Chapter 3

That beautiful phrase of the poet on his crucified hero--_I never saw a tree, before this, enabled to sustain all that was generous_--has an oddly close parallel, which I am tempted to record here: a phrase, not less beautiful, used by a modern Frenchman, also of a dead man and a tree. It occurs in a letter written by François Bonvin on the death of his brother, Léon, the painter of flowers. Léon Bonvin's work is little known and there is little of it, but those who possess examples treasure them like black pearls. François Bonvin, who is represented in the National Gallery, in the modern French and Dutch room, by a scene of cattle painted with great decision and confidence and breadth, and who died in 1888, was the son of a policeman at Vaugiraud, on the outskirts of Paris: an old soldier who divided his time between protecting the property of the market gardeners and constructing rockeries for poor people's windows. Another, and the youngest son, was Léon, who after a shy and lonely boyhood and youth, under the tyranny of his father, which was mitigated by rambles in the neighbouring forest of Meudon, gathering flowers and painting them under his brother's encouragement with a felicity and fidelity that have not been surpassed, fell, when still quite young, into the hands of a shrewish vulgar wife, and with her opened a tavern. No couple could be more ill-assorted than this gentle creature, full of poetry and feeling, whose one ambition was to set exquisitely on paper the blossoms which gave him pleasure, and the noisy, bustling, angry woman whom he had married.

The union and the commercial venture were alike disastrous; unhappiness was accompanied by poverty, and after a short period of depression the unfortunate artist, early one morning, in his thirty-third year, wandered into the forest of Meudon, where the world had once spread so happily before his eyes, and hanged himself.

All this happened in the middle years of the last century, when the same revival of nature-worship was inspiring painters in France as had, fifty years earlier, flushed Wordsworth's poetry, and such famous and more fortunate contemporaries of Léon Bonvin as Corot and Rousseau and Millet and Daubigny and Jacque and Dupré were painting in the forest of Fontainebleau. Theirs to succeed; poor Léon found life too hard, and was dead when still far from his prime.

And what of the notable phrase? It is one that I know I shall never forget, one that will remain indissolubly linked to the name of Bonvin, whether it is Léon who inspired it or François who penned it and who had been so useful in providing his brother with the materials for his one absorbing pleasure and had always exhorted him to "do everything from nature." Writing to some one of influence in Paris, François told the story of his brother's death. In a postscript he added the information that the weight of Léon's body had broken a branch of the tree. Then came the words: "This is the only damage he ever did."

Could there be a more beautiful epitaph or a more poignant commentary on a world askew?

X.--PERSIAN HUMOUR

Persian humour is a stealthier thing than English humour. We like to laugh; the sudden surprise pleases us. But these old ruminative observers of life, even if they rapped out a sarcasm now and then, were normally happiest when their fancy was playing quietly around an idea: fetching similes for it from every quarter and accumulating extravagances. Thus: "It is related by Abu 'l-Khattab Ibn Aun Al-Hariri, the poet and grammarian, that he went one day to visit An-Nami, and found him seated. His hair was white like the Thaghama when in flower, but one single black hair still remained.

"'Sir!' said Ibn Aun, 'there is a black hair in your head.'

"'Yes,' replied An-Nami, 'it is the sole remnant of my youth, and I am pleased with it; I have even written verses on it.'

"Then, at the request of Ibn Aun, he recited these lines: _In that head a single hair still appeared, preserving its blackness; 'twas a sight which rejoiced the eyes of my friends. I said to my white hairs, which had put it in fear: 'I implore you! respect it as a stranger. A dark African spouse will not long remain in the house where the second wife is white of skin.'_"

One of the worthiest representatives of the humorists of the book is Abu Dulama, a black Abyssinian, whose wits never failed him. Here is the poem which he recited when ordered by Ruh, the governor of Basra, to attack one of the enemy single-handed: _I fly to Ruh for refuge; let him not send me to a combat in which I shall bring disgrace upon the tribe of Asad. Your father Al-Muhallab left you as a legacy the love of death; but such a legacy as that I have inherited from none. And this I know well, that the act of drawing near to enemies produces a separation between souls and bodies._

Ruh positively declared, however, that Abu Dulama should go forth and fight, enforcing the command with the pertinent question, "Why do you receive pay from the sultan?"

"To fight for him," replied Abu.

"Then," said Ruh, "why not go forth and attack that enemy of God?"

"If I go forth to him, O Emir," replied the Abyssinian, "I shall be sent to join those who are dead and gone; and the condition I made with the sultan was, to fight for him, but not to die for him."

Another wit, Osama Ibn Murshid, having had a tooth drawn, produced the following verses, either at the time, for the delectation of the dentist, or afterwards, when seated among his friends: _I had a companion of whom I was never tired, who suffered in my service, and laboured with assiduity; whilst we were together I never saw him; and when he appeared before my eyes, we had parted for ever._

This is how Osama wrote when the house of a miser was burnt down: _See how the progress of time constrains us to acknowledge that there is a destiny. Ibn Talib never lit a fire in his house, through avarice, yet by fire it was destroyed._

"One thing," says Ibn Khallikan, in the notice of this satirist, "brings on another." He then proceeds: "Abu 'l-Hasan Yahya Abd Al-Azim Al-Misri, surnamed Al-Jazzar, recited to me the following verses which he had composed on another literary man at Cairo, far advanced in age, who, being attacked by a cutaneous eruption, anointed himself with sulphur: _O, learned master, hearken to the demand of a friend devoid of sarcasm: thou art old, and of course art near to the fire of hell; why then anoint thyself with sulphur?_"

As a further quite unnecessary proof of the antiquity of jests which we think new, I might append to this excellent sarcasm by a friend devoid of sarcasm the story, often now told, of the rival chemists in a provincial town, one of whom was old-fashioned and costly, and the other new and cheap. To the costly one, who had asked too much for sulphur, a customer remarked that if he went to the new shop opposite he could get it for fourpence; which brought from the old-fashioned chemist, weary of this competition, the admirable retort that if he went still farther, to a certain place, he would get it for nothing.

East and West join hands again. When I was a boy living in a town by the sea, one of my heroes in real life--whom I never knew, but admired fearfully from a distance--was a famous stockbroker, whose splendid name I could give if I chose. One of his many mansions was here, and I used to see him often as he managed the finest pair of horses on the south coast, which he drove in a phaeton with red wheels, always smoking a cigar as he did so. Many were the stories told of his princely Victor Radnor-ish ways, one of which credited him with a private compartment on the train, into which his guests walked without a ticket--a magnificent idea!--and another stated that he bought his trousers a hundred pairs at a time. And then I open this book and read that Barjawan, an Ethiopian eunuch, after being stabbed to death by the prince's umbrella-bearer, was found to possess a thousand pairs of trousers.

Not a little of the humorous effect of these Persian sayings comes from their dry frankness. For example: Ibn Omair, a trustworthy traditionist, when, once, he was ill, and a person sent his excuses for not going to visit him, answered: "I cannot reproach a person for not visiting me, whom I myself should not go to visit were he sick." Modern would-be wits might take the hint; for with candour so scarce, and self-criticism usually ending in a verdict of complete innocence, the blurted naked truth, not unaccompanied by a sidelong thrust at the speaker's own fallibility, would always produce the required laugh.

XI.--THE SATIRISTS

Al-Yazidi, a story of whom I quoted above, was a teacher of Koranic readings, a grammarian and a philologer, who taught in Baghdad in the ninth century. He was also a famous satirist; but satire seems to have been easier then than now. So at least I gather from the epigram which Al-Yazidi wrote upon Al-Asmai Al-Bahili: _You who pretend to draw your origin from Asma, tell me how you are connected with that noble race. Are you not a man whose genealogy, if verified, proves that you descend from Bahila?_ "This last verse," said Ibn Al-Munajjim, "is one of the most satirical which have been composed by the later poets."

I need hardly say that Ibn Khallikan, with his eagle eye and fierce memory, does not let the originality of this pass unchallenged. The idea, he tells us, is borrowed from the verse in which Hammad Ajrad attacked Bashshar, the son of Burd. I like its directness. _You call yourself the son of Burd, though you are the son of another man. Or, grant that Burd married your mother, who was Burd?_

In sarcasms Al-Yazidi was hard pressed by Abu Obaida, who was a very Mr. Brown (_vide_ Bret Harte) in being of "so sarcastic a humour that every one in Basra who had a reputation to maintain was obliged to flatter him." When dining once with Musa Ibn Ar-Rahman Al-Hilali, one of the pages spilled some gravy on the skirt of Abu Obaida's cloak.

"Some gravy has fallen on your cloak," said Musa, "but I shall give you ten others in place of it."

"Nay!" replied Abu Obaida, "do not mind! _Your_ gravy can do no harm."

Another of Al-Yazidi's satirical efforts, which has no forerunner in Ibn Khallikan's recollection, is this, levelled at another mean acquaintance; meanness, indeed, being one of the unpardonable offences--especially in the eyes of poets who lived on patronage: _Be careful not to lose the friendship of Abu 'l-Mukatil when you approach to partake of his meal. Breaking his crumpet is for him as bad as breaking one of his limbs. His guests fast against their will, and without meaning to obtain the spiritual reward which is granted to fasting._

Apropos of sarcasm, the Merwanide Omaiyide, who reigned in Spain, received from Nizar, the sovereign of Egypt, an insulting and satirical letter, to which he replied in these terms: "You satirize us because you have heard of us. Had we ever heard of you, we should make you a reply."

None of the sarcastic wits are more pointed than the blind mawla Abu 'l-Aina (806-96), whose tongue was venomously barbed, and who, like other blind men, often used his malady as a protection when his satire had been excessive. Viziers were his favourite butts. Being one day in the society of one of them, the conversation turned on the history of the Barmekides and their generosity, on which the vizier said to Abu 'l-Aina, who had just made a high eulogium of that family for their liberality and bounty: "You have praised them and their qualities too much; all this is a mere fabrication of book-makers and a fable imagined by authors."

Abu 'l-Aina immediately replied: "And why then do book-makers not relate such fables of you, O vizier?"

Again, having gone one day to the door of Said Ibn Makhlad and asked permission to enter, Abu 'l-Aina was told that the vizier was engaged in prayer. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is a pleasure in novelty."

"I am told," said a khalif to him, "that thou hast an evil tongue."

"Commander of the Faithful!" replied Abu 'l-Aina, "the Almighty himself has spoken praise and satire," and he then quoted this poem: _If I praise not the honest man and revile not the sordid, the despicable, and the base, why should I have the power of saying, "That is good and this is bad"? And why should God have opened men's ears and my mouth?_

Having one day a dispute with a descendant of the Prophet, his adversary said to Abu 'l-Aina: "You attack me, and yet you say in your prayers: 'Almighty God! bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.'"

"Yes," replied Abu 'l-Aina, "but I add--'who are virtuous and pure.'"

Here is one of the stories which Abu 'l-Aina used to tell. "I was one day sitting with Abu 'l-Jahm, when a man came in and said to him: 'You made me a promise, and it depends on your kindness to fulfil it.'

"Abu 'l-Jahm answered that he did not recollect it, and the other replied: 'If you do not recollect it, 'tis because the persons like me to whom you make promises are numerous; and if I remember it, 'tis because the persons like you to whom I may confidently address a request are few.'

"'Well said! Blessings on your father!' exclaimed Abu 'l-Jahm, and the promise was immediately fulfilled."

That blind men should be self-protective is of course, natural, and the East has always been rich in them. "The learned Muwaffak Ad-Din Muzaffar, the blind poet of Egypt, having gone to visit Al-Kadi As-Said Ibn Sana Al-Mulk, the latter said to him: 'Learned scholar! I have composed the first hemistich of a verse, but cannot finish it, although it has occupied my mind for some days.'

"Muzaffar asked to hear what he had composed, and the other recited as follows: _The whiteness of my beard proceeds from the blackness of her ringlets--_

"On hearing these words, Muzaffar replied that he had found their completion, and recited as follows:--_even as the flame with which I burn for her acquired its intensity from her pomegranate-flower [her rosy cheeks]_.

"As-Said approved of the addition, and commenced another verse on the same model; but Muzaffar said to himself: 'I must rise and be off, or else he will make the entire piece at the expense of my wits.'"

XII.--AN EARLY CHESS CHAMPION

Much has been written of the origin of chess, and many countries contend for the honour of its inception. According to my encyclopædia, China, India, Persia, and Egypt have each a claim, but it is probable that the game existed, in some form or other, before history. The theory is that the Arabs introduced it to Europe in the eighth century. Thus the cautious encyclopædia; but Ibn Khallikan has no such hesitancy. From him we get names and dates. Ibn Khallikan gives the credit boldly to one Sissah, who, says he, "imagined the game for the amusement of King Shihram." Whether Sissah built it out of a clear sky, or had foundations on which to erect, is not stated. Anyway, the pastime was a complete success. "It is said that, when Sissah invented the game of chess and presented it to Shihram, the latter was struck with admiration and filled with joy; he ordered chess-boards to be placed in the temples, and considered that game as the best thing that could be learned, inasmuch as it served as an introduction to the art of war, as an honour to religion and the world, and as the foundation of all justice.

"He manifested also his gratitude and satisfaction for the favour which Heaven had granted him in illustrating his reign by such an invention, and he said to Sissah, 'Ask me for whatever you desire.'

"'I then demand,' replied Sissah, 'that a grain of wheat be placed in the first square of the chess-board, two in the second, and that the number of grains be progressively doubled till the last square is attained: whatever this quantity may be, I ask you to bestow it on me.'

"The king, who meant to make him a present of something considerable, exclaimed that such a recompense would be too little, and reproached Sissah for asking for so inadequate a reward.

"Sissah declared that he desired nothing but what he had mentioned, and, heedless of the king's remonstrances, he persisted in his demand.

"The king, at length, consented, and ordered that quantity of wheat to be given him. When the chiefs of the government office received orders to that effect, they calculated the amount, and answered that they did not possess near so much wheat as was required.

"These words were reported to the king, and he, being unable to credit them, ordered the chiefs to be brought before him. Having questioned them on the subject, they replied that all the wheat in the world would be insufficient to make up the quantity. He ordered them to prove what they said, and, by a series of multiplications and reckonings, they demonstrated to him that such was the fact.

"On this, the king said to Sissah: 'Your ingenuity in imagining such a request is yet more admirable than your talent in inventing the game of chess.'"

Ibn Khallikan was at pains to investigate the matter. Having, he says, "met one of the accountants employed at Alexandria, I received from him a demonstration which convinced me that the declaration was true. He placed before me a sheet of paper in which he had doubled the numbers up to the sixteenth square, and obtained thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight grains. 'Now,' said he, 'let us consider this quantity to be the contents of a pint measure, and this I know by experiment to be true'--these are the accountant's words, so let him bear the responsibility--'then let the pint be doubled in the seventeenth square, and so on progressively. In the twentieth square it will become a waiba (peck), the waibas will then become an irdabb (bushel), and in the fortieth square we shall have one hundred and seventy-four thousand seven hundred and sixty-two irdabbs. Let us suppose this to be the contents of a corn store, and no corn store contains more than that; then in the fiftieth square we shall have the contents of one thousand and twenty-four stores; suppose these to be situated in one city--and no city can have more than that number of stores or even so many--we shall then find that the sixty-fourth and last square gives sixteen thousand three hundred and eighty-four cities. Now, you know that there is not in the world a greater number of cities than that, for geometry informs us that the circumference of the globe is eight thousand parasangs; so that, if the end of a cord were laid on any part of the earth, and the cord passed round it till both ends met, we should find the length of the cord to be twenty-four thousand miles, which is equal to eight thousand parasangs.' This demonstration is decisive and indubitable."

Of Sissah I know no more, except that he was from India and that his game became popular. Up to the time of Ibn Khallikan, in the thirteenth century, its best player was one As-Suli, famous as an author and a convivialist, who died one hundred and twenty years before the Norman Conquest. "To play like As-Suli" was indeed a proverb. Among this proficient's friends was his pupil, the khalif Ar-Radi, who had the greatest admiration for As-Suli's genius. One day, for instance, walking with some boon companions through a garden filled with beautiful flowers, Ar-Radi asked them if they ever saw a finer sight. To this they replied, speaking as wise men speak to autocratic rulers, that nothing on earth could surpass it.

The retort of the khalif must have given them the surprise of their lives. "You are wrong," said he: "As-Suli's manner of playing chess is yet a finer sight, and surpasses all you could describe!" So might we now refer to Hobbs on his day at the Oval, on a hard wicket, against fast bowling, with Surrey partisans standing four deep behind the seats, or to Stevenson nursing the balls from the middle pocket to the top left-hand pocket and then across to the right.

One more anecdote of the Persian Steinitz, and I have done. I tell it because it rounds off this interlude with some symmetry by bringing us back to my own consultation of the encyclopædia at the beginning of it. As-Suli had a famous library of books in which he had jotted down the fruits of his various reading. When asked a question on any subject, instead of answering it he would tell his boy to bring such and such a volume in which the matter at issue was treated. This trait led to an epigram being written upon him by a rival scholar, Abu Said, to the effect that "of all men As-Suli possessed most learning--in his library." There are still men learned on the same terms, but, nowadays, we do not have to collect the information for ourselves but go to _The Times_ and Messrs. Chambers for it.

XIII.--COURTESY AND JUSTICE

Harun Ar-Raschid passing near Manbij with Abd Al-Malik Ibn Salih, who was the most elegant speaker of all the surviving descendants of Al-Abbas, observed a well-built country-seat and a garden full of trees covered with fruit, and asked to whom that property belonged.

Abd Al-Malik replied: "To you, Commander of the Faithful! and then to me."

This Abd Al-Malik was so famous, as a story-teller that a wise man said of him: "When I reflect that Abd Al-Malik's tongue must sooner or later moulder into dust, the world loses its value in my sight."

Abu 'l-Amaithal, the poet, was also a most efficient courtier. As he kissed one day the hand of Abd Allah Ibn Tahir, that prince complained of the roughness of the poet's moustachios, whereupon he immediately observed that the spines of the hedgehog could not hurt the wrist of the lion. Abd Allah was so pleased with this compliment that he ordered him a valuable present.

Another graceful compliment. Of Ishak Ibn Ibrahim Al-Mausili, who was famous for his voice and was a "constant companion of the khalifs in their parties of pleasure," the khalif Al-Motasim charmingly said: "Ishak never yet sang without my feeling as if my possessions were increased."

Another compliment that goes still deeper. Abu Nuwas, in a lament composed on the death of the khalif Al-Amin, said of him: _His death was the only thing I feared, and now nothing remains for me to dread._

These, however, were but speeches. Compliments may be conveyed also by deeds, as we find in the case of Imam Al-Haramain, who was so learned and acceptable a teacher that, at the moment of his death, his scholars, who were four hundred and one in number, broke their pens and inkhorns; and they let a full year pass over before they resumed their studies. Of these Persians we can believe in the sincerity; but the motives of English scholars performing a similar act of renunciation might be open to suspicion.

Badi Az-Zaman Az-Hamadani was famous for his epistolary style. Here is a passage which, though written in Persia in the tenth century, might have aptness in English country houses at this moment: _When water has long remained at rest, its noxious qualities appear; and when its surface has continued tranquil, its foulness gets into motion. Thus it is with a guest: his presence is displeasing when his stay has been protracted, and his shadow is oppressive when the time for which he should sojourn is at an end. Adieu._

The khalif Ali Ibn Ali Talib was a very just man. Some one having committed a theft was brought before him. "Bring me witnesses," said Ali, "to prove that he purloined the object out of the saddle-bag."

Unmistakable evidence to that effect being given, Ali immediately ordered the fingers of his hand to be cut off.

On this some person said to him: "Commander of the Faithful! why not cut it off by the wrist?"

"God forbid!" exclaimed the khalif; "how could he then lean on his staff? How could he pray? How could he eat?"