Part 1

A PERSIAN PEARL AND OTHER ESSAYS

BY CLARENCE S. DARROW

CHICAGO C. L. RICKETTS MDCCCCII

Copyright 1899 Clarence S. Darrow

CONTENTS

1 A Persian Pearl 9

2 Walt Whitman 43

3 Robert Burns 77

4 Realism in Literature and Art 107

5 The Skeleton in the Closet 139

A · PERSIAN · PEARL

A PERSIAN PEARL

The reader and observer is constantly reminded that “there is nothing new under the sun.” We no sooner find some rare gem of thought or expression than we discover that it is only an old diamond, polished anew, perhaps, and offered as an original stone. Neither the reader nor the writer is always aware that the gem is antique and the setting alone is new.

The rich mine where the treasure was first found was exhausted in a few brief years, and then became like all the dust of all the worlds; but the gem polished and worn by time and use, ever sparkles and shines, regardless of the fact that the miner’s name is forgotten and his work alone remains. Thus Nature, the great communist, provides that the treasures of genius, like her own bountiful gifts of sunlight, rain and air, shall remain the common property of all her children while any dwell upon the earth.

Current literature seems to point to the ascendancy of what is often termed the “pessimistic school.” In one sense this philosophy uncrowns man and places him in his proper relation to the great universe, of which he is so small a part; but while it makes less of man, it expects less from him, and covers his deeds with that cloak of charity, which is the legitimate garment of the great Unknown. But these modern reflections on life and its problems, its purposes and lessons, are far from new. Without venturing a guess as to their origin or age, we take up that old Persian Pearl,—the “Rubaiyat,” and find on its musty pages the great thoughts and searching questions, which have ever returned to man since the intellect was born, and which will still remain unanswered when the last word shall have been spoken, and the race have run its course.

It is nearly eight hundred years since Omar Khayyam, the Persian astronomer, philosopher, and poet, mused and wrote upon the uncertainty of life, the eternity of time and the mutability of human things. Since the rose bush was planted above his grave, the material world has been almost made anew. Art and literature have given countless treasures to the earth, and science has solved its mysteries without end. But the riddles of existence—the problems of life, the deep heart of the universe, the cause and purpose and end of all, are mysteries as dark and inscrutable as they were eight centuries ago. To quote from the Rubaiyat:

There was the Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil thro’ which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.

As Egypt is the newest country visited by the traveler, so this old book, burnished by the genius of FitzGerald, comes to us as the latest and profoundest word upon the infinite mysteries which over-shadow human life. It seems to be the last word, rather than one of the first, spoken to the perplexed soul of man, calling him from the vain pursuit of vanities, and asking what all of it is about.

To an egoistic, boasting age and nation, this message, coming from a far off time and a distant land, reminds us that all wisdom is garnered neither now nor here. This Persian Pearl remained unpolished for more than seven hundred years. It was left for Edward FitzGerald carefully and patiently to burnish up the gem, and make it the thing of beauty that we know.

It may be that research and study would reveal much of the personal traits and private life of the great Persian philosopher, whose fame has so outlived his clay, but with these we can have no concern. It is not important to know his parents, or whether he had a wife or children, or cattle or lands. All of these are gone and only his work remains. True, we cannot but reflect on the personality of the poet in whose brain these great thoughts were born, but we can know the man only by knowing his works. Some there are who stand at a distance and view the acts of the imperfect beings, who at the best stumble and grope along the uncertain path between the cradle and the grave. All the footsteps that are straight and true are unnoticed as they pass by, but the irregular, uncertain, shifting tracks stand out alone to mark the character of the pilgrim, who bore his heavy load the best he could. These forget that every son of man travels an unbeaten path—a road beset with dangers and temptations that no other wanderer met; that his footsteps can be judged only in the full knowledge of the strength and light he had, the burden that he carried, the obstacles and temptations that he met, and a thorough knowledge of every open and secret motive that impelled him here or there.

That Omar’s steps were often winding and devious, and like those of all other mortal men, we gather from his words. No doubt his neighbors delighted in gossiping about the great philosopher, and his reputation was often tarnished by their idle words. These slanderers have been long forgotten—they could not live upon the great name they sullied, and we should not even know he was their prey except for lines like these:

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long Have done my credit in Men’s eyes much wrong; Have drown’d my Glory in a shallow Cup, And sold my reputation for a Song.

Eight hundred years ago, as to-day, the love of wine was one of the chief weaknesses of the flesh. Doubtless the other frailties of human nature are of substantially the same kind as eight centuries ago, for while man may change the fashion of his garment or religion, nature is ever consistent and persistent, and is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. But our old human philosopher, like our modern human men, saw the folly of his ways, and made many a brave resolve, but these good intentions and solemn purposes melted in the sunshine then the same as now.

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore—but was I sober when I swore? And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

But Omar was greater than most of the weak and sinning children of to-day. His own frailties taught him the rare lesson, that of all the virtues, charity is the chiefest! And as we read the wondrous product of his brain and understand the thoughts that stirred his being, we can know the man better than his neighbors who judged a great soul by the narrow vision of sordid minds. We know that his purpose was lofty, and above all the mists and conflicting emotions and desires of his life he rose majestic and supreme, unsullied by the specks that can only mar the weak. Let us turn then to the philosophy and poetry of this great soul to know the man, and as figs are not gathered of thistles, we may be sure that broad thoughts, high aspirations, and tender charity are born only of great minds and rare men.

To Omar Khayyam, the so-called sins of men were not crimes, but weaknesses inherent in their being and beyond their power to prevent or overcome. He knew that man could not separate himself from all the rest of nature; and that the rules and conditions of his being were as fixed and absolute as the revolutions of the planets and the changing seasons of the year. Above man and his works he saw the heavy hand of destiny, ever guiding and controlling, ever moving its creature forward to the inevitable fate that all the centuries had placed in store for the helpless captive, marching shackled to the block.

There have ever been two views of life. Both philosophies have been made by man and mostly for him. One places him above all the rest of the universe, whose infinite mysteries are constantly revolving and changing before his hazy, wondering gaze. The portion of the world that comes nearest to his eyes he cannot understand, and his own existence is a riddle that all the ages have not solved. And yet, amidst it all, one system teaches that man rules supreme,—and the fate of all the worlds, or of all that may exist thereon, has no relation to his own. The other peers into the thick darkness that hangs above, and can see no light, it does not understand and will not guess; the endless mysteries are not for mortal man to solve. Its devotees feel themselves part of a mighty whole, and are powerless to separate their lives from all the rest, and would not dare to undertake it if they could. They know that in the great, unlimited universe they are less than the tiniest bubble in the wildest, angriest sea. That in the words of the Rubaiyat:

We are no other than a moving row Of magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with this Sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show.

Omar Khayyam was probably not the first, certainly not the last, to feel the impotence of man in the great power which animates the whole. He could have no faith in the cruel religious tenets, which eight centuries ago in Persia, as ever since in the Christian world, have taught the responsibility of the helpless victim for the great, blind work in which he had no part. He seemed to think that back of all the universe, some intelligent power moved and controlled the world for some purpose unknown to all except himself, but he could not think that man was in any way accountable for the whole. To him, the great master sent us here or there to suit his will, and it was left for us only to obey his mighty power. The individual units of humanity were to him only:

Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays Upon this checker-board of Nights and Days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Even this does not sufficiently express his thought of man’s absolute irresponsibility for his acts.

We have all met the parallel drawn between man and the pottery fashioned by the moulder from the clay. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the helplessness of the human being in the hands of the power that fashioned and shaped him, even ages before his birth,—the uncontrollable force that determined the length of his body, the color of his hair, the size and shape of his brain and the contour of his face. But the comparison made in the beautiful stanza wrought by Omar, and retouched and gilded by the magic of FitzGerald, is wondrously powerful and fine. The poet ranges his poor pieces of pottery in line, each representing a man; each imperfect in structure or form, like all the other creatures ever made. These poor, imperfect vessels, fresh from the potter, each pleads its cause and makes excuses for its faults.

After a momentary silence spake Some vessel of a more ungainly Make: “They sneer at me for leaning all awry: What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”

When will humanity be great enough and good enough to distinguish between the fault of the potter and the fault of the pot! When can it look over the myriads of human beings, each with his flaws and limitations, and pity instead of blame!

The history of the past is a record of man’s cruel inhumanity to man; of one imperfect vessel accusing and shattering another for the faults of both. In ancient times and amongst savage tribes, the old, the infirm, and the diseased were led out and put to death; even later, the maniac and imbecile were fettered, chained, beaten, and imprisoned because they were different from other men. The world has grown a little wiser, and perhaps humaner, as the centuries have passed away. We have learned to build asylums, and treat the afflicted with tenderness and care. We have learned not to blame the dwarf for his stature; the hunchback for his load; the deaf because they cannot hear, and the blind because they cannot see. We do not expect the midget to carry the giant’s load, or the cripple to triumph in a contest of speed. We establish a regulation size for policemen and soldiers, but we do not put a man to death because his stature is below the standard fixed. We forgive the size of the foot, the length of the arm, the shade of the hair, the color of the eye, and even the form of the skull. But, while we do not blame a man because he has an ill-shaped head, we punish him because the brain within conforms to the bone which molds its form. The world has made guns and swords, racks and dungeons, chains and whips, blocks and gibbets, and to these have dragged an endless procession thro’ all the past. It has penned and maimed, tortured and killed, because the potter’s work was imperfect and the clay was weak. During all the ages it has punished mental deformity as a crime, and without pity or regret has crushed the imperfect vessels beneath its feet. Every jail, every scaffold, every victim—is a monument to its cruelty and blind unreasoning wrath. Whether it was a fire kindled to burn a heretic in Geneva,—a gibbet erected to kill a witch in Salem,—or a scaffold made to put to death an ordinary “criminal,” it has ever been the same,—the punishment of the creature for the creator’s fault. There might be some excuse if man could turn from the frail, cracked vessels, and bring to trial the great potter for the imperfect work of his hand.

But we live in the shadows; we can see only the causes and effects that are the closest to our eyes. If the clouds would rise, and the sun shine bright, and our vision reach out into time and space, we might find that these cracked vessels serve as high a purpose in a great, broad scheme, as the finest clay, wrought in the most beautiful and perfect form. The following stanza was born of this philosophy and would inevitably come from the broad, charitable brain that had studied the creeds that told of the cruelty of the great Maker, but whose brain and conscience had not been stunted and warped by their palsying dogmas:

Then said a Second—“Ne’er a peevish Boy Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; And he that with his hand the Vessel made Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.”

The cruel religious dogmas, which in Omar’s land and Age, as in our own, blackened both man and his Maker, had no terrors for a soul like his. He could not believe in eternal punishment. The doctrine was a slander, alike to God and man. He felt something of the greatness of a force that could permeate and move the countless worlds, which make up the limitless, unfathomed infinite we call the Universe. He saw in man one of the smallest and most insignificant toys created by this power to serve some unknown end; and he could not believe that the Master-Builder would demand of his imperfect children more than he had furnished them the strength to give. His faith in the justice of man’s case before the great Judge is shown in the following stanza:

Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the Road I was to wander in, Thou wilt not with Predestin’d Evil round Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!

But even more strongly he presents the case of God against man, and man against God, for all the crimes and miseries and sufferings of the world. It would doubtless be difficult in all the literature of the earth to find a juster, bolder statement of the old question of the responsibility for sin. To some minds, this strong expression may seem like blasphemy, but it is manly and courageous, logical and just.

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake; For all the Sin wherewith the face of Man Is blacken’d—Man’s forgiveness give—and take!

This is not the cringing prayer of the coward, who asks God’s forgiveness to appease his wrath, but the utterance of a noble soul, who asks forgiveness for the shortcomings of his life, and at the same time pardons his Maker for creating him as he did. The world has heard much of man’s duty to God, of the responsibility which the unconsulted, fragile children of a day owe to the power that is responsible for all. It is time we heard more of the duty of God to man; the responsibility of the Creator for making “conscious something” out of unthinking, unfeeling clay.

“Oh, many a cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the memory of that insolence!”

The world has talked the same nonsense of the duty of children to parents. It has taught this, because parents are larger, and have the brute power to compel obedience to their demands. All the duties are from parents to children,—from those who thoughtlessly, wantonly, to satisfy their own desires, call into conscious being a human life,—send another soul with all its responsibilities out on the great, wide sea, to be tossed and buffeted and torn, until, mangled and dead, it is thrown out upon the sands to bleach.

But after all, whether it was wise or unwise, just or unjust, we have been placed upon the earth as sentient beings and charged with the responsibilities of life; and practical philosophy asks the question, what does it mean, and how shall we take the journey which a higher power has decreed that we shall make?

The poet and the dreamer and the copy book have told us much of the meaning of life. We often repeat these lessons to make ourselves believe them true. When we feel a doubt casting its shadow across our path, we read them once again to drive the doubt away; and yet, in spite of all, we know absolutely nothing of the scheme, or whether there is any kind of plan. We are only whistlers passing through a graveyard, with our ears tied close and our eyes shut fast. It would surely be as well to step boldly up and read the inscription on the marble tomb and then walk round and look at the vacant, grinning space upon the other side, calmly waiting to record our name.

Measured by the philosophy of to-day, Omar Khayyam was a pessimist; he was not gifted with second sight. He saw no spooks and ghosts, and he would not look out into the midnight, and declare that his eyes discerned a glorious rainbow, bright with fresh colors and unbounded hopes. All the proud promises and brave assumptions and false theories of the world were to him a mockery and a sham. The mysticisms of religion and philosophy alike were hollow and bare. The “jarring sects” and quibbling doctors, with their fine-spun webs, were worthy the attention only of children and professors. This is the way he put them down:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went.

While it is true that in the common meaning Omar was a pessimist, still this word, like many others, is rarely well defined. All men understand the uncertainties of life, the disappointments and troubles of existence, and the infinitesimal time that is reluctantly parceled out to each mortal from the eternity that had no beginning and will have no end. The pessimist looks at all the hurry and rush, the torment and strife, the ambitions and disappointments that are the common lot, and can see no prizes so tempting as rest and peace. He makes the most of what he has, and looks contentedly forward to the long sleep that brings relief at last.

Omar Khayyam was not deceived by all the glitter and bustle of the world. He saw the stage from behind the curtain, as well as from the circle before the scenes. He looked on the great surging mass of men, ever pulling and pushing, striving and trying, working and fighting, as if all eternity was theirs in which to build, and all unmindful of the silent bookkeeper, who could be deceived by no false entries, and ever remembered to demand his dues. Of life he said:

‘Tis but a Tent where takes his one day’s rest A Sultan to the Realm of Death addrest; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.

In the presence of all that the world had to offer,—while honors and glories fell fast upon his head, he still could not close his eyes to the facts of existence, and the mortality of human things. It may be that he mused too much upon the great fact that ever sternly faces life,—the great being before whom all monarchs bow, and in whose presence all crowns are shattered. To the boasting and forgetful, these words may not be pleasant, but they still are true:

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d Of the Two worlds so learnedly are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their words to Scorn Are scatter’d and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

Neither the great nor the good could avoid the common fate; the unyielding messenger came alike to call the proud Sultan and the good and kindly friend.

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his Vintage rolling Time has prest, Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest.

Death is so common that we sometimes wonder why men make plans,—why they ever toil or spin. But, of course, we can see only the leaves that fall from other stalks. Rarely do we feel that all this has a personal meaning, and that our turn soon must come. Omar looked at the stricken friends around him, and thus mused:

Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

It has never required the great or the learned to note the constant falling of the leaves and the ceaseless running of the sands. It is mainly from this that systems of religion have been evolved. Man has ever sought to make himself believe that these things are not what they seem; that, in reality, death is only birth, and the body but a prison for the soul. This may be true, but the constant cries and pleadings of the ages have brought back no answering sound to prove that death is anything but death.

Our old philosopher could not accept these pleasing creeds on faith. He preferred to plant his feet upon the shifting doubtful sands, rather than deceive himself by alluring and delusive hopes. Upon the old question of immortality, he could answer only what he knew, and this is what he said:

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through Not one returns to tell us of the Road Which to discover we must travel too.

This stanza is perhaps gloomy and hopeless, but it is thoughtful, and brave, and beautiful. We may seek to be children if we will, but whatever our desires, we cannot strangle the questions that ever rise before our minds and will not be put away. To our own souls we should be just and true. Peace and comfort, when gained at the sacrifice of courage and integrity, are purchased at too high a price. The truth alone can make us free, and

“One flash of it within the tavern caught Better than in the Temple lost outright.”