back to the Table of Contents
+1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
"El-'ilmu 'ilman: 'ilmu'l-adyan, wa 'ilmu'l-abdan."
"Science is twofold: Theology, and Medicine."
I have so often been asked how I first came to occupy
myself with the study of Eastern languages that I have
decided to devote the opening chapter of this book to answering
this question, and to describing as succinctly as possible the process
by which, not without difficulty and occasional discouragement,
I succeeded, ere ever I set foot in Persia, in obtaining a
sufficient mastery over the Persian tongue to enable me to employ
it with some facility as an instrument of conversation, and to
explore with pleasure and profit the enchanted realms of its vast
and varied literature. I have not arrived at this decision without
some hesitation and misgiving, for I do not wish to obtrude
myself unnecessarily on the attention of my readers, and one can
hardly be autobiographical without running the risk of being
egotistical. But then the same thing applies with equal force to
all descriptions intended for publication of any part of one's
personal experiences--such, for instance, as one's own travels.
Believing that the observations, impressions, and experiences of
my twelve months' sojourn in Persia during the years 1887-8
may be of interest to others besides myself, I have at length
determined to publish them. It is too late now to turn squeamish
about the use of the pronoun of the first person. I will be as
sparing of its use as I can, but use it I must.
I might, indeed, have given to this book the form of a systematic
treatise on Persia, a plan which for some time I did actually
+2
entertain; but against this plan three reasons finally decided me.
Firstly, that my publishers expressed a preference for the narrative
form, which, they believed, would render the book more readable.
Secondly, that for the more ambitious project of writing a
systematic treatise I did not feel myself prepared and could not
prepare myself without the expenditure of time only to be
obtained by the sacrifice of other work which seemed to me of
greater importance. Thirdly, that the recent publication of the
Hon. G. N. Curzon's encyclopaedic work on Persia will for some
time to come prevent any similar attempt on the part of anyone
else who is not either remarkably rash or exceedingly well-
informed. Moreover, the question "What first made you take
up Persian?" when addressed to an Englishman who is neither
engaged in, nor destined for, an Eastern career deserves an answer.
In France, Germany, or Russia such a question would hardly be
asked; but in England a knowledge of Eastern languages is no
stepping-stone to diplomatic employment in Eastern countries;
and though there exist in the Universities and the British Museum
posts more desirable than this to the student of Oriental languages,
such posts are few, and, when vacant, hotly competed for. In
spite of every discouragement, there are, I rejoice to say, almost
every year a few young Englishmen who, actuated solely by
love of knowledge and desire to extend the frontiers of science
in a domain which still contains vast tracts of unexplored
country, devote themselves to this study. To them too often
have I had to repeat the words of warning given to me by my
honoured friend and teacher, the late Dr William Wright, an
Arabic scholar whom not Cambridge or England only, but
Europe, mourns with heart-felt sorrow and remembers with
legitimate pride. It was in the year 1884, so far as I remember;
I was leaving Cambridge with mingled feelings of sorrow and of
hope: sorrow, because I was to bid farewell (for ever, as I then
expected) to the University and the College to which I owe a
debt of gratitude beyond the power of words to describe; hope,
+3
because the honours I had just gained in the Indian Languages
Tripos made me sanguine of obtaining some employment which
would enable me to pursue with advantage and success a study
to which I was devotedly attached, and which even medicine
(for which I was then destined), with all its charms and far-
reaching interests, could not rival in my affections. This hope,
in answer to an enquiry as to what I intended to do on leaving
Cambridge, I one day confided to Dr Wright. No one, as I well
knew, could better sympathise-with it or gauge its chances of
fulfilment, and from no one could I look for kinder, wiser, and
more prudent counsel. And this was the advice he gave me--
said he, you have private means which render you independent
of a profession, then pursue your Oriental studies, and
fear not that they will disappoint you, or fail to return you a rich
reward of happiness and honour. But if you cannot afford to do
this, and are obliged to consider how you may earn a livelihood,
then devote yourself wholly to medicine, and abandon, save as
a relaxation for your leisure moments, the pursuit of Oriental
letters. The posts for which such knowledge will fit you are few,
and, for the most part, poorly endowed, neither can you hope to
obtain them till you have worked and waited for many years
And from the Government you must look for nothing, for it has
long shown, and still continues to show, an increasing indisposition
to offer the slightest encouragement to the study of Eastern
languages."
A rare piece of good fortune has in my case falsified a
prediction of which Dr Wright himself, though I knew it not till
long afterwards, did all in his power to avert the accomplishment;
but in general it still holds true, and I write these words
not for myself, but for those young English Orientalists whose
disappointments, struggles, and unfulfilled, though legitimate,
hopes I have so often been compelled to watch with keen but
impotent sorrow and sympathy. Often I reflect with bitterness
that England, though more directly interested in the East than
+4
any other European country save Russia, not only offers less
encouragement to her sons to engage in the study of Oriental
languages than any other great European nation, but can find
no employment even for those few who, notwithstanding every
discouragement, are impelled by their own inclination to this
study, and who, by diligence, zeal, and natural aptitude, attain
proficiency therein. How different is it in France! There, not
to mention the more academic and purely scientific courses of
lectures on Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Zend, Pahlavi, Persian,
Sanskrit, and on Egyptian, Assyrian, and Semitic archaeology
and philology, delivered regularly by savants of European
reputation at the College de France and the Sorbonne (all of which
lectures are freely open to persons of either sex and any nationality),
there is a special school of Oriental languages (now within
a year or two of its centenary) where practical instruction of the
best imaginable kind is given (also gratuitously) by European
professors, assisted in most cases by native repetiteurs, in literary
and colloquial Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Malay, Javanese, Armenian,
Modern Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Annamite, Hindustani, Tamil,
Russian, and Roumanian, as well as in the geography, history,
and jurisprudence of the states of the extreme East. To these
lectures (the best, I repeat, without fear of contradiction,
which can be imagined) any student, French or foreign, is admitted
free of charge. And any student who has followed them diligently
for three years, and passed the periodical examinations to the
satisfaction of his teachers, provided that he be a French subject,
may confidently reckon on receiving sooner or later from the
Government such employment as his tastes, training, and attainments
have fitted him for. The manifold advantages of this admirable
system, alike to the State and the individual, must be obvious
to the most obtuse, and need no demonstration. All honour to
France for the signal services which she has rendered
to the cause of learning! May she long maintain that position of
eminence in science which she has so nobly won, and which she
+5
so deservedly occupies! And to us English, too, may she become
in this respect at least, an exemplar and a pattern!
Now, having unburdened my mind on this matter, I will
recount briefly how I came to devote myself to the study of
Oriental languages. I was originally destined to become an
engineer; and therefore, partly because--at any- rate sixteen
years ago--the teaching of the "modern side" was still in a
most rudimentary state, partly because I most eagerly desired
emancipation from a life entirely uncongenial to me, I left school
at the age of fifteen and a half, with little knowledge and less love
of Latin and Greek. I have since then learned better to appreciate
the value of these languages, and to regret the slenderness of my
classical attainments. Yet the method according to which they
are generally taught in English public schools is so unattractive
and, in my opinion, so inefficient, that had I been subjected to it
much longer I should probably have come to loathe all foreign
languages, and to shudder at the very sight of a grammar. It is
a good thing for the student of a language to study its grammar
when he has learned to read and understand it, just as it is a good
thing for an artist to study the anatomy of the human body when
he has learned to sketch a figure or catch the expression of a face;
but for one to seek to obtain mastery over a language by learning
rules of accidence and syntax is as though he should regard the
dissecting-room as the single and sufficient portal of entrance to
the Academy. How little a knowledge of grammar has to do
with facility in the use of language is shown by the fact that
comparatively few have studied the grammar of that language
over which they have the greatest mastery, while amongst all
the Latin and Greek scholars in this country those who could
make an extempore speech, dash off an impromptu note, or carry
on a sustained conversation in either language, are in a small
minority.
Then, amongst other evil things connected with it, is the
magnificent contempt for all non-English systems of pronunciation
+6
which the ordinary public-school system of teaching Latin
and Greek encourages. Granted that the pronunciation of Greek
is very different in the Athens of to-day from what it was in the
time of Plato or Euripides, and that Cicero would not understand,
or would understand with difficulty, the Latin of the Vatican,
does it follow that both languages should be pronounced
exactly like English, of all spoken tongues the most anomalous
in pronunciation? What should we think of a Chinaman who,
because he was convinced that the pronunciation of English in
the fourteenth century differed widely from that of the nineteenth,
deliberately elected to read Chaucer with the accent and intonation
of Chinese? If Latin and Greek alone were concerned it would
not so much matter, but the influence of this doctrine of
pan-Anglican pronunciation too often extends to French and
German as well. The spirit engendered by it is finely displayed
in these two sayings which I remember to have heard repeated--
"Anyone can understand English if they choose, provided you
talk loud enough." "Always mistrust an Englishman who talks
French like a Frenchman."
Apart from the general failure to invest the books read with
any human, historical, or literary interest, or to treat them as
expressions- of the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of our
fellow-creatures instead of as grammatical tread-mills, there is
another reason why the public-school system of teaching languages
commonly fails to impart much useful knowledge of them. When
any intelligent being who is a free agent wishes to obtain an
efficient knowledge of a foreign language as quickly as possible,
how does he proceed? He begins with an easy text, and first
obtains the general sense of each sentence and the meaning of
each particular word from his teacher. In default of a teacher,
he falls back on the best available substitute, namely, a good
translation and a dictionary. Looking out words in a dictionary
is, however, mere waste of time, if their meaning can be ascertained
in any other way; so that he will use this means only when compelled
+7
to do so. Having ascertained the meaning of each word, he
will note it down either in the margin of the book or
elsewhere, so that he may not have to ask it or look it out again
Then he will read the passage which he has thus studied over
and over again, if possible aloud, so that tongue, ear, and mind
may be simultaneously familiarised with the new instrument of
thought and communication of which he desires to possess himself,
until he perfectly understands the meaning without mentally
translating it into English, and until the foreign words, no
longer strange, evoke in his mind, not their English equivalents
but the ideas which they connote. This is the proper way to
learn a language, and it is opposed at almost every point to the
public-school method, which regards the use of "cribs" as a
deadly sin, and substitutes parsing and construing for reading
and understanding.
Notwithstanding all this, I am well aware that the advocates
of this method have in their armoury another and a more potent
argument. "A boy does not go to school," they say, "to learn
Latin and Greek, but to learn to confront disagreeable duties
with equanimity, and to do what is distasteful to him with
cheerfulness." To this I have nothing to say; it is unanswerable and
final. If boys are sent to school to learn what the word disagreeable
means, and to realise that the most tedious monotony is perfectly
compatible with the most acute misery, and that the most assiduous
labour, if it be not wisely directed, does not necessarily secure
the attainment of the object ostensibly aimed at, then, indeed,
does the public school over the surest means of attaining this end.
The most wretched day of my life, except the day when I left
college, was the day I went to school. During the earlier
portion of my school life I believe that I nearly fathomed the
possibilities of human misery and despair. I learned then (what
I am thankful to say I have unlearned since) to be a pessimist,
a misanthrope, and a cynic; and I have learned since, what I did
not understand then, that to know by rote a quantity of grammatical
+8
rules is in itself not much more useful than to know how often
each letter of the alphabet occurs in Paradise Lost, or how
many separate stones went to the building of the Great Pyramid*.
It was the Turkish war with Russia in 1877-8 that first attracted
my attention to the East, about which, till that time, I had known
and cared nothing. To the young, war is always interesting, and
I watched the progress of this struggle with eager attention. At
first my proclivities were by no means for the Turks; but the
losing side, more especially when it continues to struggle
gallantly against defeat, always has a claim on our sympathy,
and moreover the cant of the anti-Turkish party in England, and
the wretched attempts to confound questions of abstract justice
with party politics, disgusted me beyond measure. Ere the dose
of the war I would have died to save Turkey, and I mourned the
fall of Plevna as though it had been a disaster inflicted on my own
country. And so gradually pity turned to admiration, and admiration
to enthusiasm, until the Turks became in my eyes veritable heroes,
and the desire to identify myself with their cause, make my
dwelling amongst them, and unite with them in the defence
of their land, possessed me heart and soul. At the age of sixteen
such enthusiasm more easily establishes itself in the heart, and,
while it lasts (for it often fades as quickly as it bloomed), exercises
a more absolute and uncontrolled sway over the mind than at
a more advanced age. Even though it be transitory, its effects
(as in my case) may be permanent.
So now my whole ambition came to be this: how I might
become in time an officer in the Turkish army. And the plan
* Many of my readers, even of those who may be inclined to agree with
me as to the desirability of modifying the teaching of our public schools,
will blame me for expressing myself so strongly. The value of a public-
school education in the development of character cannot be denied, and in
the teaching also great improvements have, I believe, been made within the
last ten or fifteen years. But as far as my own experience goes, I do not
feel that I have spoken at all too strongly.
+9
which I proposed to myself was to enter first the English army,
to remain there till I had learned my profession and attained the
rank of captain, then to resign my commission and enter the
service of the Ottoman Government, which, as I understood,
gave a promotion of two grades. So wild a project will doubtless
move many of my readers to mirth, and some to indignation,
but, such as it was, it was for a time paramount in my mind, and
its influence outlived it. Its accomplishment, however, evidently
needed time; and, as my enthusiasm demanded some immediate
object, I resolved at once to begin the study of the Turkish
language.
Few of my readers, probably, have had occasion to embark
on this study, or even to consider what steps they would take
if a desire to do so suddenly came upon them I may therefore
here remark that for one not resident in the metropolis it is far
from easy to discover anything about the Turkish language,
and almost impossible to find a teacher. However, after much
seeking and many enquiries, I succeeded in obtaining a copy of
Barker's Turkish Grammar. Into this I plunged with enthusiasm.
I learned Turkish verbs in the old school fashion, and blundered
through the "Pleasantries of Khoja Nasru'd-Din Efendi"; but
so ignorant was I, and so involved is the Ottoman construction,
that it took me some time to discover that the language is written
from right to left; while, true to the pan-Anglican system on which
I have already animadverted, I read my Turkish as though it had
been English, pronouncing, for example, the article bir and the
substantive ber exactly the same, and as though both, instead
of neither, rhymed with the English words fir and fur. And
so I bungled on for a while, making slow but steady progress,
and wasting much time, but with undiminished enthusiasm; for
which I was presently rewarded by discovering a teacher. This
was an Irish clergyman, who had, I believe, served as a private
in the Crimean War, picked up some Turkish, attracted attention
by his proficiency in a language of which very few Englishmen
+10
have any knowledge, and so gained employment as an interpreter.
After the war he was ordained a clergyman of the Church of
England, and remained for some years at Constantinople as a
missionary. I do not know how his work prospered; but if he
succeeded in winning from the Turks half the sympathy and love
with which they inspired him, his success must have been great
indeed. When I discovered him, he had a cure of souls in the
Consett iron district, having been driven from his last parish by
the resentment of his flock (Whigs, almost to a man), which he
had incurred by venturing publicly to defend the Turks at a
time when they were at the very nadir of unpopularity, and when
the outcry about the "Bulgarian atrocities" was at its height.
So the very religious and humane persons who composed his
congregation announced to his vicar their intention of with-
drawing their subscriptions and support from the church so long
as the "Bashi-bozouk" (such, as he informed me, not without
a certain pride, was the name they had given him) occupied its
pulpit. So there was nothing for it but that he should go. Isolated
in the uncongenial environment to which he was transferred, he
was, I think, almost as eager to teach me Turkish as I was to
learn it, and many a pleasant hour did I pass in his little parlour
listening with inexhaustible delight to the anecdotes of his life
in Constantinople which he loved to tell. Peace be to his memory!
He died in Africa, once more engaged in mission work, not long
after I went to Cambridge.
One of the incidental charms of Orientalism is the kindness
and sympathy often shown by scholars of the greatest distinction
and the highest attainments to the young beginner, even when
he has no introduction save the pass-word of a common and
much-loved pursuit. Of this I can recall many instances, but it is
sufficient to mention the first in my experience. Expecting to be
in, or within reach of, London for a time, I was anxious to improve
the occasion by prosecuting my Turkish studies (for the "Bashi-
bozouk" had recently left Consett for Hull), and to this end
+11
wished to find a proficient teacher. As I knew not how else to
set about this, I finally, and somewhat audaciously, determined
to write to the late Sir James (then Mr) Redhouse (whose name
the study of his valuable writings on the Ottoman language had
made familiar to me as that of a patron saint), asking for his
advice and help. This letter I addressed to the care of his
publishers, and in a few days I received, to my intense delight, a
most kind reply, in which he, the first Turkish scholar in Europe
probably, not only gave me all the information I required, but
invited me to pay him a visit whenever I came to London, an
invitation of which, as may be readily believed, I availed myself
at the earliest possible opportunity. And so gradually I came to
know others who were able and willing to help me in my studies,
including several Turkish gentlemen attached to the Ottoman
Embassy in London, from some of whom I received no little
kindness.
But if my studies prospered, it was otherwise with the somewhat
chimerical project in which they had originated. My father
did not wish me to enter the army, but proposed medicine as an
alternative to engineering. As the former profession seemed more
compatible with my aspirations than the latter, I eagerly accepted
his offer. A few days after this decision had been arrived at, he
consulted an eminent physician, who was one of his oldest friends
as to my future education. "If you wanted to make your son
a doctor, said my father, "where would you send him?" And
the answer, given without a moment's hesitation, was, "To
Cambridge.
So to Cambridge I went in October 1879, which date marks
for me the beginning of a new and most happy era of life- for
I suppose that a man who cannot be happy at the University must
be incapable of happiness. Here my medical studies occupied
of course, the major part of my time and attention, and that right
pleasantly; for, apart from their intrinsic interest, the teaching
was masterly, and even subjects at first repellent can be made
+12
attractive when taught by a master possessed of grasp, eloquence,
and enthusiasm, just as a teacher who lacks these qualities will
make the most interesting subjects appear devoid of charm. Yet
still I found time to devote to Eastern languages. Turkish, it is
true, was not then to be had at Cambridge; but I had already
discovered that for further progress in this some knowledge of
Arabic and Persian was requisite; and to these I determined to
turn my attention. During my first year I therefore began to
study Arabic with the late Professor Palmer, whose extraordinary
and varied abilities are too well known to need any celebration
on my part. No man had a higher ideal of knowledge in the
matter of languages, or more original (and, as I believe, sounder)
views as to the method of learning them. These views I have
already set forth substantially and summarily; and I will therefore
say no more about them in this place, save that I absorbed them
greedily, and derived from them no small advantage, learning
by their application more of Arabic in one term than I had
learned of Latin or Greek during five and a half years, and this
notwithstanding the fact that I could devote to it only a small
portion of my time.
I began Persian in the Long Vacation of 1880. Neither
Professor Palmer nor Professor Cowell was resident in Cambridge
at that time; but I obtained the assistance of an undergraduate
of Indian nationality, who, though the son of Hindoo
parents converted to Christianity, had an excellent knowledge
not only of Persian and Sanskrit, but of Arabic. To this knowledge,
which was my admiration and envy, he for his part seemed
to attach little importance; all his pride was in playing the fiddle,
on which, so far as I could judge, he was a very indifferent performer.
But as it gave him pleasure to have a listener, a kind of
tacit understanding grew up that when he had helped me for an
hour to read the Gulistan, I in return should sit and listen for a
while to his fiddling, which I did with such appearance of pleasure
as I could command.
+13
For two years after this--that is to say, till I took my degree--
such work as I did in Persian and Arabic was done chiefly by
myself, though I managed to run up to London for an afternoon
once a fortnight or so for a Turkish lesson, till the Lent Term
of 1881, when the paramount claims of that most exacting of
taskmasters, the river, took from me for some weeks the right
to call my afternoons my own. And when the Lent races were
over, I had to think seriously about my approaching tripos; while
a promise made to me by my father, that if I succeeded in passing
both it and the examination for the second M.B. at the end of
my third year (i.e. in June 1882), I should spend two months of
the succeeding Long Vacation in Constantinople, determined me
to exert all my efforts to win this dazzling bribe. This resolution
cost me a good deal, but I was amply rewarded for my self-denial
when, in July 1882, I at length beheld the minarets of Stamboul,
and heard the Mu'ezzin call the true believers to prayer.
I have heard people express themselves as disappointed with
Constantinople. I suppose that, wherever one goes, one sees in
great measure what one expects to see (because there is good
and evil in all things, and the eye discerns but one when the
mind is occupied by a preconceived idea), but I at least suffered
no disenchantment, and returned to England with my enthusiasm
for the East not merely undiminished, but, if possible, intensified.
The two succeeding years were years of undiluted pleasure,
for I was still at Cambridge, and was now able to devote my
whole time to the study of Oriental languages. As I intended
to become a candidate for the Indian Languages Tripos in 1884,
I was obliged to begin the study of Hindustani, a language from
which I never could succeed in deriving much pleasure. During
this period I became acquainted with a very learned but very
eccentric old Persian, Mirza Muhammad Bakir, of Bawanat in
Fars, surnamed Ibrahim Jan Mu'attar. Having wandered through
half the world, learned (and learned well) half a dozen languages,
+14
and been successively a Shi'ite Muhammadan, a dervish, a
Christian, an atheist, and a Jew, he had finished by elaborating
a religious system of his own, which he called "Islamo-Christianity,"
to the celebration (I can hardly say the elucidation) of
which in English tracts and Persian poems, composed in the most
bizarre style, he devoted the greater part of his time, talents, and
money. He was in every way a most remarkable man, and one
whom it was impossible not to respect and like, in spite of his
appalling loquacity, his unreason, his disputatiousness, his utter
impracticability. I never saw anyone who lived so entirely in a
fantastic ideal world of his own creation. He was totally
indifferent to his own temporal interests; cared nothing for money,
personal comfort, or the favour of the powerful; and often
alienated his acquaintances by violent attacks on their most
cherished beliefs, and drove away his friends by the ceaseless
torrent of his eloquence. He lived in a squalid little room in
Limehouse, surrounded by piles of dusty books, mostly theological
treatises in Persian and Arabic, with a sprinkling of
Hebrew and English volumes, amongst which last Carlyle's
Sartor Resartus and Heroes and Hero-Worship occupied the place
of honour. Of these, however, he made but little use, for he
generally wrote when alone, and talked when he could get anyone
to listen to him. I tried to persuade him to read with me those
portions of the Masnavi and the Divan of Hafiz set for my examination,
and offered to remunerate him for his trouble; but this plan
failed on its first trial. We had not read for twenty minutes
when he suddenly pushed away the Hafiz, dragged out from a drawer
in the rickety little table a pile of manuscript, and said,
"I like my own poetry better than this, and if you want me to
teach you Persian you must learn it as I please. I don't want
your money, but I do want you to understand my thoughts about
religion. You can understand Hafiz by yourself, but you cannot
understand my poetry unless I explain it to you." This was
certainly true: allusions to grotesque visions in which figured
+15
grass-eating lions, bears, yellow demons, Gog and Magog
"Crusaders," and Hebrew and Arab patriarchs, saints, and
warriors, were jumbled up with current politics, personal
reminiscences, Rabbinic legends, mystical rhapsodies, denunciations
prophecies, old Persian mythology, Old Testament theology
and Kur'anic exegesis in a manner truly bewildering, the whole
being clothed in a Persian so quaint, so obscure, and so replete
with rare, dialectical, and foreign words, that many verses were
incomprehensible even to educated Persians, to whom for the
most part, the "Little Sun of London" (Shumeysa-i-Landaniyya--
so he called the longest of his published poems) was a source of
terror. One of my Persian friends (for I made acquaintance about
this time with several young Persians who were studying in
London) would never consent to visit me until he had received
an assurance that the poet-prophet-philosopher of Bawanat would
be out of the way. I, however, by dint of long listening and much
patience, not without some weariness, learned from him much
that was of value to me besides the correct Persian pronunciation.
For I had originally acquired from my Indian friend the
erroneous and unlovely pronunciation current in India, which I
now abandoned with all possible speed, believing the "French of
Paris to be preferable to the "French of Stratford atte Bowe."
Towards the end of 1884 Mirza Bakir left London for the East
with his surviving children, a daughter of about eighteen and
a son of about ten years of age, both of whom had been brought
up away from him in the Christian religion, and neither of whom
knew any language but English. The girl's failing health (for
she was threatened with consumption) was the cause of his
departure. I had just left Cambridge, and entered at St
Bartholomew's Hospital, where I found my time and energies fully
occupied with my new work. Tired as I often was, however
when I got away from the wards, I had to make almost daily
pilgrimages to Limehouse, where I often remained till nearly
midnight; for Mirza Bakir refused to leave London till I had
+16
finished reading a versified commentary on the Kur'an on which
he had been engaged for some time, and of which he wished to
bestow the manuscript on me as a keepsake. "My daughter will
die," said he, "as the doctors tell me, unless she leaves for
Beyrout in a short time, and it is you who prevent me from taking
her there; for I will not leave London until you have understood
my book." Argument was useless with such a visionary; so,
willing or no, I had to spend every available hour in the little
room at Limehouse, ever on the watch to check the interminable
digressions to which the reading of the poem continually gave
rise. At last it was finished, and the very next day, if I remember
rightly, Mirza Bakir started with his children for the East. I
never saw him again, though I continued to correspond with him
so long as he was at Beyrout, whence, I think, he was finally
expelled by the Ottoman Government as a firebrand menacing
the peace of the community. He then went with his son to Persia
(his daughter had died previously at Beyrout), whence news of
his death reached me a year or two ago.
And now for three years (1884-7) it was only an occasional
leisure hour that I could snatch from my medical studies for a
chat with my Persian friends (who, though they knew English
well for the most part, were kind enough to talk for my benefit
their own language), or for quiet communing in the cool vaulted
reading-room of the British Museum with my favourite Sufi
writers, whose mystical idealism, which had long since cast its
spell over my mind, now supplied me with a powerful antidote
against the pessimistic tendencies evoked by the daily
contemplation of misery and pain. This period was far from
being an unhappy one, for my work, if hard, was full of interest;
and if in the hospital I saw much that was sad, much that made me
wonder at man's clinging to life (since to the vast majority life
seemed but a succession of pains, struggles, and sorrows), on
the other hand I saw much to strengthen my faith in the goodness
and nobility of human nature. Never before or since have I
+17
realised so clearly the immortality, greatness, and virtue of the
spirit of man, or the misery of its earthly environment: it seemed
to me like a prince in rags, ignorant alike of his birth and his
rights, but to whom is reserved a glorious heritage. No wonder,
then, that the Pantheistic idealism of the Masnavi took hold of
me, or that such words as these of Hafiz thrilled me to the very
soul:
"Tura zi kungara-i-'arsh mi-zanand safir:
Na-danamat ki dar in khakdan che uftadast."
"They are calling to thee from the pinnacles of the throne of God:
I know not what hath befallen thee in this dust-heap" (the world).
Even my medical studies, strange as it may appear, favoured
the development of this habit of mind; for physiology, when
it does not encourage materialism, encourages mysticism; and
nothing so much tends to shake one's faith in the reality of the
objective world as the examination of certain of the subjective
phenomena of mental and nervous disorders.
But now this period, too, was drawing to a close, and my
dreams of visiting Persia, even when their accomplishment
seemed most unlikely, were rapidly approaching fulfilment. The
hopes with which I had left Cambridge had been damped by
repeated disappointments. I had thought that the knowledge
I had acquired of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic might enable me
to find employment in the Consular Service, but had learned from
curt official letters, referring me to printed official regulations,
that this was not so, that these languages were not recognised
as subjects of examination, and that not they, but German, Greek,
Spanish, and Italian were the qualifications by which one might
hope to become a consul in Western Asia. The words of
Dr Wright's warning came back to me, and I acknowledged
their justice. To my professional studies, I felt, and not to my
linguistic attainments, must I look to earn my livelihood.
I had passed my final examinations at the College of Surgeons
the College of Physicians, and the University of Cambridge,
+18
received from the two former, with a sense of exultation which
I well remember, the diplomas authorising me to practise, and
was beginning to consider what my next step should be, when
the luck of which I had despaired came to me at last. Returning
to my rooms on the evening of 30th May 1887, I found a telegram
lying on the table. I opened it with indifference, which changed,
in the moment I grasped its purport, to ecstatic joy. I had
that day been elected a Fellow of my College.
back to the Table of Contents
Return to Index
of Digital Library Books
Return to H-Bahai Home Page
Links to
pages with similar resources
|
Generously Supported by:
|
|
|
&
|
|