people built them with their own money, and
found they couldn't make them pay. He w;&t^ ed the
road from Bangay to Koamud, the two most important
cities in the Empire, and he waited his time. The^fpad
cost twenty millions of dirhems, but as it had never paid
a dividend, the stockholders were willing to sell at any

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

145

price. So Hogem bought a little over half the stock, for
little or nothing, to make himself President ; then he
swindled the others out of their stock and owned it all
himself It paid immediately, for he stopped all the
stealing, and the time had come when it was possible for
the road to pay.

" Owning the road, he had a sure thing on the people.
They had to travel over it, and they were compelled to
use it to transport their produce, for there was no other
way for them. He put on just such rates as he pleased,
and he regarded their murmurs no more than the sighing
of wind through rose-bushes.

" The people murmured, and applied to the Council for
relief They said, in their Oriental way, ' Lo ! this Hogem
has gobbled our railroad, and has us where our hair is
short. After other roads are built he captures them, and
we are helpless, Save us from Hogem ! '

" But Hogem laughed in his sleeve. * Shall I let this
fat thing go out of my hands ? What says Niggah-myn-
strei, the poet of the people ?

* When you have a good thing, save it, save it.
When you ketch a white cat, shave it, shave it—
When you ketch a white cat, shave it to de tail.'

These people are my white Ci.ts. Go to ! *

" And he went to Teheran, where the Council met, the
same time that the representatives of the people did ;
and he took gorgeous rooms at the Teheran Hotel, and
he put therein bottles of the juice of the grape and great
jars of the strorjy waters of the Giaour, and tobacco cun-

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140

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADH£M.

ningly rolled by the Espagnol, and he stored in his closet
bags of dirhems.

" And then Hogem asked the members of the Council
to visit him, and he gave to them the juice of the grape,
and he warmed their hearts with strong waters. And as
each went out, he took him aside and laid his finger be-
side his nose, saying, * Here, take this bag of dirhems, for
thou art a pleasant fellow, and a brick, and I love thee.
And when my enemies, the people — whom may Allah con-
found ! — come to the Council, and demand laws against
my just charges for carrying their rice and things, say,
'' Go to ! Hogem is a good man and an honest man.
His charges are just." And when the vote is taken, vote
against them, and if you prevail, come to me again ; come
alone, and there will be more strong waters — and per-
chance, haply, another bag of dirhems.*

" And Hogem put his finger to his nose, and winked a
solemn wink of ineffable meaning, which was compre-
hended, for the member did Ukewise.

"Now, there were two hundred members of the Coun-
cil, and the great man saw one hundred and five of them,
and each, with a bag of dirhems under his robe, voted
against the people. And straightway each of the one
hundred and &ve had two bags of dirhems about him.

" Thus, you see, Hogem had the entire country at his
mercy. He owned the Council so that it would not per.
mit other roads to be built. In a little while he did not
have to seek the members, for they sought him. They
yroi^ld say, * If he has the gold, why shoijld 1 not have

MORALS OF \BOU BEN ADHKM.

147

my divvy V Divvy is a Persian word, used in Councils,
the meaning of which you, probably, do not understand.

" Now, here is where death comes in to advantage.
Hogem had all the Councils under his thumb ; he was
moving on the Shah himself; he would, in ten years more,
have had Persia all at his feet : and you may imagine the
condition we should have been in, with this one man as our
sole ruler. Just as he was making a bigger and wickeder
combination than ever, paralysis struck him and the peo-
ple were saved. His combinations melted ; his railroads
had to be sold ; competition came in, and . things were
again lovely in Persia.

" Suppose that the Frank, Bonaparte, had had eternal
life. He would have gone on swallowing one nation after
another, till he would have controlled the whole world.
He would have met another Bonaparte, you say. Very
good ; that would have been worse, for the two would
have kept the world at blood-letting forever.

" And then think of a world with such pests as George
Francis Train and the Woodhull in it, with no prospect of
relief from Death ?

" ' Good men die too.' Verily. But that doesn't de-
tract from the strength of my position a particle. For
where there is one honest, or to put it stronger, where
there is one manlike myself, there are a thousand bad ones.

" The disparity between the two classes being so great,
Death is an advantage. It is the safety-valve of society ;
it is the limit to human action ; and as human action
tends to the bad, why the limit is a^ excellent good thing.

I n

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

" When men all do right, probably there will be no more
Death. But I really don't expect to ever see it. The
man whose ancestors lived correctly and who lives cor-
rectly himself, lives longer than the one in whom these
conditions do not exist. It is very likely that when the
old virus is all out, that Death, which was intended as the
cure lor it, will go out with it. But as long as the virus
is in. Death is necessary, as the cure for it. Poison spreads
faster than wholesome things. A rumrmill will infect an
entire neighborhood in half the time that a prayer-meet-
ing can possibly convert it. Wic^.:edness moves faster
than an express train : goodness moves at the speed of the
ox-cart.

" There are so many bad men, and disease is so slow,
that 1 sometimes think there is a great deal of lightning
squandered every year. With its quick action, its won-
derful killing cap jicity, and so great a use for it, it is a
thousand pities that more of it cannot be judiciously
directed. But there are mysteries in nature.

" Were there no Death, what would the young woman
married to an old man do, or the young man married to an
old' woman ? Take offices where promotion comes by
seniority. What anguish would wring the bosoms of the
juniors if the seniors were immortal ! Death makes
room for men ; Death checks the wicked, betters the con-
dition of the good — in short, it is altogether a sweet boon.

" My young friend, I Icng for Death ; for the next
world, to a perfect man, can only be a blissful one, T long
to go ! And now leave me."

MOftiVLS OF AB0T7 BEN A!>^EM.

149

" Stay ! " said the young man, as he turned to go. " If
you so long to go, why don't you go ? Death is attaina-
ble to any one."

" I continue to live," said Abou, " beca ise I can do my
fellow-men good by living."

And he walked slowly into his habitation.

150

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

XVIII.

A VISION OF THE HEREAFTER.

ABOU BEN ADHEM. was annoyed one morning by
an elderly gentleman, who desired to learn of the
idea? the Persian Sage had of the Hereafter, particularly
as to the style and quality of people who would be likely
to reach a future of bliss.

Abou removed his chibouque from his lips, and moist-
ening his throat with a long draught of sherbet, spoke to
him thus : —

" My friend, many hundreds of years ago, whan I was
a comparatively young man, I dreamed one night that I
had shufHed oft this mortal coil, and was in the Land of
the Her/eafter. Methought I was decently deceased, had
beeii genteelly buried, and a tombstone had been erected
to my memory, on which were inscribed enough virtues
to furnish a dozen. I blushed a Bpirit-blush when I read
that tombstone, and discovered what an exemplary man
I had been ; and I likewise wept a spirit-w ;ep when I
thought what a loss the world had sustained in my death.

** I ascended, and was knocking at the outer gate of
Paradise for admittance. The season had been a very

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

151

healthy one, for the National Convention of Physicians
had been drowned while taking a steamboat excursion on
the Persian Gulf, so the door-keeper had but little to do
while my case was being decided. I whiled away an hour
or two ascertaining the whereabouts of my old acquaint-
ances, who had deceased during the ten years previous.

*'' ' There is a large number of my friends up here ? ' I
remarked, inquiringly.

" ' Not very many,' was his reply.

" * Ebn Becar is here, I suppose ? *

" ' Not any Ebn Becar,' was the answer.

" * I am surprised,' I answered. * Ebn Becar, the date-
seller, not in Paradise ! Be chssm, no man in Ispahan
was more regular in his attendance at the mosque, and he
howled his prayers like a dervish. He was exceedingly
zealous in keeping the faithful in the line of duty.'

"'True,' said the door-keeper, 'true! But, you see,
Ebn kept his eagle eye so intently fixed on his neighbor's
feet that his own got off the road, and when he pulled up,
it wasn't at the place he had calculated. His prayers
were pleasing to a true believer ; but as they were not
backed vp by doing things in proportion, they failed
pass current here,'

" * How fared it with Hafiz, the scribe ? He was char-
itable ; iiO man gave more to the poor than he.'

" * Hafiz did give many shekels to the poor each year,
but it was the way he gave it that spoiled tl effect of
his charities. He gave, not for any love of his kind, but
because it was a part of his system to give. He was

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

afraid not to give. So he said, " I will answer the de-
mands of the law of the Prophet by giving so much,
which will ensure me Paradise," and fancied that was
charity. When the widow of Selim, the mule-driver, em-
ployed him to save her inheritance to her children from
her wicked brother, he required of her all that the law
permitted him to exact, so that she said, "Lo ! I might as
weU have let my brother had the land." He answered,
" The law gives it to me. Go to ! " He would oppress
the poor in a business way, and compromise with his con-
science by subscribing a tenth of his profits to charity.
Compromising never did work in such matters. The com-
promiser gives to the devil something of value, and re-
ceives in return that which damns him. The oppressions
and graspings of Hafiz were exactly balanced, in number,
by his charities ; but as he died worth a million, the op-
pression side was the heaviest iiMjuality. We keep books
very accurately, you observe.*

** * Abdallah, the maker of shawls, is — '

" * No, he isn't. He was an ardent teacher of the rules
the Prophet gave for the faithful, but he was the worst
practiser I ever had any knowledge of. The strong waters
of the Giaour ruined his prospects. He preached absti-
nence from wine, but he constantly partook of the forbid-
den drink. He loved wine, and immediately proceeded
to deceive himself into the belief that he had dyspepsia
and had to take it. Hearing once that strong liquor was
an antidote for the bite of a serpent, he absolutely moved
into a province where serpents abounded, and went out

MORALS 07 AQOU BEN ADHEM.

153

regularly to get bitten. He talked loudly against gluttony,
l»ut excused himself for eating five courses by holding that
he needed it to keep himself up. He succeeded in deceiv-
ing himself, but he couldn't deceive us.'

"* Kahkani, the poet, whose songs were all in praise of
virtue, is here ? The fervent goodness that produced such
morality must be safe ! '

" * Quite wrong, my dear sir. Eahkani's poems were
beautiful ; but bless you ! he never felt the sentiments
expressed in them. He had an itching for fame, and writ-
ing spiritual hymns happened to be his best hold. If he
could have written comic songs better than hymns, he
would have written comic songs.'

" * Whom have you here, pray ? '

" ' Saadi, the camel-shoer, is here.'

" * Saadi ! why, he was constantly violating the law of
the Prophet.' \

" True ! he would even curse the camels he was shoe-
ing. But he was always sorry for it, and he would mourn
over the infirmities of his temper, and strove honestly and
zealously all the time to live better and be better. He
did not make a great success, but he did the best he could
He gave liberally of his substance, without blatting it all
over Ispahan. When he gave a dirhem, he didn't pay the
newspaper two dirhems to make the fact public, which is
my definition of genuine charity. Then there's Firdusi,
the carpet-cleaner — '

" * He never gave anything.'

" ' Certainly not, for he had nothing to give. The Pro-

i M

154

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

phet never asked impossibilities. He would have given
if he had had it, and he tried hard to get it. Then there's
Jelal-ed-din — '

" *He couldn't make a prayer.'

" ' True ! but he said " Amen " to those who could, and
he meant it, which was more than half those who made
the prayers could say.'

" ' And Wassaf, the teacher, — ^where is he ? A more
pui'e and blameless life no man ever led ! '

" * He is here, but occupies a very low place.' '

" ' A low place ? '

" * Verily. Wassaf did not sin, it is true ; but it was
no credit to him that he did not. A more egregiously
deceived man never lived or died. He obeyed the laws
of the Prophet, because he could not do otherwise, thus
crediting himself with what he could not avoid. He
could not be a glutton, for his stomach was weak ; he
could not partake of the strong waters of the Frank, be-
cause his brain would not endure it ; he was virtuous, be-
cause he was too cold-blooded, too thin-blooded, to have
any passion. He had not moral force enough to commit
a decent sin, and thin inability to be wicked he fancied
was righteousness. He was a moral oyster. He, an ice-
berg, plumed himself upon being cold. Now Agha, the
flute-player, who was at times a glutton and a wine-bib-
ler, and all the rest of it, is several benches higher than
Wassaf For Agha's blood boiled like a cauldron ; he
was robust, he had the appetite of the rhinoceros of the
Nile, and a physical nature that was constantly pushing

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEJA.

155

him to the commission of sin ; but Agha, feeling, knowing
that it was wrong, fougnt against it manfully. He fell
frequently, for the Evil One knew his weak moments ;
but he rose and fought against himself, and managed to
come out victor, at least half the time. There was no
more merit in Wassaf s virtue than there is an iceberg's
being cold. But for a burning volcano like Agha to keep
himself down to an even temperature, that was great.

" ' My friend, it is not worth while to enumerate, but- —
well, you will know more when you get inside, if you do
get inside. You have seen the sky-rockets of Jami. They
ascend with much fizz, and make a beautiful show, but
alas ! before they reach the skies they explode, and disap-
pear in a sheet of flame. Precisely so with many men.
They soar aloft on their professions ; but they, too (to use
a vulgarism), bust before they attain Paradise, and go
down in a sheet of flame.

" ' The true believer, who practises what he believes, is
an arrow. Pointed with belief, feathered with works,
death shoots him off"; he pierces the clouds and lands on
the right side of the river.'

" At this point," continued Abou, " I awoke. My ideas
of the future I got largely from that vision. My opinion
is that in New Jersey, as in Persia, there are a great
many people deceiving themselves. Go thy way ! Be
virtuous and be happy. I would rest me."

f ■''

'■y m

156

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

XTX.

REWORSE : THE NATURE OF THE AVERAGE ARTICLE.

ABOU BEN ADHEM, in an unpleap \nt frame of
mind, one morning, was approached by a long-
nosed, sad looking r an, wiio propounded to him the query,
" What is B^morst ? "

To which Abcu replied, " The humiliating sense of an
abject failure."

" What," exclaimed the seeker after truth, " is there no
such thing as sorrow and regret for wrong-doing ? "

" Frequently, my aged infant, frequently. There are
minds so susceptible to proper impressions, so spiritualized,
if I may use the expressioEi, as to feel a pang or two after
they ha\e done a wrong, thing ; but they are iiot common.

" Listen to my own exDerience. A great man;; years
ago, in Persia, I made tho acquaintance of a par^-^ of mtn
who met frequently to indulge in a game played with
cards, which, I presume you kr ow nothing of here, called,
in Persia, drflh-poquier. It is a carious game. The cards
are dealt one at a time, till f^ach has fiva ; then those who
e.ve playing put on the centre of the table a coin, such as
h's been determined upon — sp.y a kopeck ; then they are

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

167

allowed to throw up as many cards as they choose,
taking from the pack an equal number ; then the man
who sits next to the dealer remarks sarcastically, * I am
the aged one, impoverish me, ' and the betting begins.
It is a curious game and a fluctuating, the players being
kept in a pleasant state of uncertainty as to what the
others have, till they come to what they call a ' show-
down.'

"Well, I learned this game, and played it with unvary-
ing success for some days, winning, on an average, four
or five dirhems at a sitting. As I gathered in my spoils
I saw nothing wrong in the game. It seemed to me a
most desirable and, in all respects, a gentlemanly game.

" * I am sorry,' I said to myself, ' for Hafiz, the bellows-
maker, and for Nadir, the seller of shawls ; but Allah
knows I risk my substance on cards as do they, and had
they my luck they would have my money. Be chesm, it
is a highly moral game, and had I an hundred children I
would teach it them. What is there wrong in it ? It is
my money which I risk ; it is their money which they
risk. There is no trickery or cheating in this game, for
the cards are fairly dealt, and we make wagers on our
judgment or our luck. So does the merchant who buys
the wheat of Khurdistan, believing that the crop will be
short, and that it will go up. So does the merchant who "
sells the corn of Kohmul, believing that the crop will be
heavy and the price will go down. What is this but
gambling ? If they play with wheat and corn, why should
not Hafiz and I play with cards ? And then it strengthens

158

MORALS OF ABOir BICN ADHEM.

the mind, it develops the judgment, quickens the reason-
ing powers, and broadens, widens, and strengthens the
mental man. It is a noble game and a great pursuit.'

" Thus reasoned I, joyously.

" I had no remorse, nor did it occur to me that it was
gambling.

" But one night it so happened that I had a certainty
on Hafiz. I had three cards alike in my hand, — that is
to say, three aces, — and when the cards were helped, as
the phrase is, I took another. Haiiz drew one card to the
four that he held, and the betting began. Now, four aces
^is a strong hand, there being but one that can beat it,
namely, a strate-phlush. I wagered a kopeck to help
HaiSz on to his ruin. How I gloated over those four
aces ! I saw nothing wrong in those four aces, nor in mak-
ing out of Hafiz, the bellows-mender, all that he should
make by his trade for a year. He saw my modest kopeck
and said he would wager a dirhem in addition. Exulting
in the strength of my four aces, I gladly put up the
dirhem, and remarked that such was my faith in my hand
that I would impoverish him to the extent of ten dirhems
more. Hafiz — on whose head light curses ! — saw the ten
dirhems, and boosted me (boosted is a Persian phrase)
one hundred dirhems. I made sure that the four aces
was not an optical delusion, and went him one thousand
dirhems, which he saw, and came back at me five thou-
sand dirhems, which, feeling that it would be cruel to
utterly ruin him, I called without further gymnastics.

" Smilingly I laid down my four aces and reached for

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

169

the property. Smilingly he put away my out-stretched
and eager hand, and laid down beside my four aces his
accursed hand, which was a strate-phlush.
, *' ' The property is mine ? * said he.

"'It is!* said!

" Then I experienced a feeling of remorse. Then I felt
that drah-poquier was gambling, and that gambling in
any form was a sin of the most heinous nature, and that I
had been guilty of a crime.

" * Oh, why,' I exclaimed * did I ever permit myself to
become infatuated with the desire for gaming ! If I win,
it is my neighbor's dirhems ; if I lose, it is my own. In
any case, there is nothing of actual value that passes.
While we use capital in gambling, we produce nothing.
One side is richer, the other poorer, and there has been a
waste of precious time. Besides, it is terribly demoraliz-
ing. It infatuates a man and enfeebles his mind. His
mind dwells on the game to the exclusion of everything
that is good; it crushes out everythicg that is high
and noble, and develops everything that is mean and
small in oner's nature. It ruins the loser financially and
ruins the winner morally. Wretch that I am ! why did I
ever petmit myself to play at all ? Why did I permit
this cursed infatuation to grip me ? '

" And Remorse sat on me, and I beat my breast and
pulled my hair. Bewailing my wickedness, I determined
to purge myself of the unholy thing.

" Would I have so thought and so dorif^ had I held the

160

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

Btrate-phlush, and the accursed bellows-mender the four
aces ? I do not know.

" Once more. In my youth I drank deep of pleasure.
The wines of Shiraz were not too good for me, and the
strong waters of the Frank I indulged in to a degree that
was astonishing. I had a constitution of iron, and the
endurance of an army mule. I could drink all night and
disport myself all day. There seemed to be no limit to it.
Moralists said it was wicked, but I laughed. What cared
I for the moralists ? ' Qo to ! ' I said, ' life is short and it
behooves me tO get the most out of it. A fig for your
preachers and your preaching ! Wine is good — I will
drink it. The black-eyed woman pleases me — I will en-
joy her society. The rattle of the dice is music to mine
ear — they shall rattle.' Pleasure I wanted, pleasure I en-
joyed, and I went for it in every possible form. The
moments flew by rapidly, each one bringing with it a
fresh delight ; the days sped by, each one crowned with a
new pleasure.

" But finally it came to an end. My stomach gave out,
and dyspepsia set in. I could drink no more of the rich
wines or of the strong waters; women pleased me* not;
the rattle of the dice was no longer a pleasure : for I was,
to use a Persian phrase, played out. My system gave out
all at once. I had hunted pleasure, and pleasure was now
hunting me. I had lived out my vitality, but time
remained.

" Then I experienced what is called remorse. With
dyspepsia gnawing at my stomach ; with my knees weak-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

161

ened and my back of no account whatever ; incapable of
what had delighted me, and diseased in every part, I was
sorry I had lived the life I had lived. Not because the
Koran interdicted it, not because the life had been of it-
self wrong, but because certain pains and penalties followed
the life which gave me more pain than the life had given
me pleasure. So long as my health lasted I cared nothing
for the violation of the precepts ; it was only when the
penalties were enforced that I felt a sorrow for what I had
done.

. " There are men— ^and women — who do, I presume, ex-
perience a genuine remorse for the commission of wrongs*
great and small ; but, as I said, the number is small. It
is the penalties that hurt them. Solomon, of whom you
have probably heard, did not say " vanity, of vanities." so
long as he was in good health and could sin with some
zest. It was only after he was old and incapable that re-
morse struck him. Precisely so it is with the most of us.
When the candle of enjoyment is all burned out, and the
dark, black snuff alone remains, we look at it with regret
and remorse. Possibly, it may be grief at the sin, but as
a rule, methinks, it is grief because we cannot do it over
again, or because now that we have the penalties to pay,
that it did not pay to do it at all."

"Bit—"

" Don't say another word. You have got all out of me
thnt is necessary for you to know. In fact, as I have
spoken, you have got all that there is in the topic. Leave

And the Sage went wearily in to his breakfast.

162

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

XX.

A LESSON FOR HUSBANDS.

ABOU BEN ADHEM was asked one day by a seeker
after knowledge whether a man had better marry
or not.

The Sage was in a good mood for talk ; he had had his
supper and it suited him, the tobacco in his chibouque
was precisely to his taste, and he had made a fair opera-
tion that dav in stocks. Life was to him more than usu-
ally pleasant, and being in good humor he was disposed
to narrate.

" Listen," said he, " to a true tale.

" I was once a married man — possibly I am yet. The
lady whom I married was too sinewy and tough to die in
a hurry.

" If I sigh as I speak, let not that sigh be interpreted as
an indication that I am an unbeliever in matrimony.

"Matrimony in the abstract is a good and desirable
thing ; whether it is alwa/ya a good thing is another ques-
tion.

" I shall not testify, for T cannot be an unprejudiced
-vidtness. I was married and I am bald-headed. It was

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

lea

not a fever that took out my hair ; it came out suddenly
one night during an argument with my wife.

" When two people — of opposite sex, of course — dis-
cover that their hearts throb in ^unison, they should be
ioined, that they may continue to so throb. When two
people — a man and a woman — discover that their tastes
are similar, likewise their hopes and aims, they should
marry. In such cases life is, doubtless, a rose-tinted
dream.

" But where the masculine person is not tremendously
strong, is timid in his nature, and addicted to miscellane-
ous pleasures ; and the female member of the firm is five
feet nine inches in height, addicted to having her own
way, and very strong in the arm, I will not say that, for
the man at least, marriage is a good thing. I do not be-
lieve it. I have had experiences. There is such a thing
as will power : a strong will in a weak body will bear
down and override a weak will in a strong body ; but
when the strong will animates a strong body the combi-
nation is fearful. Give the wife both these qualities, and
it is bad for the husband. The husbands of such wives
must be exceedingly mild in temper to retain their hair.
I have known many men who possess such wives, and
have noticed that they invariably wore wigs. But for
such wives a worthy trade would languish. How the lines
of life cross each other ! Who would suppose that temper
had anything to do with the trades ? Life is a riddle.

" Possibly it is bad for the wife when the husband is so
Constituted, but I know not. 1 am speaking from the

164

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

standpoint of the husband, and am in no mood for pursu-
ing the theme further than is necessary.

" I am large enough, and am not exactly timid, but I
am, or rather was, of an easy, quiet, philosophical nature.
I was wont to submit to almost anything rather than
have a struggle. Struggles I detested. My wife, Zulieka,
was five feet nine inches in height, and not timid. The
'^oar of the lion, though he was behind iron bars, would
frighten me : she would stride into his den and conquer
him. She was eminently fitted by nature to be a lion-
tamer in a moral menagerie ; and when I read that lions
did sometimes rend their keepers into infinitesimal ^ag-
ments, I frequently wished that she woidd embrace that
profession.

" I have described my lat^ wife, Zulieka, and her 'hus-
band, myself. I put them in the order in which they
stood before the world. ^ ^

** My married life was not altogether a summer morn.

" Dark tempests frequently arose and swept over our
domestic hearth. Zulieka represented, in these tempests,
the thunder, lightning, wind, and hail, and I the worn,
beaten, and drenched traveller on the dreary moor.

" Zulieka had a passion for control ; she felt that she
was bom to command, and she did command everybody

who came near her, from the date of her birth. When

she put her foot down, it came down with most signifi-
cant emphasis; when she said anything, she generally
inteitded to be distinctly understood as meaning it. Two

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

166

of her youager sisters committed suicide to escape her
domination.

" I did not willingly propose to this superior being : she
captured me ; I was taken by her. She forced me to
propose to her, and compelled me to ask the consent of
her father. When she got her eye on me and told me to
do this I no more dared to disobey her than I would have
dared to face a hungry tiger. I was her property, she had
taken me, — ^and I yielded.

" Never shall I forget the expression of satisfaction, of
devout thankfulness, that illuminated the countenance of
that long-suffering father when I asked for her. ' Take
heir, my sou, take her, and we'll be happy.' It was a slight
departure from the regular formula, but I did not observe
it. I thought him liberal when he furnished me the means
to start in business, and insisted upon fixing the location
himself.

** It was a thousand miles from where he lived, and so
remote from railroads that Zulieka could never visit the
home of her childhood, and there revive the sweet recol-
lections of the past. It was in the cold, mountainous
North. Was it accident or design % Alas ! what conun-
drums life continually presents for solution, and to how
many of them do we reply, * I give it up * !

** My only hope of release was that cholera or yellow
fever or some exceedingly fearfrd disease would strike
her. It would take cholera or yellow fever to do for her ;
her great nature would laugh the severe bilious or the
more grasping typhoid to scorn. Gerehro-opvnM meningitis

166

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

might bring her, but I doubted it. My chief trust was
in cholera and yellow fever. They are sudden in action,
and might surprise her.

"'I awaited anxiously the advent of those cheerful
liberators. * But they might take you ! ' I knew that.
But I had the advantage of her. Life was desirable to
her so long as she had the ecstasy of banpng me. Life
was of no account to me so long as she lived to bang.
Therefore, I sighed for the advent of yellow fever or
cholera.

" I did thrice attempt to combat this terrible woman.
My first eflfbrt was a failure. The succeeding ones were
likewise. I well remember my first essay. I attempted
to dictate something to her concerning our child, Hakao.
She hurled one look at me. Oh, that look ! It was
sufficient. I acknowledged her power from that moment.

" We had been wedded five years. I longed to be my
own man, — to taste the ecstasy of doing just once as I
should see fit. I determined to do it. * I am a man,' I
said to myself, * and she is a woman. I will assert my
manhood.'

" That very evening, as I took my copote after tea to
go out, Zulieka remarked, —

" * Abou, you will be home by half-past eight.'

" I drew myself up to my full height (five feet seven),
and assuming my sternest look, replied, —

" * Zulieka, I shall not be at home at half-past eight.
It may be half-past nine, half-past ten, half-past eleven,
or perchance daylight. I shall stay out as long as I

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

167

choose, and return when 1 please. I am a man, madam,
and not a child.'

" Zulieka started up as if to annihilate me, but a second
thought struck her, and she subsided,, with the remark,
'Very well, Abou, very weU.'

'* She was quiet and apparently resigned. My boldness
had quelled her. Her face was quiet but cold.

" So the ice of a lake is quiet and cold, but there is
death in the chilly waters under it.

" But I had embarked in this crusade and determined
to follow it, let it end where it would, and I put on my
copote with emphasis and left the house.

« That evening I met several of my friends, from whom
I had been for some time estranged by the severe rule of
my spouse. We had a supper and, after appropriate
beverages, cards and cigars, ^y friends were all married
men, all possessed of — ^no, not of, but by — muscular wives,
and they determined to enjoy the liberty they had stolen,

" I said supper and beverages. The supper was light ;
the beverages were not. We drank lustily, talked first
loudly, then huskily, then sillily, and finally at two o'clock
in the morning separated, vowing to meet at the same
place every night. Each wended his serpentine way to
his respective home. Crooked are the paths of life — at
two in the morning.

" I found my way to my home easily enough. It was
a modest cottage in the suburbs, in the centre of a very
respectable lot of ^ound. I should have preferred a
house nearer the centre of the town : Zulieka doted on

'■ [• i

ir^ I

f-«i

168

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

nature, and so we had a small garden, with a lawn, dip-
ped trees, worms, bugs, and things of that sort.

" I found my w&y to the door, but not through it. I
should always have preferred to carry a night-key, but
Zulieka preferred that I should not. Hence I did not.

*• * Locked out ! ' muttered I to myself. * Thank you,
my dear. I shall essay the window. Keep me out of my
own house ? Ha ! ha ! * And I laughed derisively.

" I tried the windows, but they were all securely locked.
The skilful burglar might have essayed those window ^s in
vain. He would have had his labor for his pains.

" It was a bitter cold night, and in parting with my
friends I had forgotten my overcoat. There I stood
shivering in the wind, while Zulieka was warm and snug
in bed. Loudly I knocked, — only echo answered.

" All the windows ? No 1 I bethought me of one
wUcii I had not tried. I disliked additions to a house,
but Zulieka preferred them ; and therefore an addition to
our house had been built. It was a laundry, — -a one-story
structure in the rear of the kitchen, with one window in
it. That window I tried, and to my infinite joy it was
unfastened. 'Hal ha! From the laundry to the kitchen,
from the kitchen to the dining-room, thence to the sitting-
room, and thence, — ha ! ha ! '

" And I pondered as to whether I should smother her
with pillows, as Othello did Desdemona, and I doubted as
to whether I would give her time to say her prayers. I
remember now that I hnally resolved that it would be
only £siir to give her time to say one short one.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

169

" Carefully I hoisted the window, and holding it up
with one hand clambered up. Poising myself on the sill,
I sprang gayly, not upon the floor, but into a barrel of ice-
cold water, which had been carefully placed directly un-
der that window, by whose loving hands I had no difficulty
in determining. With a howl of anguish I struggled to
get out, and in so doing I tipped the barrel over.

" Soaked thoroughly, and with my teeth ohattering like
castanets,! rushed to the door that opened into the kitchen.
It was locked. The window! I would climb out the
aperture through which T came, and hie me to a hotel.
Woe was me! the window had fallen, and had fastened
itself so that I could not open it. I was a prisoner in a
laundry, eight feet square, the thermometer at the freezing
point, wet through and through, with no prospect of get-
ting out.

'* ' I will sleep,* I said, and lay down. Alas ! the same
kind hand that had locked all the doors, and all the win-
dows but one, and had placed a barrel of water under
that cne, had likewise poured several barrels on the floor.
The floor was a good one and held water, and there was
at least three inches of that fluid on it, in . which I lay
down. ,

" Springing to my feet I leaned for rest against the wall.
The cold increased in intensity every minute, and in an
hour I was sheathed in an armor of ice, and was as stiff'
and incapable of motion as the Cardiff" Giant.

" My tongue was the only member of my body that

was free, and that I employed in hurling anathemas at
K

170

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADH£M.

Zulieka, who was warm and comfortable in her bed. It
she finally goes to the place to which I consigned her
that nightj she wiU be as much too warm as I was thon
too cold.

"Need I continue the harrowing tale? How sIotV
draggc(^ ?tlon^ h' ;- or 1 The cloc]: struck two. Two!
Why, live houv*^ ' r.i"^. pass before seven, and could I en-
dure till then i Thi ! four! ^vel I was gradually
congealing. Life was leaving me slowly. I was not al-
together miserable nor wholly discontented with my fate.
Should^I die and be compelled to meet the King of Pan-
demonium himself I could not be much worse oflf. Life
with Zulieka had robbed death of its terrors. As I
thought of her I exclaimed, * Death, where is thy sting ? '

" Morning did come at last. At 7 A. M. Zulieka arose,
the first of the household. She sang her matin song gay ly
as she dressed. I yelled like a Oamanche. Cheerfully
she came to me. On her face was an expression of pity
and surprise.

" * Why, Abou,' said this female, with her large eyes
wide open, ' can this be you ? Where, oh where have you
been all night ? I waited till very late for you, and then
went to bed, and lay uneasy all night fearing that some-
thing had happened to you. Bless me ! you are wet
through and through, and your clothes are frozen stiff*.
Dear me ! '

" And she looked as innocent as — I pause for a simile.
A stranger would not have supposed that she planned the

M0RAL3 OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

171

trap into which I had fallen, and was laughing internally
tbt her success.

" ' Take me down,' I re^ lied, * and lay me in front of the
giate.'

" Sh*^ 6' \ so, and as I was thawing out, she put her
arms about my neck and exclaimed : —

" * Dearest, how cruel it was in you to stay all night
away from your Zulieka ! '

"I made no reply — there was none to make

" I may live long or I may die soon. The ;he iatism
I am enjoying at this time, and the cough bk\ is rend-
ing me, I charge to that night. But long c^ short I never
contested the field with Zulieka again. 1 fu* no match
for her. I night as well have engaged Mr. Heenan in the
roped arena, or attempted to cope with Prof. Agassiz in
corals and things. She was my superior. I was down.
Had I arisen I should have been knocked down again. I
spared her the trouble and myself the humiliation. I
stayed where I was. My only satisfaction was that be-
fore I left her she went back to her father. That was my
revenge for his failing to rescue me from her.

" My story is done. I do not Icnow whether it bears
upon the question you put to me or not, for I have really
forgotten the question. Had 1 remembered the question,
I should have varied the naiTative so that it would have
been a complete answer.

" But you must be an incomprehensible idiot if you can-
not get a moral out of anything I say. Go ! "
. And Abou relighted his chibouque and composed him-
self for a long reverie.

KV'.j

172

M0UAL8 OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

XXI.

THE SHORTEST ROAD TO FAME.

'^TT^HERE came to Abou Ben Adhem one day a young
JL nian who insisted upon being put in the way to
the achievement of distinction. Abou looked the young
man over with great care, and proceeded to give him a
prescription at once,

"There are various kind of fame, my son," said the
Sage, " but to attain any one of them requires an adapt-
ability to that particular one, and much labor. It takes a
great many years to attain eminence at the bar — that is,
as a lawyer ; political distinction is attained only by years
of labor; and the same may be said of the pulpit and the
tripod. From the size and peculiar shape of your head, I
should say that your shortest cut to fame is via the prac-
tical joke. It is not the best reputation to have and hold,
but it will answer you, because it strikes me you are fit-
ted for it. The practical joker may, in a year's time, be-
come sufficiently famous to have the town all speaking of
* Jones's last good thing,' if Jones gives his whole mind to
it, and has nothing else to take his attention.

"A few plain directions are all that are necessary.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

178

" In the first place, a practical joker should have a good
income, — indeed, he ought to be rich. If he is rich enough
to be always able to order and pay for wine, dinners, and
carriages he can always be sure of having in his train a
regiment of * good fellows,' who will repeat his good things,
and who will frown down the sober people, who, if left to
themselves, would howl down the fountain of all their joys
as an unmitigated nuisance, and a pest only a trifle less
terrible than a mad dog.

"Secondly. The practical joker must give his entire
attention to the pursuit, for one effort, though it be suc-
cessful, wiU not hold permanent distinction. It must be
repeated daily, till the public shall hear as regularly of
' Jones's (we will say) last' as they do of bank defalca-
tions.

"Thirdly. The practical joker must have no weak
scruples. The feelings of others must not affect him, nor
must any earthly consideration turn him from his pur-
pose.

" He need not have wit or originality ; all that is ne-
cessary is stolidity, and money enough to keep his corps of
followers to applaud and repeat.

'* Having designated the qualities necessary for success
in this pursuit, I shall suggest a few practical jokes which
have done good service in their day, and will do to use
again.

" We will suppose that A., the practical joker, has a
friend, B., who lives during the summer at Staten Island.
B. has a brother in Chicago. What more ex(][uisite place

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MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

of fun could there be than to have A. forge a telegram to
B., in the name of the clerk of, say the Fifth Avenue
Hotel, to the effect that his brother fell with a stroke of
paralysis in the corridor of the hotel, just as he was regis-
tering his name, and was at the point of death ? B., seeing
the name all right, and not suspecting that that funny
dog, A., had anything to do with it, would be greatly dis-
tressed. He would tear away from table, throw himself
on the ferry-boat, frantically call a carriage, ride like a
madman to the Fifth Avenue, and rush to the office and
excitedly demand the room where his brother was dying.
At this point A. and his crowd should appear, and laugh-
ing till their sides ache at the blank wonderment of the
clerk, and the distressed expression of B., should shout
'Sold!' Nothing could be more exq^i8itely humorous
than this. Every practical joker should thank me for the
suggestion. I do not say that it is above the average of
practical jokes, but it is a trifle different from the usual
run. Then it is capable of infinite variety. A ma.^* has
many relatives, and it could be nan on him for all of them.
Thus to one it might be telegi'aphed that his wife was
dying, his father, his mother, his son in West Point, his
daughter in Vassar, and so forth.

" If a man has a maiden aunt, from whom he has ex-
pectations, what could be better than to telegraph him of
her death, and let things go to the length of ordering
mourning f How glorious it would be to have the plea-
sure of poking him in the ribs for a month, with the query,
' How is your aunt ? Ha ! ha ! haj '

MOIIALB OF ABOU BEN ADUEM.

175

" Another * good thing* is to issue tickets of invitation
to an amateur performance at some hall for the benefit of
a (".harity, and to prescribe full dress for the occasion. It
is better always to select for such a * rig/ a rainy season,
that the * victims ' of the ' sell ' may be put to as much
trouble and expense as possible. If three thousand in-
vitations are issued, and the printing is well done, it is
safe to assume that two thousand five hundred will attend.
What rare sport to see two thousand five hundred ladies
and gentlemen get out of carriages only to find a dark
hall ! This was done in New York once ; but the joke
was not carried half far enough. The joker was a poor
one, and did not extract half the juice from it that was
possible. To have made it complete, he should have em-
ployed boys to stand in the dark and bespatter the ladies'
dresses with mud, as they alighted from their carriages
and got back into them. To have armed the boys with
squirt-guns that they might shower the ladies with water
from the gutters, would have been a positive triumph of
genius. But to have simply thrown the mud, would have
been a proper and suflficiently humorous finish.

" The trick of advertising a * dog wanted ' at the house
of a friend is very good. But few things can be funnier
than the jj^^plexity of the lady of the house indicated in
the advertisement, as the regiments of ragamuffins come
with dogs in their arms. So, likewise, is the advertisiiig
that a man will fly from the top of Trinity Church, par-
ticularly if you designate the man funnily, as, for instance,
' Jlerr SellemaU,' or * Monsieur Follemall,' or saiy appella-

H 'I

176

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

tion of the kind. These names are easy of construction, as
will be seen, and when the fact works through the heads
of the expectant crowd that the German ' Herr Sellemall '
is in English * sell-'em-all,' the way they shout,- ' Sold, by
Jove ! * is a reward that practical jokers always appreciate.

"Another exceedingly pleasant practical joke is to
stretch a cord across a gateway to a church, Sunday
night, at an elevation of say five feet eight inches As
the congregation pass out under the cord, it neatly takes
off and ruins the hats of all under that height, and rasps
the faces of all over that altitude. The fright of an an-
cient maiden lady of attenuated proportions, as the cord
strikes her face and breaks the skin on her nose and cheeks,
is very amusing. The effect of this is immensely height-
ened by stretching another stout cord across the gateway
at an elevation from the ground of say a foot, just high
enough to trip them as they pass. Nothing can be more
exquisitely funny than to see their consternation at the
fi.rst cord, unless it is to see them sprawling in the mud
over the second.

" There are other jokes fitted to all, but there is a class
on which only medical students should venture. For in-
stance, it is a * big thing ' to invite a party of friends to
drink, and dexterously to get into their glasses a few
drops of croton oil, or to substitute tartar emetic for cream
of tartar in the kitchen of a friend, ^^ .at it may get into
the cake served for refreshments at a party. One rare
wag whom I knew once in the most dexterous jnanner
put some coal-oil in the lemonade, at a little gathering

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

177

given by a clergyman's wife, and he and the few choice
spirits who were ' in it ' got no end of fun out of the dis-
tress of the hostess and the disgust of the guests. The
circumstance created trouble in the parish, which resulted
in the dismissal of the minister ; but that was nothing :
the faces of the people who got a taste of that coal-oil
were ludicrous beyond description.

" A pin stuck in the bottom of a chair, in which a pre-
cise old lady is to sit down, is a good thing, as is also the
tieing of two cats, and slinging them across your neigh-
bor's fence, under his window.

" In fact, there is no limit to the amusement that can
be got out of this kind of thing. Sewing up the sleeves
of a friend's coat, when he is in a hurry to get to a train,
is a most exquisite performance, and to blacken the face
of a sleeping man is a piece of humor that always affords
the liveliest satisfaction.

' " And the beauty of this kind of humor, the great ad
vantage in It is, it is as applicable to animals as to men.
A dog may be made the source of much amusement. It
is the nature of dogs when they approach each other to
put their noses together, which is equivalent, we presume,
to the hand-shaking of humans. Now, the practical joker
who inserts a pin in the muzzle of his dog does a very
bright thing. The dog will run the pin into the noses of
aU the dogs who salute him, and the howls of the punc-
tured canines, and the look of blank astonishment on the
faoe of the innocent cause of the trouble, afford amuse-
ment beyond expression. Tieing a tin kettle to a dog's

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178

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

tail is another good thing. The frightened dog, at full
speed, will charge into a crowd of persons, and scatter
them in a highly amusing manner. I have known ladies
to faint, and horses to he frightened so that they ran away,
and an immense number of exceedingly ludicrous incidents
to happen in consequence. >;

" Another amusing trick may be played with a dog.
Buy a large Newfoundland, — a very shaggy one, whose
coat of hair will hold a barrel of water ; then invite a
party of your friends to the water-side. The ladies should
be dressed in white, and the gentlemen, also, in light
pantaloons. Throw a stick into the water, and say, ' Get
it, Nero ! ' Then get into the centre of the group. The
sagacious dog will swim out and get the stick, and will
rush back to you, and rub against all who stand in his
way ; and when he gets to you he will shake himself, and
completely drench the whole party, and soil their clothes.
If the water is muddy the effect of the joke will be height-
ened very much.

" In short, there are a thousand ways of doing this kind
of thing, and the advantage is that anybody can do it.
And it is safe, too ; for you do not practise it on anybody
but your friends. If you should ' get off' a practical joke
on a stranger he might knock you down; but your friend,
no matter how much annoyed he might be, would never
do it. He wiU swear and howl about it ; but you laugh
at him, and get mirth even out of his anger.
• " Some people are unreasonable enough to speak of
practical jokers as ' nuisances,' as ' pests,' and so forth, and

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

179

possibly they are right. There are those so utterly devoid
of the sense of fun that they object to be put to serious ^
inconvenience, or to bodily hurt, or to be made to appear
ridiculous for the r.«tke of making amusements for others. '
But such people should not be regarded. The practical
joker has his point to make, — he wants to rise a little
above the level, and this is the only way in which he can
do it. Therefore it should not be barred to him, and those
who growl should be frowned down. But one who has
nothing else to do can well afford to bear this stigma for j
the amusement and reputation he gets. ' -^ -'i^ .,^

" I have shown you, my ambitious young friend, how
you may attain distinction. Go, and attain it ! Be bold
and merciless. The few who have sought to climb to
eminence and have failed have fallen because they were
not bold and had scruples. Go, my son, go! " ;;-''-

The young man left the presence, and Abou reclined on
his divan and laughed heartily. "

" By the bones of the Prophet ! " he chuckled to him-
self, " this mom have I done humanity some service. That
young man will attempt this kind of thing in his native
State of New Jersey, whose people will refuse to see any-
thing good in it. His eyes will be blackened on his first
attempt, his second will procure his being dragged through
a horse-pond, and his third will be the means of his dying
prematurely. Then will the world be the better for my
advice. Bismillah, it is good ! " - v , .*

And the Sage laughed himself to sleep.

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180

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

XXII.

THE HISTORY OF ZODIAC, QUEEN OF PERSIA.

ABOU BEN ADHEM, the Sage, was reposing in his
tent early in the beautiful month of September.
The frosts had tinted the maples, showering their summits
with glory ; the green of the pines, intensified by the
touch of the forerunner of the winter king, made a gor-
geous contrast with the purple and scarlet and gold in
which the other trees were robed ; and the air, crisp as
well as balmy, with skies clear and beautiful, made a com-
bination sufficiently satisfying to make a well-balanced
person glad that he lived, and that he lived on this much
maligned earth. >

While resting on his divan and enjoying his chibouque,
a stranger raised the cloth of his tent, and, without cere-
mony, entered.

" Why this intrusion ? " demanded Abou, angrily. "By
the bones of the Prophet, shall not the true believer have
hU rti t ? Shall a man be disturbed in his reveries with-
ciut a why or a wherefore ? Who art thou, unmannered
(tinn V'

■* Migfity Aboi?/' replied the unabashed stranger, "I

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

181

come for advice. Advice is what I want, and what I will
have. If I get it no other way, I shall pump it out of
you. I shall hold you here by the button-hole till what
I want you can give. You cannot escape me."

A.bou resigned himself to his fate. It was a leading
principle in the philosophy of that great man that —

** What can't be cured, love, ,

Must be endured, love, " ' ■

And he carried it out religiously. '^

" State your case, my pod-auger, state your case. I
will beam on the pai iway of your troubles. State your

case.

>> ^

■o'

" Mighty Abou," said the stranger, " I have a lady fiiond

who has ducats. She is the possessor of great stores of

gold and silver, ani has lands aid tenements without

number. We have been engaged to be married for a year,

ard when that marriage is consummated I shall ha\c

something to say about those effects, which my oul yearns

for. She is sixty-three, and as ugly as origin sin, but I

love her — " • 7v - ^^'; vV

" Estate," interpolated Abou, softly. . r ; 7

"As never man loved," continued the str; liger. .1 o.ss

" Why don't you marry her ? " , vn ;

"She is whimsical. Whenever I urge her to name the

day, she says love is a hollow dream, and remarks that she

longs to be an angel and with the angels stand. In brief,

she threatens to commit suicide and leave a heartless

world, and I think she means to do it. Twice have I held

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182

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

her when she threatened to throw herself out of the win-
dow ; thrice have T wrenched from her grasp the deadly
laudanum ; and times without number have I saved her
from self-destruction by other means. I am compelled to
watch her perpetually, and I am, as you see, worn to a
shadow by anxiety. If she would marry me I should not
be so particular as to her notions of self-destruction, for
she could not take with her lands and personal property ;

i but to have her kill herself before that property passes to
me ! It is too sad to think of"

Abou sat for a moment in deep reverie. Then he
spoke : —

" Listen to a tale of ancient Persia. ^ ' - "V

" Zodiac, the queen, had reached the mature age of six-
ty-three. She was not as beautiful as an houri ; on the

: contrary, she was as ugly as a red barn in my native State
of Ma — that is, my native province of Koamud. At that

• age she got into her head the idea that it would be better
for her and her people, more especially for herself — for in
Persia, as in other countries, the potentates count them-
selves more carefully than they do their people — that she
should go into the great silent HereaftvM, which she pre-
pared to do by throwing herself from the top of the east
tower of the royal palace. As that structure was nine
hundred and sixty-three feet high, the chances were that
if she ever took that leap she would be injured fatally,
and she would cease being queen with great suddenness.
" Now, Nadir-el-din, the grand vizier, did not like this
whim of the venerable queen, for her nephew, who would

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

183

succeed to the throne, hated him, and would inevitably
depose him and chop off his head immediately thereafter
— a procedure which grand viziers especially object to.
But how to prevent it was the question. He had restrained
her by various pretexts for a year, until finally Zodiac in-
formed him one day, liat on the next morning, at precisely
nine, she should hurl herself from the tower positively
without reserve ; there was no use of further talk about
it, and there should be no postponement on account of
weather. It had to be done.

" A happy thought struck Nadir-el-din — a very happy
thought. He had twenty-four hours, and nations and
grand viziers have been frequently s^ved in that time.
He summoned the court-dressmaker, <ni^ ordered her to
make for the queen a dress of unparalleled magnificence.

" ' Spare no expense,' he said. * Let the material be of
the richest, and the work on it the most exquisite. Let
diamonds and pearls and amethysts and emeralds blaze
and shine and glitter all over It. And have it done by
to-morrow at seven, or off" goes your head ! Now throw
yourself ! ' he said, relapsing into the imaginative style of
the dreamy East. '•' "*

" The dressmaker shuddered, for the time was short ;
but when a head is at stake almost anything can be done.
She went at the dress, and the vizier went to the Depart-
ment of Finance, and levied a fresh tax to meet the ex-
pense that he was aware his plan would involve, making
the tax twice as large as would be required (as was the

i *:

"^ 'ft.

;ii- ['

184

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

custom of the country) that he might have the balance
for his private purse.

" The next morning he had the dress conveyed to the
apartments of the queen.

" * Your Royal Highness holds to your design of becom-
ing an angel this morning ? '

"'Ido.'

" ' Very well. At least go out of the world in a style
becoming the sovereign of a great empire. Array your-
self in robes such as the Queen of Persia ought to wear.
Die in good style, madam.'

" ' It is well/ Heplied the queen, languidly. ' Do with
me as you will. In an hour or two I shaU be beyond the
vanities of this world.'

" And her maids arrayed her in the gorgeous robe and
decorated her with the jewels. The work being completed,
the gii nd vizier came in.

" The queen was resplendent ; she had got before her
grand mirror and was admiring herself. Her eyes spark-
led as she looked upon the reflection. The artful dress-
maker had so arranged the dress that it made her look
not a minute over forty, and a tolerably good-looking
woman she was for forty years.

" * The time for your Majestj/'s sacrifice is at hand,' said
the grand vizier.

" ' I rather think I will not take the fatal leap to-day,'
replied the queen. ' I do not feel well enough.'

" And she stood before the mirror gazing upon herself
with undisguised delight.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

185

" The grand vizier saw that he was on the right track
and seizing the dressmaker by the shoulder, hurried her
out of the room.

" ' Go to now/ he said, * make a dress still more gor-
geous than this, and have it completed by the morning
after this. On your head be it ! '

" The next morning the queen put on the dress again,
but towards evening, tiring of it, she intimated a desire
to go hence the next morning. * ''

" * Very good,' replied the crafty man, ' very good.' "''"'

" The next morning he waited upon her Majesty, and
with him the dressmaker with the new gown.
' " * Put on this gown,' he said, * and die in it. It be-
comes your Majesty to die in royal robes.' * -^^^

" She put it on and stood entranced. So skilfully had
the modiste performed her work that she was reduced in
age ten years more ; she looked not an hour over thirty.

" ' Shall I lead your Majesty to the fatal tower ? ' said
the grand vizjer. .^n ^,*,iv.

" The queen settled herself in her skirts and took a long
look at herself

" ' No,' said she, ' I will not go to join the angel throng
this morning. Heavens ! what a dress ! I feel in it as
though I had been born again ! '

" The grand vizier was now sure that he had hit the
right idea, and he followed it. He issued orders to the
court-dressmaker that dresses, each different in design,
each more stunning than its predecessor, should be made,
and that a fresh one should always be kept in reserve.

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186

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADHEM.

And whenever the queen got a yearning to go hence, he
arrayed her for the sacrifice in a dress made for the pur-
pose, which always took her back to life.

" He did manage to keep her alive by this artifice for
three years, and kept his place ; but alas ! the plan was
open to the objection of being too expensive. The peo-
ple growled about the additional taxes, and the grand
vizier who levied them was deposed and executed in
obedience to the popular demand."

" Well," said the stranger inquiringly, " is that all ? "

" All ! Is it not enough ? Ha/e I not instructed you
as to your method ? stupid man ! Don't you see that
to keep your ancient love on earth you must occupy her
mind ? What has a rich woman of sixty-three, with
nothing on her mind, to do with life ? Life to such peo-
ple is a burden, and they can hardly be blamed for sacri-
ficing it. Give your lady something to do, and make
yourself necessary to her in the doing of it. Get her to
start a Society for the Conversion of the Apaches, for the
Reforming of the New Jersey Legislature, — for anything,
no matter how wild and impracticable, so that she believes '
in it and gets an interest in it. Then she won't have time
to die, for her ' duties ' will keep her in life. And then,
when she is thoroughly employed, and you have estab-
lished yourself as a necessity, marry her, and be as happy
as you can in the knowledge that if her mania has taken
hold strong enough the worry of it will kill her in a year.

" I have said."

And the stranger departed, leaving Abou alone with his
thoughts.

MOllALS OF ABOU BKN ADHEM.

187

XXIII. ' '

THE STORY OF JOBBA, THE AVARICIOUS. '

v.'<V

A- ! < '1 H '•

ONE evening the Sage Abou was " wasting," as he
expressed it, his time over a newspaper, when, as
fate would have it, he stumbled upon an account of a
frightful railroad accident, in w^hich a large number of
women were injurad and several killed out-right. ,«ifjij

Abou, being in a communicative mood, remarked that
it reminded him of an occurrence in his native Persia.

" I will tell it you," he said. " Listen to the story of
the wretched Jobba.

" Jobba was a native of Koamud. He yearned for lucre,
and was averse to the accumulation of it by manual labor,
in which he differed from the narrator of this history.

" There had been a terrible railroad accident in his im-
mediate vicinity, for which, of course, there was nobody
to blame. The engineer had wagered cigars with the fire-
man that he could run the train around a sharp curve, at
a speed of forty miles an hour, without going off the track.
The engineer tried it and lost his wager, and the fireman
was chagrined. The locomotive fell upon the engineer,
so there was no hope of ever collecting that bet. He

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188

MORJLS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

might have asked his widow for it, but he was high-toned,
and said he'd rather lose it.

*' There were four passengers killed and twenty-there
injured more or less. The company was rich. It never
spent any money on its track, ^ but it did pay damages to
the relatives of the killed and the injured. The president
had figured it down to a fine point. He was satisfied that
it w^ cheaper to pay damages than to keep up the road.
A great many of the killed had no friends to act for them,
and a large number of the wounded never knew that they
wer^ entitled to damages.

" But this accident was a serious one. The people on
that train were exceptionally influential, and the com-
pany was paying rather large damages to a great many
of them. Jobba happened to be in the office while this
process was going on. One of the victims was a high
official from Ispahan, who was on his wedding-tour. He
was in a palace-car with his bride when the accident oc-
curred, and the lady had been seriously injured. The
car h* d rolled over twice, had been mashed between two
other cars, the stoves had upset and fallen on him and his
wife, and they had met with c bher little troubles, too
numerous to mention. His left leg had been broken, also
his right arm and two of his ribs, besides which he had
been scalped, and one eye knocked out. His wife had
not received so many serious injuries, but what she did
catch affected her more. A red-hot stove had fallen on
her, and spoiled her beauty for ever.

" The company settled with this man on the spot They

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

189

paid him ten thousand dirhems for his injuries, and twen.
ty thousand dirhems for the damage done his wife.

" Jobba mused for a moment.

" * Sir,* said he to the president, ' do you always pay at
this lute for injuries done to a woman V

" ' Certainly/ re\;urned the president, with a groan ; ' a
jury would give *em more. It's cheaper to settle than to
fight 'em.'

" Jobba relapsed into deep thought. There were three
hundred people on that train, and only four were killed.
Ten thousand dirhems for the man ! twenty thousand for
the wife ! Four killed — four out of three hundred. . Why,
men take greater chances for money than that everyday!

" At this point in his reverie another man came ib,
whose wife was one of the four unlucky deceased, and the
company paid over to him. twenty-five thousand dirhems.

" This settled Jobba. He put on his hat and left the
office, with the exclamation : —

"a will do it!'

" What was it he had determined to do ? Listen, and
see.

*' Zermina was a venerable maiden lady of not less than
forty-two, whose bony frame would not weigh more than
ninety pounds. For twenty-six years she had sighed for
the ' man,' but up to date he had not come. There were
wrinkles on her face, there was redness on the tip of her
nose, and she had worn a wig for years. She was not
beautiful. Had she been beautiful in her youth, and had

190

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

increased as years rolled on, she wQuld have rivalled Ni-
non. But she did not start that way.

" To Zermina^s astonishment and delight, Jobba called
that night, and to her greater delight he proposed to marry
her. As she had been waiting and waiting and waiting
for twenty-six years for somebody to propose to her, she
lost no tinie in accepting this, her first. She did attempt
a little maidenlv reserve, but she saw it was wasted on
him, and she fell into his arms an over-ripe peach.

" Poor woman ! little did she know the fate in store for
her! Little did she dream the use this cruel man in-
tended to put her to.

« They were wedded in the morning' of a crispy Jan-
uary day, and took the train to Koamud for their bridal
tour. Jobba deliberately chose the front seats and enteij^d
into conversation with an intelligent brakeman.

" ' Many accidents on this road ? ' asked he.

" * None, sir,' was the reply. * The rolling stock is A 1,
and there is the greatest care exercised by the employees.'>

" The countenance of Jobba fell.

" ' But we a.re coming to a road,' continued the man,
'where they have enough of them. On the Jerusalem
and Joppa they have had' five in a year.*

"Jobba brightened up. They were rapidly apprdach-
ing the Jerusalem and Joppa^ and to the surprise of Zer-
mina he announced to her a change in his route. When
they came to Jerusalem and Joppa they would take that
road and go to Jericho and see the Falls near that place.

" It was so done, but, strange to say, there was no acci-

the

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

191

dent. The road was fearfully roughjandasthe cars bounded
over the humped and terrible track the face of the sordid
Jobba lighted up with anticipation, and as they struck the
slight and worn rail and went on in safety, he would re-
lapse into gloom.

" They went the whole length of the Jerusalem and
Joppa line, and then Jobba announced to his astonished
wife that they would go back over it. He had lived with
her a few days, and felt thai an accident was now a neces-
sity to him.

" ' Why not take another route back, dearest ? ' asked
she, with her most ghastly simper.

" ' Why, because— but never mind. We go back over
the Jerusalem and Joppa. Ha ! ha ! '

" And they did, but there was no accident ^k> speak of
The train got off the track twice, and they run over a
team or two at crossings, but none of the passengers were
injured.

" Then commenced a series of the wildest pilgrimages
ever known or dreamed of Jobba was a determined man.
He immediately sent Zermina off to see her aunt, and
selected the worst routes he could figure from the guide-
books. She came back scrawnier than ever, but un-
harmed. Then he mortgaged his farm and put- money in
his purse, and started with h©r himself He went to In-
dia with her over the Ural Mountains ; he tried aU the
new roads that had never been ballasted, and particularly
those which, permitted drunken employees; he travelled
over all the land-grant roads ; over all the roads in the

1.92

MORALS OP ABOU BEN ADEEM.

mountainous districts of Persia ; he lived on the Ispa-
han road three weeks ; he went South on the strap rail-
roads ; he becpme a^ familiar to conductors and brakemen
as any commercial traveller ; he became known as the
Man with the Wild Eye with the Woman of Supernatu-
ral Ugliness. He was perpetually on the railroads, but
his presence was a safeguard to a train. No accident that
amounted to anything ever happened to any train he was
on. He expended all his money in travelling, and then
he converted a little estate that Zermina had, and com-
menced on that. .^

" But it all availed nothing. He could not find an ac-
cident. They would happen on trains before him, and on
trains behind him, but never to him. He became the,
Wandering Jew of Railroads.

" At last his means were all exhausted ; he could pay
no more fare, and he found himself penniless and with
Zermina on his hands. .

" ' Woman,' he said to her fiercely, * you have been ray
ruin ! you have been the ignis fatuus that has led me to
destruction ! T shall leave you to-night ; you will never
see me more ! '

" * What have I done, dearest ? * said she, bursting into
tears. '

" * What have you done ? You have not been mangled ;
you have not been crushed ; no stoves have fallen on you;
you have not had sleeping-cars fall on you— in short, you
live ! You have disappointed me. I can collect no dama-
ges for you ! *

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

193

" And he snatched a watch from her girdle, and rushed
out into the night. The next morning he pawned the
watch, and rushing to the station, demanded a ticket.

"'Where to?' asked the gentlemanly and urbane
agent.

"'Anywhere!' he exclaimed, fiercely, throwing down
a handfuJi of coin.

" The agent gave him a ticket to the end of the road.

" He took his seat, and glared fiercely at the passen-
gers. .

" The train moved on. It wao speeding merrily at a
rate of forty miles an hour. As the train shot past vil-
lages, hummed through fields, and rumbled over bridges,
no one supposed that death was ahead of them. Jobba
Sci by himself There was gloom on his countenance and
rage in his heart. He had lived for an accident, and had
met none. Zermina was alive, and —

"There was a crash. The engine was too heavy for a
rotten bridge that the superintendent had really intended
to have had repaired the year before, and the train went
into a ravine two hundred feet deep. The dShria was re-
moved, and under two stoves and a cattle-car were found
the mangled remains of Jobba. He was very dead — he
had found his accident at last.

" How inscrutable are the ' way ^ of Providence ! how
mysterious are the mandates of Fate ! ., Zermina sued the
company for the death of her husband, promptly, and
actually recovered forty thousand dirhems. On the
strength of the verdict, one of the jurymen, who had a

194

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

good farm, mariied her. The company nerer paid the
verdict ; but the husband was a weak man and Zermina
was happy.

" Thus the evil intents of wicked men are made to work
good. Thus was the instrument designed by She absurdly
wicked Jobba to make a fortune out of an innocent though
ugly woman, made to furnish that woman a weak husband
and a home for life. Thus was a wicked engineer hoisted
with his own petard, and the old lesson, that honesty is
the best policy, once more enforced.

" How rejoiced is the teller of this tale that he is honest
and virtuous ! "

" Were there so many railroads in Persia when you left
that country as you have enumerated in the story ? " I
asked the Sage.

" Is there a moral to the tale ? " was his reply.

" There is," I answered. " Virtue triumphs, as it should
in a tale, and vice is ignominiously defeated."

" Then be content without prying into partidulars too
closely. Be content if the story has a moral and is good.
Suppose I had used stage-coaches or camels, instead of
railroads, to illustrate my point ! Go to ! "

And the Sage declined to vouchsafe further answer to
my query.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

195

XXIV.

TWO OBITUARIES.

A PROMINENT citizen of our viUage died one day,
and I read to Abou ben Adhem the glowing
obituary in the village paper which followed his demise.

" If there is a hereafter," said I, " and if the spirits of
the departed get hold of the newspapers, how pleased they
must be to know the estimation in which they were held
by their fellows ! "

"Possibly, and possibly not," replied Abou. "The
spirits unfortunately know just how much truth there is
in the published obituaries, and how much of them is
false, — that is; if the spirits have that increase of means
of knowing that is popularlj^ supposed to be given them
in lieu of the clay that they abandon when they go hence.
That knowledge, I should suppose, would lessen the value
of these post-mortem endorsements. I have in my desk
an obituary of an acquaintance of mine, published in the
Koamud 'Observer,' which I will read, and then an
obituary of the same person written by his confidential
clerk, who knew him, which illustrates my point. Listen.
This is from the ' Observer ' : —

196 JRALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

*'*DEATH^dF MUSTAPHA, — A GOOD MAN GONE.

*' * Koamud sustained yesterday the severest loss that
has ever hefailen it. At 4 o'clock, p.m., the immortal part
of Mustapha, the general dealer, left its tenement of clay,
and winged its way to the side of the Prophet. The dis-
ease of which our late lamented townsman died is yet in
doubt. The medical profession are divided in opinion :
one eminent practitioner is firm in the belief that it was
pneumonia ; another, acute inflammation of the bowels.
But it recks little what he died of : he is dead, alas ! and
Koamud is in mourning.

" * Mustapha was a native of Poska, bom of poor but
honest parents. The opportunities in Poska for a poor
but honest man being limited, ho cam e to Koamud thirty
years ago, determined to win his wey by his own honest
efforts. That he might hew his owq way to distinction
without putting himself under obligation to any one, he
rejected the offers of assistance, which, as he often re-
marked, his honest, manly face extorted from the citizens
of Koamud, and, nothing better offering, took a contract
to cut two hundred cords of wood for the late Doobla
Fesch, who at the time operated an ashery in connection
with his general store. We have heard Mustapha narrate
this incident a thousand times. How his eyes would
sparkle as he narrated the incident and expressed the
pleasure the possession of the first money he had ever
darned gave him ! " I had found the road to fortune." he
said. " It was to earn money and live within my earn-
mgs.

MORALS OV APOU BEN ADHEM.

197

" ' Hi course was after this comparatively eaay. Doo-
bla Fesch admired him so much that he took him first as
a clerk in his store, then as a partner, and at his death, fif-
teen years ago, Mustapha succeeded to the entire business,
which he so energetically pursued as to leave at his death
an estate of not less than a million of dirhems.

" * Mustapha was a public-spirited, kind, generous man.
T!:e beautiful pump in the public square was his gift ; it
wa*i he who paid off^ the debt of the mosque in which he
worshipped ; and there are scores of widows and orphans
in Koamud wha will lament his death. His modesty was
as great as hi« charity. When he made his gifts he insisted
upon not being known in connection with them, but his
noble clerks admired their principal too much to keep his
good deeds shaded by the clc \k of modesty he would have
kept over them.

" * He was an eminently just man. Careful always to
get what was his due, he was just as careful that others
should receive their dues. He was a liberal, high-toned,
public-spirited gentleman, — one who had no vices, and
whose life was so blameless as to make it an example to
all about him. As we said, his estate will foot up over
one million of dirhems. Peace to his ashes ! '

" This is from the Koamud * Observer,* and it does not
vary much from the average obituaries in the papers on
this side of the water. But there was another account of
the man written which was never published. It was put
upon paper by Mustapha's confidential clerk, in the form
of a letter to me. 1 will read it to you that you may see
the difference : —

tfW

MORALH OF ABOU BKN ADHEM.

"'Old Miistapha's dead, and I'm glad of it! A more
solemn humbug, a more cheeky quack, was never bom, or
if bom, never survived infancy.

" * I have known him, man and boy, for thirty years ;
indeed, I was Doobla Fesch's clerk at the time Mustapha
cut cord-wood for him, which, by the way, was the only
honest work he ever performed. He got about Doobla by
cutting a cord or two more than the contract called for, so
that when the wood was measured he could say, " I was
anxious to have enough, sir." On the strength of that he
got into Doobla's store^ and then his opportunity came.
He stole enough from the old man in five years to get a
partnership. The old man got into a habit of drinking
the strong waters of the Franks too regularly, which habit
Mustapha carefully encouraged, and finally he swindled
him out of the other half, and had the whole.

" * He run the business then, he did. He bought dam-
aged goods and sold * em for first-chop, and there wasn't a
trick in the trade that he wasn't up to. He didn't sand
his sugar, for that would have been found out, but the
pailsful of water he poured into the barrels of strong wa-
ters was something sublime, I caught him at it once,
and the old villain had the impudence to tell me he did
it in the interest of temperance. " In(^ulgence in strong
drink," he said, "is not only against the law of the Pro-
phet, but it is bad in every way, and if we can so arrange
it as to make * em drink less liquor and more water, we've
really served the Prophet. But you needn't mention it

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

199

tt) any of our customers, and, Hafiz, bring another Vmcket
of water."

" * He had a trick of mixing good tea and poor, and
when a woman who thought she know what tea was,
came in, he'd show her some of the best, and say, " Wo-
man, there is a pure Young Hyson at ten kopecks a
pound, but here is an article which was sold to me for
second-grade which really seems to me to be just as good.
I am satisfied it was a mistake in the tec-dealer, and I
could sell it for what I believe it to be — first-chop. But
I will not take advantage of his error. I sell it for ex-
actly what I bought it — second-grade."

" ' And the woman would take the stuff at nine kopecks,
and think she had a bargain.

" * He was an acute old gentleman, was Mustapha. He
lent Rosten, the goat-skin dresser, one hundred dirhems,
and took a mortgage on his house foi; the amount. Then
he made Rosten's family buy all their goods of him^ and
that was added to the mortgage with interest for a year
or two. Interest is about the most hungry animal I know
of. Well, Rosten couldn't pay, and Mustapha took his
house, and Rosten, being old, went into his service at
nothing per month btlt what he could eat, and the family
got scattered.

" ' The people talked about this so much that Mustapha
rushed to Ispahan, and bought a pump for the grand
square. It was a naked woman, pouring water out of a
pitcher. He set it up at his own expense, and presented
it to the people in a letter, in which he said he only lived

200

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

for the sake of the village in which he had made his for-
tune. It was dedicated one day with music and speeches
and fire-works. From that time on, when any carper
would connect Mustapha's name with Kosten's, he was
immediately and efiectually put down with the remark,
'' Mustapha a bad man ! Look at that pump ! "

" * By the way, he wrote a long account of the gift and
its importance to the town, and made me copy it and take
it to the editor of the " Observer " as my own matter,
and made me say that the giver was too modest to let it
be known to any extent, but that I loved him so that I
would not consent that the good deed should remain a
secret. Oh, he knew how to do it !

"'Kosten died, and the memory of the swindle :vith
him, but the pump remains and squirts — which shows that
stone and iron are more lasting in this world than memory.
Possibly Mustapha has gone to a world where the memory
of his transactions stands longer than the granite he left
behind him. I hope so.

" ' Mustapha's great point w^s never to depart from his
system of doing things. His reputation for honesty was
the very apple of his eye, and he worked it always. He
had a trick of running out of his shop to correct mis-
takes, which amused me till it got to be too common to be
funny. For instance, an old woman would be buying of
me, and I would figure up the amount all right, and make
her change all right, and she would load up and start.
Just as she was putting her packages on her cutsa, Mus-

MOBALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

201

tapha would look at the bill I had made, and rush out
into the street.

tt t u rp^jj thousand pardons ! " he would exclaim, " there
is a mistake here. Here are eight kopecks your due.
Hafiz charged you a kopeck a yard too much for that cot-
ton. It went down yesterday, and I have been too busy
to mark them down, for which negligence may Allah for-
give me ! It is not Hafiz's fault, O mother ! it is mine. I
always stand the fall in goods."

" ' And the old lady would be pleased, and would teU
all her neighbors that Mustapha was the honestest dealer
in the countrjr.

" * Then he would make an error of the kopecks against
himself and rush out to collect it.

" * " You may think it small and mean, Father Zamor,"
he would say, " in me, to insist on the kopecks — I who
give away thousands a year in good works; but it is busi-
ness. If the mistake had been in my favor I should have
been just as urgent to have it corrected. Accuracy, my
dear sir. and fair, square dealing are the guiding stars of
my existence. Thank you. Hafiz, enter these kopecks,
and change the footings accordingly."

" * And Zamor would go away and say, " Mustapha is
close, but he's safe and square. One knows what he's
about when he deals with old Mus."

" ' He married twenty-five thousand dirhems with his
wife, who was a widow with one child, and he worried
the life out of the widow and drove the child away from
home. But he put up a splendid monument to the me-

202

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADflEM.

mory of his " beloved wife," and wept bitter tears over
the obduracy of the girl who would persist in leaving his
protection. But she never got a kopeck of her mother's
money

" * It was funny to see him subscribe ten dirhems to a
charity, and then turn and charge two dirhems each to
W careless customers who run accounts and never exr
amined the bills. Why, I have known him to do it a
hundred times ; and he always took precious good care
that the subscription lists were published. T

** ' In short, Mustapha was a hypocrite, a swindler, and
as dishonest an old villain as ever lived or died. I stayed
with him all these years because I had nothing else to do,
but I am glad he is gone, no matter who succeeds him. It
cannot be any worse.*

" My so>n," said Abou, as he concluded reading the paper
he held, " this statement of the character of Mustapha
was, as I said, by a man who knew him, and you see the
statement made by the newspaper differs from it some-
what. Which is the nearest correct you may judge ; but
this advice please take : So live that when you die your
body-servant will speak good of you. You may trust the
newspapers and the tombstone makers : what you want
is the good opinion of those who are nearer to you, and
who, having no interest, can speak the truth. This is all.
The man that a dead man should be afraid of is the one
w:]tio stands behind the curtain with him. The public only
see him when the curtain is rung up and he is dressed for
his play. Go to !'*

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEBC.

203

XXV.

THE FIDELITY OF ZAMORA.

LAST Monday, early in the morning, a young man
from a neighboring village came to Abou ben
Adhem to know what he should do in a matter that was
wearing his very soul out of hiin.

" State your case, my son, state your case. The physi-
cian doth not diagnose before he sees the patient, except
the advertising mesmerists, who are, to use a phrase of
an'^ient Persia, fiuuds. State your case, and be brief, for
Ufe is short."

The young man did state his case. It appeared that he
loved a young woman, and was to have married her ; but
having lost his property, her father refused his consent
and the affair was broken off.

"Now, / can bear it," said the 3'oung man, "but
Hannah Mariar will die of grief. She loved me, and does
love me, desperately. She wrote verses to me. Here,
listen, I will read them to you." » -

" Pause, rash young man ! " said Abou, with a fiendish
glare in his eyes, as he deliberately cocked his shot-gun.
" Venture so much as the one line,

I it

204 MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

* Like a Bnn at mom is my love/

And you die ! I can endure much, but none of that."

" But how shall I comfort Hannah Mariar, and save
her ? " implored the young man.

" Listen," replied Abou. " Once I was young, and 1
had a Hannah Maria ; only, as it was in Persia, her name
was Zamora. Oh, how I loved that damsel ! By night T
dreamed of her and by day I thought of her. I neglected
my business to dance attendance upon her ; I scaled walls,
on the top of which were spikes, to see her. I did every-
thing that a foolish young man ever did, for her sake.

"And she loved me madly and devotedly. She was
wont to say that if cruel Fate should separate us, if only
for a month, she would fade and die as does the lily in the
heat of the ardent sun ; she would grow pale and wan and
so on, and would gradually descend into the silent tomb.
And she would lay her beautiful head upon my breast,
and repeat a poem she had written for me, the first four
lines whereof were these : —

" * I live — I exist in thee, love !
To me thou art honey and wine.
The voice of the bulbul or dove
Is not sweeter to me, love, than thine.*

" There were thirty more verses, in which I was com-
pared to everything that is grand, graceful, sweet, beauti-
ful, and lovely on earth below and in heaven above.

" Well, one day the Shah wanted troops, and I was en-
rolled — ^what you would call drafted. I was ingreat distress.
/ could endure the separation for a year, but I knew that

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

205

Zamora would die, because she said so, with her head upon
my breast, and her sweet eyes, filled with tears, looking
up into mine. I could not endure the thought.

" I hied me immediately to a famous magicianin Koamud,
— ^this was before I went into the business, — and told him
my troubles.

" He laughed a harsh and discordant laugh.

" ' She will die of grief at your absence, will she ? They
generally do. Young man,' said he, turning fiercely upon
me, ' would you know the future ? '

" * I would,' I replied, ' for it can only reassure me, and
satisfy me of Zamora's truth.'

" * Have you two dollars and a half — that is, I should say,
two dirhems and a half about your person ? '

"♦I have.'

" ' Give them to me, and behold ! Three months hence.'

"I looked upon a screen that was at the farther ex-
tremity of the room. There came upon it, first, some in-
distinct shadows, which grew more and more distinct, till
finally they took permanent shape. What did I see ? It
was Zamora, w/y Zamora, and with his head on her breast
was Zamroud, the bellows-mender, he looking up into her
eyes, and she looking down into his.

" 'Dost love me, Zamora ? * murmured Zamroud. * Dost
love thy slave?*

" * Love thee, Zamroud ? ' answered the girl, her eyes
filling with tears, through which passion shone with
double lustre, ' love thee ? Listen to a poem I wrote this

206

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

morning for thee. It is the simple reflex of my feelings.
Listen:

* I lire— I exist in thee, love I

To me thou art honey and wine.
The voice of thebulbul or dove

Is not sweeter to me, love, than thine.'

" And she went on with the thirty other verses, and
ended by kissing him and swearing eternal fidelity, and
that, should anything separate them, the cold and silent
tomb would claim her a willing victim in six months.

" * Wouldst see more ? ' demanded the magician of me.

" ' I would,' was my reply.

" ' Two dirhems this time. Look ! Six months hence.
Zamroud is gone to the wars/

Again the screen filled with two figures : one was Zamora,
the other Osman, the camel-driver. He lay with his head
upon her breast, his eyes looking up into hers, and hers
looking do' /n into his.

" * Dost love me, Zamora 1 Dost love me ? ' murmured
Osman.

" * Love thee, lord of my life ! love thee ? Listen to a
poem that I wrote this mom, inscribed to thee. I wrote
it down because it is the reflex of my own feelings and
the best expression of my love. Listen, Osman, delight of
my soul ! Listen !

, • I live— I exift in thee, love !

To me thou art honey and wine.
The voice of the bulbul or dove

not sweeter to me, love, than thine.

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

207

" And she held that unfortunate youth in ker arms till
she had poured over him the other thirty verses, and they
parted with sweet kisses, she swearing that if fate should
part them for even six weeks the cold and silent tomb
would claim her a willing victim.

*' ' Wouldst take another handspring into the future,
young man ? ' asked the magician.

" * I would. I will take one more whirl at it,' was my
reply.

" * One dirhem and a half,' promptly replied the magi-
cian.

" I antied, as we say in the East, and the screen was
once more illuminated.

" ' Nine months hence,' said the magician. ' Osman has
been drafted and has gone. Look ! '

" The figures on the screen took shape again. It was
Zamora, as before, but with her, this time, was Hakoa,
the annorer.

" * Dost love me V sighed Hokoa, with his head on her
breast and his eyes looking up into hersi

" • Love thee ? love thee ? Great Allah ! I love thee as
never woman loved man. Thou art my first love ; I
never loved before ! Listen, Hakoa, to a poem I wrote
this morning for thee, which reflects my feelings as the
silver stream reflects the moon. Listen, darling, listen !

* I live — ^I exist in thee, love 1

To me thou art honey and wine.
The voice of the bulbul or dove

Is not sweeter to me, love, than thine.

' Do I love thee ?— '

<. ^

208

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

" I did not stay to hear the other thirty verses, for
they had got to be somewhat monotonous. With a howl
of anguish I rushed from the room, and went away to the
wars somewhat easier in my mind as to what would hap-
pen to Zamora.

" Need I continue this tale ? The magician had shown
me truly. The girl did have all those three on her string
within nine months, and at the beginning of the twelfth
month she married Bugo, the rich shawl-seller, to whom
I hope she is still reciting the thirty-one verses that she
made such good use of.

" And this perfidy to me, who was serving my country
as commissary's clerk !

" Young man, go thy ways in peace. Never mind her.
As extreme piety is in many cases simply aggravated dys-
pepsia, so love is, in many more, tight-lacing, unhealthy
rooms, rich food, and French novels. She will recover in
a week, and her appetite wiU come back to her as good
as new. She will be in love with another man in three
weeks, and you will have passed out of her life as com-
pletely and entirely as though you had never been in it.

" And reverse the case, and the results would be the
same. Go. I am weary."

And the young man departed, and Abou went into his
laboratory and resumed his experiments.

\ •

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHKM.

209

XXVI.

THE AMATEUR DRAMA »N PH(ENIXVILLE.

HAPPENING to mention one morning to Abouben
Adhem that the young gentlemen and ladies of
the village were organizing a Dramatic Association, and
speaking in commendatory terms of the project, the sage
remarked that it ^yould dissolve in less than a week.

*' Why VI asked. " There is dramatic talent among
our people. Give it opportunity, room for development,
and who knows what may happen ? "

" That's the trouble," replied Abou. " There's too much
talent. Listen to the history of a Dramatic Association
which I knew of in Maine."

** Were you e^i/et in Maine ? " I asked, with an expression
of surprise.

" My son, I have been in many places. But listen.

" There was a Thespian Society in Phoenixvillc which
was organized by a number of youths who felt within
them the burning of the flame of genius in a histrionic
way. Each one, from Simeon Tippetts, the barber's young
man, up to Adolphus Pettibone, the son of the village
lawyer, felt that he had within him genius that only

210

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHSk.

needed an opportunity to show itself, to entireljr eclipse
the triumphs of the greatest of the world's stage-heroes.

" A travelling theatre had given a series of * Theatrical
Representations' in the hall of the village. Mr. Herbert
de Lancy, ' of the New York Theatres,* and Miss Virginie
^delina de Montagu, 'of the principal theatres of £ngland,'
had filled the rdlea of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Romeo
and Juliet, and Hamlet and Ophelia, to the intense admir-
ation of the villagers, such as attended. It is true, the
company reaped nothing but glory in Phcenixville ; for to
get out of the village they were compelled to pawn a por-
tion of their wardrobe and scenery, and (for the credit of
free America, I dislike to say it) Herbert de Lancy, the
Macbeth of the previous evening, was compelled to walk,
absolutely walk, through the mud to the next town for the
want of the paltry two dollars and a half, which would
have paid his fare on the railroad. He did it cheerfully,
for, as he gayly remarked, he was not encumbered with
baggage. His trunk was a bandanna handkerchief

" * What of it ? ' said he. ' 'Twas ever thus. Homer
begged his bread from city to city. The wor-r-ld will yet
acknowledge Herbert de Lancy, and Phcenixville will yet
blush.'

"The performances, or rather 'classic renditions,' of
this troupe set the young people of Phcenixville in a fever
of histrionic ercitement. With the pawned scenery of
the Herbert de Lancy company as a basis, twelve young
men, with four ladies, organized the E*orest and Macready
Thespian Society, — of which Adolphus Pettibone was

j.iORALS OF ABOn BEN ADEEM.

211

made President, and Simeon Tippetts, the barber's man,
Secretary and Treasurer, — and determined to go at once
into rehearspJ for the purpose of affording Phoenixville
rational amusement and themselves improvement in dra-
matic literature, each ' geritleman member ' contributing
two dollars as an entrance-fee.

" Adolphus Pettibone was a short, puffy youth, of nine-
teen, four feet nine in height, with bowed legs, and weigh-
ing perhaps one hundred and ninety pounds. Simeon
Tippetts was a young man of perhaps the same age, an
inch or two more in height, not much thicker than a can-
dle, and with knock-knees. There were ten other young
men of various styles. Of the young ladies, the eldest
was Miss Aurelia Mason, the village milliner, who con-
fessed to twenty-seven cold winters.

" Miss Aurelia was popularly supposed to have a great
deal of genius in her, based upon the fact that she had
rend and could quote the most of Tupper's ' Proverbial
Philosophy,' and Adolphus Pettibone and Simeon Tippetts
also believed that they had been endowed with the divine
spark.

" The Society met the night after the organization to
decide upon the play they should produce on the opening
night.

" There was but little trouble in this, for the Herbert de
Lancy combination had played Macbeth on their last
night, and the glories of Macbeth were still in their minds.
Adolphus Pettibone preferred Hamlet, but he was not

212

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADBiOI.

particular. Macbeth waa accordingly ^elected an their
first play.

** The next business in order was to cant the play, that
is to say, distribute the parts among the members.

" Simeon Tippetts rose at this point to make a few re-
nmrks. What he wanted was no jealousy. There were
different degrees of talent ; the members couldn't all play
the best parts, and in the minor parts every one should
take the part assigned him or her, without murmuring or
hesitation.

" ' Of course,' said Simeon, * I shall play Macbeth.'

" Immediately the other eleven rose to their feet, and
exclaimed, * You play Macbeth ! Ha ! ha ! A tallow
candle in Macbeth ! Ha! ha!'

"*You mean you will play second murderer,' said
Adolphus Pettibone. ' J shall play Macbeth.'

" * Fow play Macbeth ! ' shouted the other eleven. ' Ha!
ha ! you Macbeth ! With your shape ! Nonsense I '

" And remarks were made likening him to a tub, to a
Berkshire pig, and to other objects, animate and inanimate,
that were thick and heavy. These allusions to Adolphus'
figure aroused his ire, and he retorted by alluding to
Simeon as a candle half-dipped, as a lightning-rod, a
billiard-cue, and other thin things.

" ' Well,* said Miss Aurelia Mason, ' 1 hope you will
decide quickly as to who shall play Macbeth, for it will be
necessary to read with him, if I play Lady Macbeth.'

"Immediately the three other lady members of the

M0RAL8 OF AfiOU BEN AOUKM.

219

Forest- Macready Thespian Society sprang to their feet,
with the remark in chorus, —

" * You play Lady Macbeth ! You play Lady Macbeth !
Ha! ha! ha! te-he!'

" And they made remarks touching her, the point to
every one of them being that no matter who should lie
selected to sustain that character, she should not be the
party.

** One bright young man, Seth Bagshot, took in tLe
situation and thought he saw a way out of it.

" ' There is,' said Bagshot, ' but one principal male
character, and but one principal female character. We
men of the Society cannot all play Macbeth, nor can all the
ladies play Lady Macbeth. Let the matter be decided by
ballot. Let the twelve gentlemen vote their preferences
for Macbeth, and the ladies for Lady Macbeth, and let
that vote be final'

*' This suggestion was adopted, and the vote was taken.
Alas for poor humanity ! Every one of the twelve men
received justone vote for Macbeth, and the handwriting on
the ballots betrayed the awkward fact that every individual
man had voted for his individual self. And when the
ladies' ballots were counted out, it was found that each
lady had voted for herself for Lady Macbeth!

" The trouble with the Society was, there was too much
talent in it. Adolphus Pettibone resigned indignantly,
then Aurelia Mason did likewise, and before the words
Jack Robinson could be pronounced, fifteen of the sixteen
had resigned. Simeon Tippetts was about ta resign when

214

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

he fortunately remembered that he was treasurer as well as
secretary, and that he had in his possession twenty-
two dollars of their money.

" * Give me my two dollars,* quoth Adolphus.

" ' I have no authority to pay out the Society's money
except upon bills that have been properly audited/ quoth
Simeon.

" 'Give me my two dollars I * yelled the distressed eleven
in chorus.

"'Gentlemen/ said Simeon, *I am the treasurer of the
Forest-Macready Thespian Society, and will pay money,
on the order of the officers, to any one having bills against
the Society ? Have you bills against the Society ? No ?
Then why this demand for two dollars ? Go to ! '

" * I will sign an order for my two dollars, as president
of the Society,' quoth Adolphus Pettibone.

" ' You sign an order ! You president ! Why, you re-
signed and are not even a member of the Society. I am
the only hiember of the Society. I haven't resigned, nor
do I intend to. I propose to keep alive the love of the
drama in Phcenixville. Go to ! '

" And Simeon went out with the money in his pocket,
and there is a legend in Phcenixville of a wild orgje that
he held, in which all the wild young men of that village
participated, except the eleven, and that the next day,
while the fumes of the liquor he had drank were still in
his brain, he was asking every one to join the Forest-
Macready Thespian Society, and vowing that he was go-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

215

ing into the business of organizing Thespian Societies, as
the best thing he could do.

" The Society was never reorganized, and Phcenixville
never was delighted with its home talent.

" Adolphus Pettibone subsided into law, Simeon Tip-
petts still shaves, and Aurelia Mason still makes and trims
bonnets ; but all of them firmly believe that if they had
had half a chance, there^would be new star8 now shining
in the theatrical firmament, and they all are sorry for the
world.

" What happened in Phcenixville will happen here.
Armies of generals are very popular, and could be easily
raised by volunteering, but it takes drafts to fill in the
private soldiers.

" There are enough who wiU gladly play Macbeth gra-
tuitously, but it takes necessity to get in the people to
play the parts that have no glory in them.

" There is a great moral in this, but you must find it
yourself. I am too weary to point it out to you. Gk> ! I
would be alone."

I thought I saw the moral, so 1 did not press him to
dwell upon it.

\- :

■^.m

•

- ■,

216

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

•

. XXVII.

THE STRUGGLE OF KODOSH.

" /^'^ AN there be any combination of circumstances

V«^ that would justify a man in selling his soul to
the Evil One ? " asked a hoary-headed citizen of Abou ben
Adhem.

" My venerable friend, the short story of Kodosh of
Koiimud will answer your query. But let me preface my
narrative with an expression of opinion. I never believed
that the Evil One ever bought any souls, that is, by mak-
ing specific contracts for them and promising specific
things for them. Unless his dominions are more roomy
than I suppose them to be, he gets more people than he
can accommodate, who come to him of their own accord. ,
But this is merely an opinion. He* may have more room
than I have any idea of, and men may dodge him, finally,
better than I think.

" But this is the story of Kodosh of Koamud.

" Kodosh was a worker of burgoos, and was utterly and
entirely worthless. He would work only when he could
get nothing to eat in any other way, and as for his family ^
be chesm ! he paid no more attention to them than as if

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

they were not. Lusta, the wife of his bosom, supported
the six ragged children that had been born to them, by
washing for other families, and to get bread for them she
never had the time on her hands to do her own. Conse-
quently, dirt, rags, vermin, and disease abounded in the
hut of Kodosh perpetually. The master of this house
spent his whole time in jpublic places, where the dissolute
meet to squander their time in idle conversation — ^the
time which Allah gives us for the improvement of our-
selves and those about us. He knew all the places, which
in Persia are kncvn as ' dives,' where the strong waters of
the Franks are dealt out and where the intoxicating opium
is smoked.

" And that was not all of it : he had a habit of coming
home full of strong waters, which craze men, and then he
made things very uncomfortable for Lusta his wife, and
the little furniture in the house. He thought nothing of
breaking a stool over her head, which was followed in-
variably by smashing all the crockery. As this happened
almost every day, life was not a rose-tinted dream to the
poor Lusta and her children. In fact, one of the children
was kept constantly on the look-out, and when he would
yell, * Dad's a comin' ! ' (Dad is Persian for father), they
would all scatter and hide till after he fell into a slumber.
He was less disagreeable when asleep than at any other
time, for then only his breath was oflfensive.

"One day Kodosh awoke from a drunken slumber in
great distress, and he called vociferously for Lusta. She
came and found him blue with terror, and his teeth chat-

218

MORALS OF ABOU BBN ADHEM.

tering like the castanets of the dancing girls who amuse
the Shah when he is weary.

"'What's the matter with you, you beast?' asked
Lusta. * Has Allah at last taken pity on me by smiting
you with an incurable disease ? Or have you done me
the only good possible by taking poison ? Don't crush
my rising hopes by saying that you propose to live/

" * Neither, my dear, neither,' was Eodosh's reply ; *but
I am in sore trouble.'

" * I have been thus, son of the Evil One ! for twenty
years, that being the exact time I have been thy wife.'

" * But I am in dire trouble. Listen, O wife of my
bosom ! While I slept, after my — ^labor — the Evil One
came to me in person ; he had his tail on, his hoofs, and
likewise his horns, and—'

" * Miserable Satan that he is ! Why did he not whisk
thee off with him ? ' ejaculated Lusta.

"'Listen,' said Kodosh. 'The Evil One wanted me.
He offered me a]l that T could eat of the best, and drink
of the best, and wear of the best for twenty years, and all
the wealth I wanted and all that you could desire, if at
the end of that period I would become his, soul and body.'

" * And w;hat answer did you give him ? ' asked Lusta^
anxiously.

" ' I did not give him a defimte answer. I said I would
ask you and be guided by you, at which he smiled a sar-
donic smile, and saying that that would answer, disap-
peared. Now Lusta> love, what shall I do ? '

" * Do ! ' replied Lusta, ' do I idiot ! there was but one

thing
Oh, sue
chance,!
son of
Twent]
for thy|
mush-1
rolled
taneous
already
consults
with hi
an offer
swindlii
you. Ti]
dirhems
becile!
bitterly
'*0f<
Kodosh
mens.

"But
questio]
"Ifa
offer w<
souls, a]
soon gc
own pr
lose no

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEH.

219

thing to do. Why did you not close with him at once ?
Oh, sudden opportunity, possibly lost forever ! Oh, blessed
chance, possibly no chance at all ! How do you know,
son of a she-ass, that he will ever come to thee again ?
Twenty years of good food, clothing, and plenty of money,
for thy worthless body and still more worthless soul ! O
mush-brained imbecile ! long before twenty years have
rolled around thy body will have been destroyed by spon-
taneous combustion^ and as for thy soul, that is the Devil's
already. He has a first mortgage on it now. Had he
consulted his bookkeeper and discovered how you stood
with him, he never would have made you so preposterous
an offer. Oh, why didn't you close with him ? He was
swindling himself out of whatever he proposed to give
you. You could well afford to close with him for ten
dirhems, for one dirhem, for anything. idiot ! im-
becile ! This is too much — ^too much ! ' and she 'wept
bitterly.

** Of course the Devil never came to make the trade, for
Kodosh only saw him in an incipient fit of delirvu/m tre-
'mens.

" But Lusta's answer furnishes a proper answer to your
question. '^^ ^ .

" If a Devil were to come into the world to-day, and
offer wealth and honors and things of that nature for
souls, and should take souls as they run, he would very
soon go into bankruptcy ; for he would be paying for his
own property. Most people approached by him should
lose no time in closing the trade. Then what a terrible

220

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

per cent, is there whose souls are too small to be worth
the offers the Devil is credited with making !

" To me the caae is clear. If the Devil ever comes to
you with an offer of anything in particular, accept it at
once. B)' the time you have got rich, served two terms
in the Legislature, gone through two elections for Senator
and tried to go to Congress, you may be tolerably sure
that the Devil will get you in the end, and if you can get
any price for yourself now, make no mistake, but take it.

" You are answered, let me resi"

And the Sage went in? and laid down with what ne
said was the Koran.

»> t *ft4

0Mi<>:.re'^*^^^-

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADEEM.

221

^XX ei ■.ii'Hii,,i,4a. Mj:

:■ (

XXVIII. ^

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SAGE.

IMPORTANT business kept the editor of these pages
from visiting his " philosopher, friend, and guide " for
two days after the interview last recorded. Very early
the third morning did I turn my steps towards his dwell-
ing, hoping to hear more from his Ups of that wisdom
which for a year had been to me sweeter than the honey-
comb and more strengthening than the flesh of kids.

To my sorrow he was not in his house. There was no
smoke ascending from his chimney, the doors of the house
were locked, and the place had a desolate, abandoned look
which appalled me.

" Where are you, my friend ? " I cried ; but the only
answer was the echo which mocked me.

While going about the dwelling to find some way of
effecting an entrance, a carriage approached, from which
four men alighted.

They were singular appearing men, of a style that I had
never seen before. i ■ • .X' : • ' ' ^

" Are you Abou ben Adhem ? " demanded one, seizing
me by the collar,

' II

222

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

"Bah I" said another, " let him go. That idiot is not
the man we are after."

I stood as a man distraught. I did not like the rough
handling ; the application to me of the word " idiot" hurt
me more ; but the fact that my friend was not only gone,
but that he was sought for by such men, pained me more
than all. ^

"Indeed," I replied, "I am not Abou ben Adhem.
Would that I were that great and good man ! Can you
tell me, gertle sirs, where I can find him V*

** That is what we would give something handsome to
know ourselves," replied the first ispeaker. "The cuss got
wind of our coming for him, and has cut his lucky. But
we will find what he has left behind."

And without any ceremony he broke down the front door

of the house, and going through the sitting-room to the door

of the sacred laboratory, he applied his sacrilegious foot to

. that, and entered with as little ceremony as I would use

in entering the bar-room of the Eagle Hotel.

I was shocked at the way in which they ransacked
that room. The stufied alligator was thrown down and
kicked to pieces ; the owl was treated in the same mani^ier ;
and the skulls and thigh-bones with which the room was
garnished were kicked about as though they were foot
balls.

But when they came to the furnace they became in-
tensely interested. They threw down the back arch, and
under it, in a cunningly-constructed receptacle, they found
many sets of dies, which I regi*et to say were of the coin

MORALS OF ABOU BEN ADHEM.

223

of the country, and none of them above the denomina-
tion of five cents. ^

Taking these things with them they went away, leav-
ing me alone. #

I opened Abou's desk and found everything in it in
confusion, as though the occupant had decamped in great
haste, and had not had time to arrange his matters pro-
perly. From papers left behind him, mostly letters, I dis-
covered how grievously I had been imposed upon.

It was not Abou ben Adhem who had occupied this
i ^^J^)^»«e and this room, nor a Persian sage, nor a Persian ait
idl. The real name of the imposter was Zephaniah Simd-
^r, and he was a native of the State of Maine. There
in his desk I found a wig of long white hair, and a false
beard of the same material, and ^on the floor were his
robe of black, his leathern belt^ and his slippers. I read
letters that revealed the history of the man.

.AU that a cursory perusal of a few letters a year be-
fore (which I mentioned in the preface to this volume)

,ul:ated, these letters confirmed. He had been every-

ing by turns (except an honest man), and nothing long.
He had^ taught dancing, singing, writing ; he had been a
horse tamer, a veterinary surgeon, a dentist, a showman,
a politician, an editor in a small way ; he had preached,
practised medicine, speculated in lands, and in everything
else ; he had married wives in a dozen places ; in short,
he had done everything that was disreputable or semi-dis-
reputable, and had finally embarked in counterfeiting the
smallest coin, bpit two, that our Gk»vemment makes.

m''

224

MORALS OF ABOTT BEN ADHEM.

One note hurriedly written on wrapping-paper ac-
counted for his hasty departure. It read thus: —

" Get out qu;ck. The cops will be on to you to-morrer."

4^8 accomplices (for of course he had confederates) were
never discovered, and he vas never seen in the place
again.

I was deceived in him, but I do not feel that his re-
sidence here was altogether without use to me. True, I
would like to get back the five hundred dtllars I, lent him,
and I would be better pleased if I had not iwusiMJ^^^^^^^
thousand dollars to him to invest in railroad stocks ^Xi^iil^^'
I have learned that the certificates he gave me were ^"^^
geries ; but^ after all, I benefited by him and do not conNl^
plain. Wisdom is better than money, and wisdom I rcr
<5eived of him without stint. I am, however, sorry for
thtse who lent him money without getting ipvisdom ; their
experience must be their compensation.

" He has gone from my gaze like a beputiful dt^9lB£*
I have his wig, his beard, his robe, his b^^t^l^ hift umi
I am not wholly bereft. • :f^

ijjfVi--"'-

The TEditor.

January, 1876.

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