# The Mountain of God

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: E. S. Stevens, The Mountain of God, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> The Mountain of God
> by E. S. (Ethel Stefana) Stevens
> 
> published in World Order, 4:3-4:4, pages 28-52; 33-50
> 1911/1970
> 
> World Order 4:3 (Spring 1970), pages 28-52 together with
> World Order 4:4 (Summer 1970), pages 33-50
> 
> Introduction
> 
> IN THIS ISSUE and the next, WORLD ORDER offers its readers a special treat: excerpts
> from a forgotten novel by a forgotten author. The Mountain of God was published in London in
> 1911. It was noticed in the press and, having been greeted, it seems, with deep public
> indifference, quickly disappeared from sight. When the editors of WORLD ORDER came upon
> the book and tried to find out who the author, E. S. Stevens, was, they discovered that the name
> was not listed in standard reference works on English writers, and that even Yale's Sterling
> Library, famous for its collection of English novels, had not one of Stevens' books.
> 
> If read as a work of literature, The Mountain of God is bound to disappoint. The story is
> melodramatic. The crippled Englishman traveling for his health, the idealistic Turkish officer
> with a German name who is involved in the Young Turk movement, his trusting "Oriental" wife,
> these and other dramatis personae are so familiar that one has a feeling of having read about
> them before. The plot is slow and not particularly exciting. The situations are quite predictable,
> the characterizations weak, and the writing hackneyed. Why then should WORLD ORDER want
> to resurrect this book from long oblivion?
> 
> Some books survive as works of art, read for their own sake; others for some extraneous
> reason. The Mountain of God turns out to be a significant historical document. E. S. Stevens,
> whoever he or she was, had spent considerable time in Haifa and 'Akka before 1911, met the
> small group of dedicated Bahá'ís resident there, among them the great calligrapher Mishkin
> Qalam, and attained the presence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. This unforgettable experience is recorded in
> the pages of The Mountain of God.
> 
> The title refers to Mt. Carmel, and the story unfolds on its dry, stony slopes. Robert
> Underwood, the partially paralyzed young Englishman who comes to Haifa to spend a few
> months; Mrs. Greville, a slightly eccentric Englishwoman in love with a Turkish officer Schmidt
> Pasha; Schmidt himself; Gerald Whitby, an Orientalist from Oxford —they all become involved
> with the Bahá'í exiles on Mt. Carmel. The exiles seem to possess a secret knowledge which
> gives them peace, happiness, and a radiance that is visible to any but the most superficial
> observer, or one whose mind is so totally out of tune with things of the spirit that it cannot see
> the brightest light even while looking at it directly. Whitby is a Bahá'í; Schmidt Pasha becomes
> one; Underwood, in spite of all his fine sensitivity, makes no commitment, though he is deeply
> affected by his Persian friends. Only Mrs. Greville is unmoved.
> 
> The Persian Bahá'ís as drawn by E. S. Stevens are true to life. Mishkin Qalam, of course, is
> no fictional character. Others may also be recognized as real persons. Their conversations ring
> true. The atmosphere in which they move is real. Every one of them is guided, motivated, and
> inspired by the Master, 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He appears in the novel but once, yet dominates it from
> beginning to end. The encounter between 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the fictional Underwood is brief and
> inconsequential. What fascinates a Bahá'í reader today is the accurate description of the Master,
> and the report of the effect He made on all those who came within the orbit of His personality.
> 
> The editors of WORLD ORDER do not know whether E. S. Stevens ever became a Bahá'í.
> Internal evidence drawn from the novel itself appears inconclusive. However, the author had
> seen 'Abdu'l-Bahá and reported the experience as accurately as the pen would allow. The report
> is precious to the Bahá'ís who read it today. It will become even more precious in the future
> when the last survivors of the Heroic Age of the Faith will have left this world. Here lies the
> value of The Mountain of God and here lies the guarantee of its survival through the centuries.
> 
> The text of the novel is reproduced exactly as it appears in the 1911 edition. We have not
> changed the spelling or added diacritical marks to transliterated Arabic and Persian words.
> 
> - editors, World Order, 1970.
> 
> To Abdul Baha
> In Gratitude, respect and affection
> All that is God in an imperfect book
> Is dedicated
> 
> "This mountain is a holy mountain: it has always been sanctified. The prophets have always
> loved it. Christ has trodden on its paths; Elijah lived upon it. The wind is sweet on it, the flowers
> are many, the view is wonderful. When you come up the mountain many fragrances reach you;
> the pure air gladdens you; the beauty refreshes you. So the mind is made single, the thoughts
> are purified; the spirit turns to God."
> (In a conversation with Abdul Baha.)
> 
> "Where are you going?" she inquired, after a moment, with cheerful naturalness.
> "To Haifa."
> "So am I! For long?"
> "For a week or two – to pick up."
> She considered him gravely.
> "And you?" asked Underwood, feeling that he might exchange the role of catechised for that
> of catechist.
> "I? I don't know how long I shall stay. Perhaps a long while." Her eyes were serious. "I have
> business in Haifa."
> "Really," he said, awkwardly, to fill in the pause which ensued.
> "Yes," she continued. "It's about some property there, on Mount Carmel – you know, where
> Elijah sacrificed the prophets."
> He masked a smile, for it was said unconsciously.
> "It's still thought a holy mountain," she went on, "by every one – the Mohammedans and
> Jews as well as the Christians. There is something in the air, they say, which makes one able
> to understand hidden things – something which awakes the spiritual nature. My mother used to
> tell me that. But from what I know of the people who live there, I should think that that was a
> piece of sentimentalism, and that it really is a hotbed for cranks. However, they call it The
> Mountain of God."
> As Mrs. Greville had prophesied, it was to the German hotel that Underwood had been
> consigned by the omnipotent Cook. There was, in fact, little choice. As he was bumped over the
> uneven main road of Haifa, through the unclean Syrian town, with its crowds of semi-
> Europeanised natives, he saw no other caravanserai, except an uninviting native locanda near
> the quay. A few dogs lay about the streets on rubbish heaps, where such were available, with
> the air of pashas, to cringe away with a yelp if a passer-by touched one inadvertently with his
> foot. In the public square, near the entrance to the native bazaar, though it was not more than
> eight o'clock, the fishmarket was busily in progress, and close by outside a native café, men
> whose yellow-embroidered kerchief bound around the fez proclaimed them Moslems in spite of
> their slovenly European dress, sat idly smoking argilehs. As they drew the smoke through the
> bubbling water they talked little, and regarded the world with indifference and dignity, the
> traveller included.
> Underwood was tired. He had scarcely slept; he had endured one of those nights of physical
> and mental torture that left him exhausted afterwards, as a demoniac from whom the evil spirit
> has departed. He was glad when he was alone in the room which had been engaged for him,
> and glad that the necessity for effort was for the moment over. At Magner's insistence, he
> allowed himself to rest on the high white German bed, with its mosquito curtains drawn canopy-
> wise. The room had many windows, and though the careful Magner had pulled to the
> persiennes to exclude the brilliant Syrian sun, he could hear the sea breaking rhythmically
> against the shore below the hotel, and the spring breeze in the pine trees just outside, pulsing
> and purring through the green needles, and bringing into the room the resinous smell and the
> perfume of other growing things in the garden – citron blossom perhaps.
> At half-past eleven Magner appeared with some hot water, and several letters. Underwood
> had almost fallen asleep, but he roused himself, washed, and opened his correspondence.
> 'DEAR OLD MAN" – began the first – "I hear you’re going to Haifa sooner or later, and so
> I've asked Gerald Whitby to call on you – he lives there, I believe, or makes Haifa his
> headquarters. He and I were at Magdalen together; he's a good Orientalist, rather a queer little
> chap, but a thoroughly good sort. Please drop him a line, care of the Ottoman Bank, when you
> arrive, and he'll do all he can for you, I know.
> 
> DEAR MR. UNDERWOOD, – I shall be in the Colony to-morrow and will call on you at nine
> o'clock, unless you are otherwise engaged. – Yours sincerely,”
> GERALD WHITBY.
> "P.S. – I mean 9 a.m."
> 
> This note had been brought to Underwood the night before at dinner. He was slightly
> astonished, as he had not yet written to announce his arrival; however, it was possible that
> Whitby had heard from Cook's agent. He had been in Haifa several days, and had got rid of the
> fatigues of his journey. His naturally fine constitution gave him wonderful recuperative power.
> He was able to practise walking a little daily with the aid of his crutches as the Viennese doctor
> had ordained, and felt an increase of strength as if the air of the place suited him. It was this
> very persistent strength of his which made him impatient and tortured him beyond knowledge. It
> was as if he were battering against an iron door, which could never be opened.
> With Magner beside him, he swung himself slowly up the main road which led through the
> German colony; the two sidewalks bordered on either side with olives, pines, carobs, pepper
> trees, cypresses, and fig trees; the last white and leafless as yet, though it was as warm as an
> English May. In front of every house, whose wide cool porches were made to combat the heat
> of the summer, was a garden, trim and gay; divided, but not hidden, from the passer-by by a
> low wooden fence. In these little gardens vegetables and flowers grew together in harmony,
> and as he passed along the shady walks he could see the women of the colony sturdily at work
> with hoe and rake, kerchiefs tied around their heads, and their skirts tucked up above their thick
> ankles. These uncomely but good-tempered German matrons were the mothers of large
> families, from big-boned, undeveloped-looking elder daughters and their brothers, to the pretty
> flaxen-haired little children who played at giant's stride outside the sunny schoolhouse and
> dropped him shy curtseys if he spoke or smiled to them. They ran about barefoot for the most
> part, healthy as the Bedouin children who pattered along the Jaffa road at the foot of the colony
> beside their father's asses
> The Jaffa road, which Underwood could see from his window, was a constant source of
> amusement to him. Groups of Bedouins, their puce-colored keffiyehs fluttering behind them,
> paced past on the highway with their cattle, or rode magnificently mounted on horses of varying
> degrees of breed. Long strings of camels, led by an Arab on a donkey in front, and an Arab with
> a forked goad on another donkey behind, and laden with unknown merchandise, plodded
> dustily along it till they disappeared in the bend of the road between the sub-tropical gardens of
> the German colonists, towards the point where Mount Carmel sloped abruptly down to the
> sapphire sea.
> Mount Carmel was the presiding genius of the place. The town lay nursed in her mighty lap,
> her long flanks stretched away to the sea on the north and south and west, the sun
> disappeared behind her long ridge a full hour before the sunset rosied the sky and set the
> snows of Mount Hermon, her far white sister, on fire on the other side of the bay.
> The sides of the mountain were thinly clothed with green and shrubs – here and there rocky
> and bare, here and there interspersed with olives and low pine trees. Houses occasionally
> dotted its surface, and, in patches, its sides were scarred with brown where the vines, still
> barren in their winter sleep, gave promise of the autumn vintage.
> In the wonderful clearness of the air and intensity of the light, every detail stood out with
> astonishing clearness. Underwood found that his eyes wandered constantly to the mountain.
> Mrs. Greville had called it the Mountain of God, and the name had an odd fascination for him.
> He had seen or heard nothing of her since his arrival, and it was with a lonely man's
> gladness that he received Whitby's brief note. It was only due to his own negligence that he had
> not made the first advance.
> At nine Whitby was shown into the upper balcony where Underwood was sitting. He proved
> to be a slightly made, insignificant-looking man on first sight; he wore a beard, and his thin face
> was very sunburnt. For the rest he had a courteous manner, a diffident, slightly detached and
> apologetic air – not uncommon in scholars. Underwood noticed his extremely beautiful hands.
> "I am disturbing you too early," Whitby said, looking at the breakfast-tray on the table beside
> Underwood's chair.
> "No, no; I have finished. I was expecting you."
> "We are early risers here – I should have remembered that you are accustomed to European
> hours."
> "Mayn't I offer you some breakfast? – a whisky and soda?"
> "Thanks, I have sworn off alcohol, and I had my coffee at five."
> "How did you know I was here? I have been meaning to write, but – "
> "I saw you. But as I was occupied at the time with some important business, I could not
> come to you as I wished. Of course Prothero told me you were coming."
> "You and he were at Magdalen together."
> "Yes; and we have kept up a desultory correspondence ever since. He told me about you –
> and your accident."
> "It was kind of you to look me up."
> "I hope I can be of some use to you. Unfortunately I am leaving Haifa in a few days."
> "For long?"
> "I don't know.... I am not my own master."
> The phrase suddenly reminded Underwood of Mrs. Greville when she had said, "I am not my
> own mistress." But Whitby spoke with a dreamy seriousness, his eyes filled with an expression
> that conveyed to Underwood the impression that something of immense importance to the little
> scholar lay behind the words.
> "The most I can do," Whitby went on, "is to introduce you to a few people here. Do you know
> any one yet?"
> "I met a Mrs. Greville on the way out."
> "Mrs. Greville?" Whitby repeated. "I seem to know the name."
> "She has some property on Mount Carmel."
> "Ah yes; I have heard of her. But she doesn't live here?"
> "She has just come out. Then, at table d'hôte and so on, I have more or less picked up
> acquaintance with some of the Germans here – and some Russian Jews who are apparently
> staying at the hotel until their house is completed."
> "There is a growing Zionist colony here."
> "So I hear."
> "And have you met Schmidt Pasha?"
> "No – at least not to my knowledge."
> "He usually stays here when he is in Haifa. But he comes and goes – no one knows his
> movements. But he knows England well – has stayed there a long time. There was a good deal
> about him in the papers at the time of the Counter- Revolution. He is a powerful member of the
> Committee of Union and Progress."
> "What nationality?"
> "A hybrid. But he is not a Levantine and not a Jew. He is Turkish to all intents and
> purposes."
> "And the 'Pasha'?"
> "It's an hereditary title, I believe; or, at any rate, his father was a pasha too. The father
> received it for services rendered to Ismail Pasha in Egypt. He also has a considerable interest
> in the Hedjaz railway, so he is a rich man. He is very able, and speaks English well. But you
> talk German?"
> "I understand it. But I prefer my mother speech. I have not the gift of tongues, like yourself.
> Prothero tells me you are a great Orientalist."
> Whitby's fine hands moved in a gesture of disavowal, almost discomposure.
> "I have studied Arabic; but I have difficulty in speaking it. Persian I know fairly well."
> "The language of Omar Khayyam. I should like to read that fine old cynic in the original. And
> Hafiz and Sa'adi, and the rest. What a pity one can't be inoculated with a language by
> mechanical means. I mean, if one could only insert a tiny portion of brain matter containing the
> complete knowledge of a language!"
> Whitby smiled. "It is a pity. But a time will come when languages will become as obsolete as
> dialects. And the universal language will be so flexible, so expressive, that none of the classics
> of the Old World will lose in translation into it – perhaps they will even gain."
> "You are an Esperantist?"
> "In a sense. But in living Esperanto which will have vitality because it has developed
> naturally through a process of evolution. Think of the immense barrier which language offers
> now. It is the cause of half the hostility and misunderstanding between nations. A man who can
> speak the language of another nation really well, must necessarily get into sympathy with the
> soul of that nation."
> "And conversely, to speak the language of another nation well, one must first get into
> sympathy with that nation."
> “That first."
> "And you really think that that would be desirable? To my mind it has something of the horror
> that the visions of Socialists call up before you. To replace defined characteristics and the
> picturesque mysteries and non-comprehensions, the mountains and valleys and mysterious
> caverns, by one flat, perfectly illuminated plane."
> "You are counting without your host."
> "Which is?"
> "In this case Nature. Does Nature ever allow a dead level? Isn't she always the artist, careful
> of her lights and shades, her mixing of colours?"
> "That is true," Underwood replied. "But artificiality may spoil her work. Isn't civilisation, as
> seen in our big towns, ugly enough?"
> "It is civilisation in a state of evolution. The dirt, the sordidness, the ugliness, are what
> remain from barbarism. Civilisation is still in the workshop."
> "But man is a bungling workman. How do we know that ugliness will not be the end as it was
> the beginning?"
> "Because God is the master workman, and the end must be perfection."
> Underwood looked at him sharply. There was an abrupt change in the other's voice, as if he
> were against his own will saying something intimate, something personal. Underwood suddenly
> realised that God to this man was in some way a reality, and not a form of speech, and a
> curiosity to see into Whitby's mind arose in him.
> Then Whitby said, as if to change the subject –
> "I should like to introduce you to a Persian friend of mine here, by the way; he will do
> anything for you that he can. I have asked him to be at your disposal."
> "How is it that a Persian is here in Syria?"
> "There are many." He spoke with a certain reserve.
> "Many? But why?"
> Whitby paused, and then replied: "The Bahai exiles were sent to Akka, just across the bay."
> He pointed to the sea visible through the pine trees.
> "The Bahais," Underwood repeated. "I seem to have heard of them. Ah, I remember! Didn't
> some chap at Oxford1 write a book about them? I know they were talking about it one night at
> dinner, when Digby, who'd been attaché at the British Legation at Teheran, was there. Some
> Persian or other called himself the Gate or the Door, or something, and he was shot; and there
> was a wholesale slaughter of his followers."
> "That was the Bab," said Whitby. "Did you never read the history of him? It has been
> translated into English, and was written by a poor Persian prisoner... . " His eyes strayed to the
> mountain. "Do you see that big brown building on the hill?" he asked. "Straight before us. The
> sun is on it. There are cypresses beside it."
> "Yes," said Underwood, following his gaze.
> 
> [Anmerkung des Abschreibenden]: gemeint ist Prof. E.G. Browne
> "He is buried in that place."
> "Who? The Bab? But he was killed in Persia. How did they get the body here?"
> "Don't you remember what Turner said when they asked him how he mixed his paints? He
> answered, 'With brains.' So to your question, how did they get the body here, I reply, 'With
> devotion.' "
> "But they were a proscribed sect, weren't they? It must have been difficult."
> "It was difficult," Whitby answered, with a smile.
> Underwood was searching his memory.
> "Yes," he went on; "and Digby said that one of them declared that he was another
> Mohammed, or another Christ, or whatever it was. These are the people, then? But he didn't
> call them Bahais, but some name rather like it.
> "Yes," Whitby answered. "These are the people. Before the declaration of Baha 'Ullah, they
> were called Babis. But as they saw in Baha 'Ullah the manifestation of Divine Wisdom that the
> Bab had foretold, they became known as Bahais."
> "And is this Baha 'Ullah living now?"
> "He died in prison in Akka."
> "Then they are without a leader?"
> "No; they have a leader."
> "Where? "
> "Here. The son of Baha 'Ullah."
> "So there were really three generations of prophets – the Bab, and the manifestation person,
> and the present leader?"
> "Yes."
> "Do you mean that he is here in Haifa?"
> "Till last year he was a prisoner in Akka. Since the Constitution2 he and his family have been
> given freedom.''
> "Then why the deuce don't they go back to Persia?"
> "He – they – do not wish to leave Mount Carmel."
> "The Mountain of God," supplemented Underwood involuntarily.
> Whitby's eyes became again alive with the strange look of intimacy which Underwood had
> noticed before.
> "Yes," he repeated. "The Mountain of God."
> His eyes, still on the mountain, were peopled with thoughts which he did not share with the
> other man.
> "I can't think why Carmel should be called the Mountain of God," said Underwood, following
> his gaze. "Hermon, across the bay, seems to me infinitely more beautiful, more mysterious. It
> lies distant, it is veiled by clouds, there is something of the beauty of unapproachableness
> about it, its eternal snows, its height, its power of appearing and disappearing according to the
> weather, make it far better adapted to the name. Carmel is scarcely more than a hill; it is so
> devoid of mystery that in this atmosphere you can see almost every blade of grass, and there
> are no shadows or mists upon it.'
> 
> [Anmerkung des Abschreibenden]: seit der Jungtürkischen Revolution 1908
> "Why should God be expressed by a mist and indistinctness?" asked Whitby, smiling slightly.
> "Don't you remember the Jewish conception of Him? – 'the Father of Lights, with whom is no
> variableness nor shadow of turning.' "
> Underwood raised himself a little painfully to another position.
> "You believe in God – the Jewish God?" he asked abruptly.
> "Why give Him a nationality?" Whitby asked pertinently.
> "Well, then, a conscious deity – not merely an indefinite and metaphysical First Cause?"
> But Magner appeared at this moment.
> "Mrs. Greville to see you, sir."
> "Ask her up," said Underwood.
> "I have asked myself up," said Mrs. Greville, behind him. "Wasn't that rude of me? But I saw
> you on the balcony from below, and thought that you were alone."
> Her eyes, always full of a friendliness that was almost flagrant, went from one man to the
> other. Underwood introduced Whitby.
> "Mr. Whitby?" she echoed. "Surely I've heard – ah yes, in connection with this Persian …"
> She paused, as if she were afraid to enter upon a subject, and then in the infantile, airy way
> which women of the world adopt when they wish to appear ingenuous, she went on: "They tell
> me he is a delightful person. The French Consul yesterday talked a long time about him – and
> this movement of his, or religion – which would you call it?" Underwood saw her eyes quickly
> absorb Whitby, and guessed that she had an avidity for brushing, with butterfly lightness, the
> intimate side of every human being with whom she came into contact. She had divined that in
> this man's interest or connection with the Persians, then, lay an intensely vital part of his nature,
> and she plucked at the strings of this knowledge like a child. Again, he disliked her for it.
> "I should call it both," Whitby replied, unperturbed. "It couldn't very well be a religion if it
> weren't a movement."
> "How about your contemplative mystics, then?" she asked, seating herself.
> "They're the drones in the hive," he answered, reddening a little, as he arranged a cushion
> behind her. "Personally, I think that religion was meant to be used, not locked up in a cupboard
> and looked at."
> "Admirably said," she remarked. "And unlike most men you've arranged the cushion just in
> the proper latitude for my back." She sank back against it.
> "What a lovely day," she continued, under her breath, as if speaking more to herself than to
> them. "How exquisitely clear the air is! I love Carmel on a day like this. Have you noticed yet,
> Mr. Underwood, how different the sunlight is here? It does not dazzle you, as our July sunshine
> does; on the contrary, it is something so transparent, so lucid, so intense, that you seem to be
> in another element. Our sunshine seems so muddy, and, well, almost fat, beside this thin
> magical light. It takes my breath away." She smiled lazily, at her own choice of words.
> "We were just talking of Carmel, before you came," said Whitby.
> "And of God," said Underwood mechanically.
> "Of God? Then you are getting the infection. Every one in Haifa talks of God – as if He lived
> in the next street. The missionaries talk about Him, stupidly for the most part, because
> conventionally. Then the Templars, the Germans, talk about Him, rather impertinently, I think;
> because they infer that they have the monopoly of Him, so to speak. Then there is your
> delightful Persian prophet, Mr. Whitby; and the Carmelites on the mountain, and the nuns by
> the sea; and the Mohammedans who are almost indecent with their immodest habit of praying
> in public. And several small sects, on their wild lones."
> Both men laughed, and she laughed too, an engaging natural laugh.
> "Well," said Underwood, falling in with her tone, "why shouldn't one?"
> "You know very well that in England you apologise if you happen to get on the subject of
> religion with people who are at all conventional. God is a backstairs and attic subject. But here
> they keep it in the dining-room – even at table d'hôte."
> "And you?" asked Whitby, in the tone of one who speaks to an amusing child.
> "I hate talking about anything which I don't understand."
> "Then you understand everything you talk about?" asked Underwood maliciously.
> "How unkind of you, Mr. Underwood! You've caught me out. But tell me what you were
> saying – about God! I'm sure Mr. Whitby will know. He's hand and glove with the Persian
> prophet here. What is his idea of the Deity? "
> She looked at Whitby with a bright, intelligent curiosity, like that of a bird. "It sounds like a
> debating society."
> Whitby looked embarrassed. He was conscious of the loneliness in the one soul, the frivolity
> in the other.
> "I don't know what to answer," he replied simply. "How can one have an idea of God? You
> can only be conscious of Him – as you are conscious of the sun, as you are conscious of fate."
> "Is that what your Persian prophet says?" Mrs. Greville said. "That's very vague. Now, I
> should like to have an image to worship. Frankly. Think of the days when the temple of Baal
> stood up on the mountain. There he was – an awful image, grim, solid – a symbol of inexorable
> Fate. One didn't merely go into a church and murmur polite and fulsome prayers to him; one
> brought one's children, and placed them into his red-hot arms. That was something like a faith. I
> can imagine the abandonment of immolation, the ecstasy that a mother felt when she had burnt
> what she held dearest in his honour. You see, Carmel was a Mountain of God even in those
> days."
> "But that was barbarous, horrible," Underwood said, his eyes on Carmel.
> "Aren't most strong things barbarous?"
> "Christianity wasn't barbarous," said Whitby; "and yet it has become one of the strongest
> forces in the world."
> "Not until the healthy part of paganism had been engrafted on to it," she replied. "Do we turn
> the other cheek? Do Dreadnoughts look like that? Do we do unto others as we would that they
> should do unto us? Not a bit of it. Ours is the morality of common sense, not of Christianity. We
> walk so as not to tread on other people's toes, because we know they'll tread on ours if we
> don't."
> Whitby looked at her with a kind of gentle horror. Mrs. Greville, vivid, talkative, specious,
> belonged to a world which he had scarcely known even in his studious Oxford days. She,
> always sensitive to criticism, turned to him with a frank smile, the instinct to please uppermost.
> "You don't like to hear me talk like that, Mr. Whitby. I'm not sure that I mean it, either. And I
> have shocked you."
> "No, no," he replied shyly. "I think you are right – we have wandered very far from the
> teachings of Christ, of course." He hesitated, and then went on: "It was time that the law of love
> should be proclaimed again – the world was never so ripe for it."
> "And is that the message of your Persian prophet?" she asked pertinaciously.
> "Of Baha 'Ullah?" he repeated. "Yes."
> "The law of love! It sounds delightful, don't you think so, Mr. Underwood? To love your
> neighbour as yourself! What could sound nicer, and what be more difficult – especially when
> the neighbour's wife is there to be loved too, and complicate matters. No – Mr. Whitby, a
> thousand prophets will never preach the law efficaciously. Nature forbids it. She has built her
> species on pitiless wars. Competition is the mainspring of progress."
> "We are not animals," Whitby said. "If we were entirely governed by the law of self-
> preservation – what of the men who have sacrificed their lives in fighting disease – this doctor
> who died from his experiments with X-rays, for example? And the Frenchman who received
> Mass before he started in his flying machine last week, for the last time? Those men willingly
> took their lives in their hands for the sake of progress. We are going to have a humanity who
> will do no less."
> "But they were working – your cases – for a very definite aim. A man will sacrifice a great
> deal for a definite aim, whether it's the conquest of an invention, or the conquest of an element,
> or the conquest of a woman. But your law of love is an indefinite idea. Why should I love my
> neighbour? Is he lovable? Very rarely. I'll love him when he is, and not before."
> "Yes, but you are counting without one thing," Whitby said, his eyes alight, as if in spite of
> himself. "The motive force."
> "And that is?"
> "The love of God. The love of man is only possible through that."
> "Ah," she said. "Now you're talking Algebra."
> "Algebra? "
> "God is the Unknown Quantity, isn't He. Why love Him? It seems to me, one might just as
> well talk of loving electricity."
> He smiled.
> "Tell me, frankly, do you really love God?" she persisted, with mischievous naivete.
> "And if I answered 'yes'?"
> "Really, I shouldn't believe you."
> "Then I won't answer," he said.
> "Yes, you shall – but another day. I've got to go – I'm a quarter of an hour late for an
> appointment as it is. But it is so novel to talk theology. Can't you both come to tea with me to-
> morrow? It will be rather a picnic tea – the house is in great disorder as yet." She looked at
> them both inquiringly.
> "With pleasure," said Underwood.
> "If I am here," said Whitby.
> "You are going away?"
> "Yes."
> "Back to England?"
> "No – to Teheran."
> "Take me with you!"
> "Why? "
> "How ungracious you are! Never mind, I won't come. If you haven't gone, then – to-morrow.
> My house is on the monastery road – any one will show you the way."
> She gave each her hand in turn, and went away, smiling, self-content.
> It was on Sunday afternoon that Underwood saw Whitby again, for the latter had sent a
> message that he could not come to the appointed lunch. He was announced at about four
> o'clock, and was brought up on to the upper terrace where Underwood was lying. Behind him
> came another slighter figure – a young man with a red tarbush3 on his head. Underwood
> wondered who he was for a moment, until he remembered that this was probably the Persian
> friend of whom they had spoken.
> [Anmerkung des Abschreibenden]: Tarbusch, Fes
> Whitby introduced his companion as Mirza Noureddin.
> "You speak English?" Underwood asked.
> "Yes, a little."
> His voice was melodious and his pronunciation careful. Underwood looked at him as he sat
> down on the chair which the waiter brought for him. Mirza Noureddin was clean shaven, and
> this added to his look of extreme and graceful youth. His eyes were unlike anything that
> Underwood had ever seen. They were the true Persian eyes, disproportionately large in his
> face – dark as pools of marsh water, fringed with long lashes which were coal-black and silky.
> Added to this, there was a velvety bloom over them like a curtain, which seemed to veil the
> inward thought which lies hard as a stone in clear water at the bottom of a European eye. Yet
> he lifted them ingenuously, with movements that were gentle, modest, and furtive as a young
> girl's.
> Underwood's attention was caught by the youth's appearance, he knew not why.
> "Where did you study it?" he asked. "You have a good accent."
> "I studied it in Akka." His lashes swept upwards, and with a gesture he indicated the little
> town across the bay, white as a seagull's breast where it lay against the long coast-line.
> "One can see Akka well to-day," said Whitby. "We must take you there one day soon."
> "I will take him to the Rizwan," said Noureddin, in his soft voice.
> "What is the Rizwan?"
> "That is our garden – it was made by the believers."
> "By the believers?"
> He explained himself without haste.
> "For the Bahai. They made it for the Blessed Perfection."
> Whitby was gazing across to Akka with his dreamy scholar's eyes.
> "The Rizwan will be at its best in a month or two, when the lilies are out and the mulberry
> trees by the river are in leaf," said he. "You should spend a whole day there."
> "I shall certainly have to go," said Underwood, wondering what pleasant and secret madness
> enwrapped these two people. He continued –
> "There's a much better view from here than on the balcony, isn't there, Whitby? One can see
> all the sea. By Jove! what a glorious sweep of bay! I should like to have my little red-wing here
> to do some yachting." He had ceased to remember for the moment that yachting was of the
> past, and added, with a short laugh, "Confound it! I forgot that that's knocked off too. I shall
> have to try to sell her."
> Noureddin listened with a slightly mystified expression.
> "I forget that I'm off the active list, sometimes," Underwood remarked to him, in explanation.
> "Pardon," said Noureddin, with a diffident smile, "but what is a redwing? "
> "It's a small yacht with scarlet sails," Underwood said.
> "Ah, you see my English is bad," he returned, with sadness. "Also the English is different to
> the American, though in books it is the same. But I am always learning. I should like to be able
> to write in English as I write in Persian. And this list you spoke of?"
> Underwood explained. "I've lost the use of my muscles, more or less."
> Noureddin's eyes filled with pity like a woman's.
> "That is bad," he said, like a child.
> "I've been giving Mirza Noureddin lessons for the past year," said Whitby; "but I'm afraid the
> English I've taught him has not been very colloquial. We've been doing some translations
> together."
> "Translations of what?" asked Underwood.
> He hesitated slightly. "Of – some of the Bahai manuscripts."
> "I almost feel inclined to take Persian lessons," said Underwood? with a smile. "Only I'm
> such a frightful duffer at languages, and one ought to get at them young, at the same age that
> we stuff Latin and Greek."
> "That is true," remarked Noureddin gravely, in his musical voice. "When one is young the
> brain is like butter – a fly can leave a mark upon it. And when one is old it is as iron. But you are
> not old yet. You are quite young. I will teach you."
> "Yes, why don't you study a little Persian, Underwood?" said Whitby. "You'll find that time will
> hang heavily here in Haifa if you haven't anything to do."
> "I'll think about it," said Underwood. "At present I am enjoying a lazy peace. For instance, I
> came up here to write a letter this afternoon, and found myself staring at Carmel for a whole
> hour together, without writing a word. There's something fascinating about it, though it's
> scarcely more than an insignificant little hill."
> "I wish you could go upon it," said Whitby simply. "The wild flowers are wonderful now, and
> still more wonderful later. A botanist once told me that he had picked a hundred and thirty
> different species of wild flowers on Carmel in one day."
> Underwood looked at the mountain wistfully.
> "You've made the carriage drive up to the Carmelite monastery, I suppose?" Whitby asked.
> "Not yet. But I will."
> "You get a good view from the plateau of Notre-Dame de Carmel. If you like, I'll give you a
> card to one of the fathers – an Irishman – a friend of mine. You'll like him, and he will be glad to
> see you."
> He drew out a worn pocket-book, and extracting a card, wrote upon it: "Ask for Father
> Patrick."
> "Thanks awfully, Whitby. You're acting sponsor for me all round."
> "Not as much as I should like. But Mirza Noureddin and his people, and Father Patrick, are
> my best friends here, and I'm handing them on to you, or rather you to them. I'm sorry you didn't
> come a month earlier."
> "When do you leave?"
> "I don't know yet," Whitby replied.
> "But surely you have an idea?"
> "It is not in my hands," he answered.
> Again Underwood felt excluded from some secret which Whitby held like a jewel in his soul.
> His friend had the look of a lover who guards in his heart a newly won happiness. He glanced at
> the young Persian. His face, too, was grave and serene, as with an inner knowledge.
> "I see," said Underwood.
> "And you must command me, if you want anything," Noureddin added, with sincerity in his
> dark wide eyes. "The friends of Mr. Whitby are our friends. I will come to you often, if you wish
> to see me. You will come to our house, like Mr. Whitby. If you wish to go to Akka, or to any
> other place, I am ready."
> Underwood answered with a smile. He felt attracted to the youth, as he would be attracted to
> a graceful and beautiful wild animal with gentle manners.
> "Come often, if you have time." he said. "I'm a lonely brute." He spoke almost as he would
> have spoken to a woman.
> "So Mr. Whitby has gone," said Underwood.
> "I have just come from the steamer," Noureddin replied. "He sent his love – his regards – to
> you, and told me to say many things. I shall be as your brother, he said."
> It was naively uttered, and the liquid eyes of the young Persian were wells of childlike truth
> and affection as he gazed at Underwood. How much of it was sincere?
> "That was very kind of him," said Underwood, "and very kind of you," he added.
> "And he gave me a little letter for you," continued Mirza Noureddin flutily, drawing it from his
> pocket. His dark eyes fluttered up to Underwood's.
> Underwood understood that he was to read it, and opened it.
> It was written in pencil on steamship paper –
> "MY DEAR UNDERWOOD, – Noureddin will bring you this. I find that I have ten minutes'
> grace, and employ it in writing to you. I had hoped to come in and say good-bye, but I was sent
> for at the last moment, and stayed so long that I was unable to get as far as your hotel. I made
> a thorough search for a room in the German colony, but could not find one. If it seems
> advisable, Noureddin will put another proposition before you, which you can accept or not, just
> as you like. Do not tell him that I have mentioned it in this letter; he will probably speak to you of
> it himself. With regard to the Persians, don't hesitate to accept any kindness they may offer you.
> I would like you to experience the disinterestedness and devotion of the Bahais here, as I have
> done. Their ideals of love and fraternity do not merely exist on paper; they are carried out in the
> most literal sense of the word. Don't be put off by the surface differences between Oriental and
> Occidental life that will strike you at first, as you see with fresh eyes, or that miserable aphorism
> that 'East is East, and West is West,' and so on. It was invented by the stupid and masculine
> West. The feminine East has more intuition. It is true she hates the West with the repulsion of a
> woman for a brutal conqueror, but in her heart there is the knowledge that there is the miracle
> of love to be accomplished, so that what is begun in lust and struggle may end in a union which
> shall be happiness for both. Sympathy and intuition are the keys. While we are busy reiterating
> that stupid 'East is East' refrain, we shall never put our hand to the keys. Just as love provides
> understanding between a man and a woman, love will provide understanding between the
> races. At present we are like the annoying pedagogues of a generation ago, who wished to
> prevent the education of women by reiterating that their brains weighed lighter.
> "Noureddin is waiting, so I must finish this quickly. I want to say something personal to you,
> and I am so cursedly English still that it is almost impossible to say it as I wished. Noureddin
> would say it to you as easily as a child who asks for jam on the top shelf; but I'm not Noureddin,
> and we've both got our English hatred of ever talking to others on vital facts. But I am going to
> write it, all the same. I envy you. Your Kismet has brought you up to a blank wall. You said as
> much to me the other day. It has taken the world away from you – you have not had to leave it.
> I was brought up against the blank wall too, but in a different way, along the road of a good
> many useless mental struggles.
> "I have said I envy you; because, if you only knew it, the wall isn't solid at all – and there's all
> the universe on the other side! God grant that you will know what I mean – you must know what
> I mean sooner or later – because for you there is no escape. You will probably wonder what I
> am blithering about.
> "Well, good-bye, and good luck. Forgive me for what will seem maniacal and presumptuous
> ravings, and believe me, yours sincerely,”
> GERALD WHITBY.
> 
> Underwood looked up to find Noureddin's grave eyes fixed on him.
> "I think Mr. Whitby wrote very much?" he said.
> "Yes, it is a long letter, not a little letter," said Underwood.
> "I came to ask," said Noureddin, "if you would come to our house to-day to drink tea. My
> father will like to see you. I have a carriage outside, if you will come."
> "Thanks," Underwood replied, "I'd like to. I'm looking forward to meeting your people."
> But he was still thinking of the odd tone of the letter, of its air of sincerity – the interest it
> displayed in himself. How had Whitby guessed at the psychical Sahara through which he was
> passing, at the Gehenna of burning dreariness which scorched his soul? He was against a
> blank wall, it was true. But Whitby's air of optimism, of "God's in His heaven, all's right with the
> world," roused in him a spirit of bitter laughter. If he thought of existence dispassionately,
> nakedly, as he knew it, now that the rose-coloured spectacles of health and youth had been
> removed from his vision, it seemed to him terrible, and God, a relentless being, more callous
> than any blinded Destiny ever conceived by man's imagining. What could Whitby, wrapped up
> in his mystical dreams, know of the bare and ugly view of facts which comes to one robbed of
> his illusions and the comfortable fictions of physical security?
> Meanwhile, he allowed Noureddin to help him to adjust his crutches, and to assist him into
> the carriage. The young Persian's hands were as gentle as a woman's.
> They drove up the straight road of the German colony, discoursing of various subjects – the
> tourist season, the new hotel in building, the German colonists. Then they turned a little to the
> left and drew up before a small, new-looking house, set a little back from the road. A path led
> up from the iron gate upon which a bell jangled as Noureddin jumped down and opened it. On
> either side of the path flowers were planted – rose bushes, geraniums, and frisias; while
> pebbled paths divided the beds. Wild flowers and vegetables grew together farther back, as if a
> generous Nature could afford nourishment to all her children in this rich soil. An old man was
> bending over a freshly planted shrub, which he was securing with a string to a stick. Its limp
> leaves and flaccid stems needed support. He had evidently been watering it, for a rusty
> petroleum can, half filled with water, stood beside him.
> He wore a loose and voluminous djebbah of brown cloth which reached almost to his feet; a
> snowy turban was coiled about his fez. A simple white garment, buttoning close to the throat,
> and a sash wound about his body were apparent when he turned and straightened himself at
> their approach.
> "This is my father," said Noureddin – "Mirza Amin 'Ullah."
> The old man smiled, touched his forehead, uttered a Persian greeting, and held out his hand
> with a slight awkwardness that spoke of lack of habit. His hair was grey, and a short grizzled
> beard grew on his chin, but there was something indomitably young about his eyes, and a
> kindly gaiety, as it were, that contradicted his wrinkles.
> "He says that he is very glad to see you," translated Noureddin, "and that he loves all the
> friends of Mr. Whitby."
> Underwood replied that the pleasure was mutual, and a translated conversation ensued.
> "He says he hopes you are well."
> "I am well – as well as I can be."
> The old man spoke again. The Persian sounded soft, the inflection seductive.
> "He says: 'If the heart is well, then all is well.' "
> Underwood smiled. "The heart cannot be well when the body is sick." Unconsciously he was
> adopting the simple phraseology of Noureddin to express his own sardonic thought.
> "He says: 'No, no,' Noureddin said, with emphasis. "That if that were so, the king would
> serve his slave."
> "If the slaves revolt, the king is no longer a king."
> "But the king is stronger than the slave, because he is immortal," translated Noureddin. "And
> the soul is always strong because its strength is God's."
> Mirza Amin continued to speak –
> "He says that my grandfather was tortured to death in Teheran," said Noureddin – "that they
> fastened lighted sticks to his body – do you say torches? – and that all the time he said, 'God
> be praised, this is my happiest day. Never have I known a delight like this.' My father was with
> him and saw his words and witnessed his joy. So that if the heart is well, the body is a small
> thing."
> Underwood experienced a slight shock. The old man's eyes were as untroubled and gay as
> ever. His tone was the simple, mater-of-fact tone of reasoning. Yet he had witnessed the dying
> agonies of his father by slow degrees, the tragedy of death by torture. Such a remembrance
> could be spoken of with a smile! Was it Eastern disregard of death, or something else?
> Mirza Amin led the way to the house up the sunny gravel path, and then, mounting a few
> steps and opening the door a little, called out in Persian. Underwood realised that he was giving
> the women of the house time to make their disappearance. He had seen the flutter of a black
> garment disappearing behind the house as they opened the gate.
> Then Mirza Amin threw wide the door, and Underwood, aided by Noureddin, ascended the
> steps with some difficulty and entered.
> He found himself in an airy room. The walls were white, and there were four large windows,
> so that it seemed full of lightness and whiteness to Underwood after the confined and dark
> rooms of the German hotel. Three doors, besides the entrance door, communicated apparently
> with other rooms or parts of the house. The floor, tiled with black and white stones, was partly
> covered with fine Persian rugs. Two large divans ran down each side of the room; they were
> covered with white linen with a fringe of crochet. The cushions, too, were plain white. On the
> table stood a vase, full of wild flowers, marigolds, anemones, and campions. On a second and
> smaller table stood some Persian books, an English dictionary, and a japanned and painted
> case of Persian design. There was no ornament of any description, and through the windows
> came a fresh breeze from the sea.
> "Sit by the window," said Noureddin, arranging the cushions deftly, so as to make a support
> for Underwood's big helpless body. "Mr. Whitby always sat at this end of the divan, because
> one can see the sea and Akka."
> He himself sat carefully, in the European style, on the edge of the divan. Mirza Amin, on the
> contrary, who had slipped his shoes off at the door, sat on the divan opposite to them, cross-
> legged, in the Oriental fashion. He looked at them tranquilly, happily.
> "Tell me something about your father's history, Noureddin," said Underwood. "Your
> grandfather was one of the Babi martyrs, then?"
> "Yes. My father was little at the time, and he cried very much when he saw my grandfather
> killed, but he was very proud. And as soon as he was fourteen, he ran away from his aunt, who
> lived in Isfahan and took him into her house after my grandfather and granduncle had been
> killed by the Government; and he went to join Baha 'Ullah in Adrianople. Some day I will tell you
> of his adventures – because he had no money, and it was a difficult journey. When the Blessed
> Perfection came to Akka, he came too.
> "Then you were born in Akka?"
> "Yes. We lived there until lately. We have only inhabited this house a little while. We
> received permission to change a year ago."
> "From the Turkish Government?"
> "Their permission was already given. No, from the Master."
> "The Master?" repeated Underwood vaguely.
> "Yes, the Effendi – Abdul Baha (the Servant of the Radiance), the son of the Blessed
> Perfection. We call him the Master – did not Mr. Whitby tell you?" He spoke with simple
> reverence, as if of something unearthly and sacred, yet which had passed with him into the
> realm of ordinary and accepted fact.
> Underwood remembered his conversation with Whitby. He had not paid much attention to it
> at the time, but it came back to him. This "Master" to whom Noureddin alluded must be the
> "delightful Persian prophet" of whom Mrs. Greville had spoken – the present head of the
> "movement." The astounding fact remained that Whitby, a young man, not by nature a crank,
> who was considered one of the most promising men of his year at Magdalen, should go to the
> other end of the earth at the bidding of an obscure political and religious refugee. Was this
> merely the call of the East that drew men as inevitably as a magnet? Or, again, was it
> something else? Was it the personality of this man mysteriously designated as the "Master"? or
> was it the impulsion of some secret doctrine such as that imparted by learned lamas in their
> fastnesses in Tibet? Such theories as the last were purely fantastic. He was inclined to regard
> the lamas as mythical, and the Westerners who professed to have received from them
> elaborate theories about the Universe as charlatans, or, at most, self- deceived neuropaths.
> In the American phrase, he was "up against something" which he could not understand. It
> pervaded this place, there was a subtle indication of it, the air seemed full of secrets, and
> among these Persians, especially, he was conscious of an enchantment, like a mortal who has
> strayed into a garden inhabited by fairy people, who knows that he is seen by eyes which are
> invisible, and listens to music which his straining ears cannot hear.
> "Where is he – the Master?" he asked, involuntarily expressing his curiosity.
> "He has come to Carmel. He lives in the new house on the hill, just to the left, above ours,"
> answered Noureddin.
> The answer was so matter of fact and prosaic that Underwood almost smiled. But Noureddin
> was adding something in Persian to himself, which sounded like a blessing or a prayer.
> "Where is Abdul Baha's house?" asked Underwood suddenly, as he settled his big limbs in
> the carriage. Noureddin pointed to the left.
> "There. You can see the roof. And you see those Persians? They are going to see him –
> they are pilgrims from Teheran and Isfahan."
> A dozen men, in Persian dress, with the black sheepskin cap on their heads which
> contrasted funereally with the gay scarlet tarbush of the Syrian driver, were moving up the
> hillside road. They walked slowly, and Underwood saw that the reason was that a very old man,
> bent almost double with age, was in the midst of them. Two younger men supported him on
> either side. Presently he paused, as if his breath failed him, and they paused too. The old man
> lifted his face, and Underwood saw it, though he was looking not at him, but towards the house
> which Noureddin had indicated. And the old man's tired face smiled. It was the same smile of
> eternal youth that Underwood had seen on the face of Mirza Amin. It was a very heavenly
> smile.
> "To the hotel," said Noureddin to the driver.
> "The charm of Carmel is growing on me," said Underwood politely. "I confess that at first it
> looked merely an insignificant hill."
> "He says," translated Noureddin, over a mouthful of pilau, "that you are English, that you are
> a Christian. The Christians think the mountain sacred as well as the Mohammedans and the
> Jews, because Christ walked on this mountain."
> "Did He?" said Underwood, whose Bible history was shaky.
> "He says, 'Because of that, the paths should shine,' " said Noureddin, his dark eyes
> gleaming in the flicker of the candlelight.
> "I'm afraid I'm a bad Christian," admitted Underwood, with a rueful smile.
> This seemed to arouse the old man's sense of humour when Noureddin conveyed it to him.
> He gave a deep chuckle within his beard. In the East to confess a difference of creed is a
> delicate matter enough, but to blandly confess disloyalty to one's own is a piece of honesty in
> which an Oriental would rarely indulge.
> "Then we must convert you to be a good Christian," translated Noureddin, when Hosseyn
> had spoken, joining in the merriment.
> "Or a Bahai," smiled Underwood.
> Hosseyn's eyes grew deeper and more serious.
> "He says, 'To be a Bahai you need not leave your religion.' "
> "How so?" Underwood asked, with some surprise.
> "Because the Kingdom – the Malekoot – is the same – for all it is the same." He spoke with a
> mystical fervour, as if the word "Malekoot," like that "blessed word Mesopotamia," held a spell.
> "The Malekoot?" Underwood repeated, for the word pleased him too.
> "He says, if you are of the Malekoot, religions become to you like the coloured glass through
> which the light shines in a mosque. There are many coloured pieces, Mohammed, Christ, Baha
> 'Ullah, and others, but the light is the same. You do not give attention to the window, whether it
> is of red or blue or green glass, but you give attention to the light that shines through it."
> "It is a convenient theory," said Underwood. "But what are we to understand by the light?"
> Noureddin turned his great eyes on him with naive sincerity.
> "He says, the light is knowledge of the Unity of God. And when one has that knowledge, one
> knows God, and when one knows God, one must love Him, and when one loves Him, one must
> love everybody, whether he is of Islam or a Christian, so that everybody is your brother and you
> love him very much."
> "And do you love everybody very much?"
> "Of course I do," said Noureddin, opening his eyes.
> "But that's Christianity," said Underwood – he corrected himself – "as it was before it
> became respectable."
> Noureddin looked at him in a puzzled way.
> Mirza Hosseyn leant forward and pushed his plate away from him.
> "He says he will tell you a story about the Bahai," translated Noureddin.
> Underwood signified his attention.
> The old man made a belching sound in his throat, lifted his glass to his mouth, as if he
> enjoyed awakening his hearers' interest, and began, Noureddin translating sentence by
> sentence –
> "Four men – a Turk, a Persian, an Arab, and an Englishman – were walking towards a
> certain town. As they were travelling on the same road, they made friends, though they could
> only speak a few words of the others' languages. Presently the discussion fell on what they
> should buy in the town for supper. The Turk said: 'One thing I shall need after this thirsty
> journey, and that is uzum.' 'No,' said the Persian, 'we must buy angúr, and no strange thing.' 'I
> will eat neither,' said the Arab; 'my whole soul craves for eynab.' 'You are fools,' said the
> Englishman; 'it is the season for grapes – why not refresh ourselves with them?' From
> discussion they fell into a quarrel, and from quarrelling they came to blows. Then a stranger
> came up and said, 'Oh, my friends! why are you disputing among yourselves?' They told him of
> the subject of their quarrel, and he said, 'Do not heat yourselves by fighting, but come into my
> garden hard by, for I have all the fruits which you mention.' So they went, and presently he
> brought them a large dish full of bunches of grapes. 'There,' said he, giving one to the Arab, 'is
> thy eynab; and there,' to the Turk, 'thy uzum; and there,' to the Persian, 'thy angúr; and there,'
> to the Englishman, 'thy grapes.' That man is like the Bahai."
> The old man drained off the rest of the water in his glass, and looked at Underwood, with an
> air of smiling triumph.
> "He says, what do you think of his story? Does it not put the matter in the palm of one
> hand?" asked Noureddin.
> "By Allah! It is well said," interjected Mirza Amin. "It is a story full of meaning," said
> Underwood.
> The aged Bahai beamed on him cordially, his child's soul in his eyes.
> A luxurious feeling, as if he had been transported into a fairy- tale in the Arabian Nights, was
> creeping over Underwood. The young Persian, his rapt eyes and girlish beauty, the old man
> uttering parables in his sonorous voice, the sober robes and turbans of both old men, carried
> him into another age. Only his own European dress, and Noureddin's, and the modern clock
> ticking in the corner reminded him that they were in the twentieth century. The spirit of leisure
> was present, the serious, discursive spirit of the wise East.
> 
> "I'd give anything to know what religion means to people," she [Sabra] said. "Does it mean
> anything to you?"
> "Yes, I think it does," Underwood replied.
> "And to me, nothing. I'd willingly be any religion you'd name me if I could derive satisfaction
> from it. Sooner Moslem than any other though, I think, because it is a worship of Destiny, and I
> believe in Destiny – that is, I have an instinct for it. Have you seen Abdul Baha – the one they
> call the Master?"
> "No."
> "Is he a charlatan, do you think?"
> "How can I say?" asked Underwood. "But he seems to me, from what Noureddin says, to be
> sincere enough, persuaded of his father's mission – they called his father the Manifestation, I
> believe – discourages any attempt to introduce the miraculous element, though some of his
> followers would like to exaggerate it, and spends his life in working for the cause, teaching,
> giving personal advice, and organising the movement throughout the world. I'd no idea that the
> thing was as spread as it is. They have converts all over the East, and, of course, in America."
> "And how they love him!" said Sabra.
> "They love him, it is true." He thought of Noureddin's shining eyes.
> "Personality," said Sabra.
> "Perhaps."
> "But what are the teachings of their religion?" she asked. "They are teachings which, if they
> continue to spread rapidly in the East, may have a considerable political significance. A religion
> which can engraft tolerance and progress on to Islam and makes easy converts among
> Mohammedans is a political force."
> "Perhaps that is why they were so persecuted in Persia?" she said.
> "Of course."
> "But tell me the teachings," she said. "I'm as ignorant as yourself. Noureddin lent me a very
> badly translated book on the subject, and that's about all I've been able to obtain, except what
> they tell me. As far as I can make out, the exoteric teachings are simple enough – there may be
> inner teachings, of course. It's a Utopian theory of the Universe – a mixture of Maeterlinckian
> mysticism with practical aims. It's love for one's kind followed out to its logical conclusion. For
> instance, love of humanity is to come before patriotism, with a Bahai. Chauvinism is positively
> wrong. National aggrandisement at the expense of others is as bad as personal
> aggrandisement at the expense of others. A nation has to be humble about itself, and to work
> for the common good, just as an individual should do. War, of course, is to be abolished. Race-
> feeling is to be abolished, a universal language taught in the national schools of every country,
> and a reign of universal tolerance and freedom of thought preached. Priests are to disappear.
> There's a sort of Communism about it, too, that follows naturally on the theory that you should
> love your neighbour as yourself, not for the neighbour's sake, or for your sake, but for the sake
> of the God of Humanity."
> "They're fine ideals," she said. "But, Lord how unpractical!"
> "Christianity was rather unpractical," said he, "but it founded modern civilisation. Perhaps
> this may found the civilisation of the future."
> "Impossible! We have grown out of religions."
> "Have we grown out of love, though we might propagate the species on a basis of reason?"
> Her dark skin suddenly reddened.
> "No."
> "Religion is like love, I think," said Underwood. "We shall never grow out of it. And a
> subconscious power, like that of religion, is necessary if they are ever to bring about their
> Utopia."
> "But I don't call it a religion," she said. "Haven't they any mosques? And no priests!"
> Underwood laughed. "Does Christianity depend on bishops and churches?"
> "Of course not, though personally I'm devoted to bishops. But you don't understand what I
> mean. Bahaism isn't other-worldly enough to be a religion. Tolstoi might just as well say
> Tolstoism is a religion."
> "It hasn't dogmas, perhaps. But it has" – he hesitated – "what I should call an immense love
> of God, and acquiescence in the Divine Will. Did you ever read the Fioretti or a Kempis's De
> Imitatione Christi? They have that spirit in them – heaps of it. A sort of mediaeval mysticism, a
> cheerful mysticism, which finds comradeship with all the world. Their Malekoot seems to me to
> be identical with the 'divine enlightenment of the Franciscans."
> "Love of God again," she said impatiently. "How can one? The Moslems don't ask you to.
> They adore Him, as one bows to irresistible destiny. I can understand that. But to love – "
> She sank into thought.
> Then she suddenly looked up with a laugh, and exclaimed –
> "There we are!"
> "What?"
> "Talking about religion. I told you it was infectious in this country. You've caught it from the
> Persians, and now I am getting it from you! If we were in London we should no more dream of
> discussing such things than of flying. New Theology is associated with the suburbs, of course,
> and one could talk a little discreet theology with a nice old parson, or get sentimentally
> converted by Father Vaughan, but even then, it's only in a sort of dilettante way. Of course one
> goes to church when one is staying in the country, for the sake of the good example, and all
> that. But here! I suppose it is partly because when one sees the fellahin, one remembers that
> Christ was probably just such a one, and He lived in just such a dirty little mud hut as people of
> His rank in life live in nowadays. That makes one think to begin with. And when one sees a
> religion in the making, like this Bahaism, one can't help thinking that Christianity must have
> begun in the same way, with a very ordinary lot of men after all. It sounds irreverent, but I dare
> say the houses of the disciples were just as full of fleas, and just as insanitary as the houses of
> the fellahin to-day. When one sees how the best of people unconsciously exaggerate in this
> climate, one can see how lots of the unbelievable things grew up. And when one knows any
> Greeks, one wonders how any truth or life was left in Christianity at all after it made its
> headquarters in Constantinople."
> "Switch it round in the other direction," said Underwood. "It's possible that, robbed of all
> those accretions, the fellah Christ is more inspiring than all the jewelled figures on Byzantine
> altars."
> ***
> Noureddin and his father were in the house of the Master on the hill, whither they went every
> evening. Sometimes they stayed to eat there, and Underwood missed them both when they did
> so.
> He had been pleasantly surprised that day. Noureddin had come in with a dish of wonderful
> oranges.
> "The Master sends you these. They are from his garden in Akka – from the Rizwan."
> On another occasion flowers had arrived with a similar message.
> What and who was this mysterious personage, and whence this kindly interest in a stranger?
> The house on the hill, new, white, and ordinary looking, conveyed nothing. Underwood had
> sometimes walked past the gates on his crutches and looked inside. One or two Persians sat
> outside, chatting together; a watch-dog yawned in the sun, and the big door leading into the
> house stood open, as if guests were expected. It was nearly always open. Now and again a
> Persian would enter, or issue; sometimes old men with the remembrance of deep waters in
> their eyes, sometimes young men in European dress, fresh from the college at Beyrout, who
> occasionally bade him good-day in English.
> A rough road bordered by prickly pears led beyond the house of mystery up the hillside – too
> stony and steep, however, for Underwood to attempt it. It led up to the tomb of the Bab, half-
> way up the side of Carmel, the great square building which dominated Haifa from its position on
> the hillside. Noureddin and his father often climbed up there in the evening to drink tea in the
> little rose garden overlooking the bay, and to talk to the other Persians, or to pray at the tomb.
> Sometimes they told him that the Master had been there too, and that after drinking tea
> together he had descended with them.
> One day Underwood had driven up by the carriage road with Noureddin to the tomb, and
> learnt how, some fifteen or twenty years ago, the body of the Persian saint had been brought by
> a few faithful Bahais overland from its hiding-place in Persia to its resting-place on the Mountain
> of God. And Underwood remembered what Whitby had said.
> He looked inside. The tomb was in the inner chamber, so that he could not see it, but in the
> outer chamber there was no adornment on the plain walls – its only furnishing was a piece of
> grass-matting and a few chairs. Chairs were taken from it, in order that he and Noureddin might
> sit on the rose-planted plateau before the tomb, whence they watched the wide horizon of sea
> and sky and bay, and the town lying beneath them, while a dark-skinned, silent Persian
> gardener, a black sheepskin cap on his long locks, gathered them roses from the sacred
> garden.
> It was all so simple.
> There was none of the pomp or circumstance of sainthood.
> Surely nothing was more unlike a sepulchre than this pleasant, airy room, where to smile
> was not out of place, for the Persian guardian, who brought them glasses of over-sweetened
> tea, laughed when Noureddin rallied him about something.
> Underwood had felt the charm of these days and nights descend upon his soul with a
> promise of peace. The atmosphere in which these people lived was about him; he breathed it –
> drew it into his soul; it was daylit, and fresh and pure. To some, religion was a hard code of
> rules, set prayers, recitations, and postures; for himself, perhaps, it was philosophy upon its
> knees. But with these people, religion was an internal rhapsody, a singing of the heart, as
> natural as the unfolding of the pimpernel in the sun or the glad impulse of the lark into the
> spring sky.
> 
> Akka, which lies like an ivory phantom, a city of foam, on the long sickle of the bay when
> seen from the palm gardens of Haifa, loses something of its whiteness as one leaves the half-
> way house guarded by Turkish soldiers on the lonely sands between the two cities.
> It has many names, this wall-girt Syrian town washed by the sea, and each name recalls a
> vanished glory. Accho brings back some of its first splendours, when tall galleys bore their
> freight of purple dyes and precious glass to Egypt and Carthage and Greece – for the murex,
> the purple shell, lies on the shores of its bay; and by the Belus, the shallow river which empties
> itself into the sea at the end of a dusty avenue of gum trees leading to the fortified gate, the first
> glass was made by the Phoenicians for export into the wealthy cities of the classical world.
> Ptolemais was its name in the days when Paul of Tarsus spent a busy day of his life in its
> pagan walls. The word "Acre" brings back the splendid phantoms of Richard the Lion-Hearted
> with his paladins, and the temporary triumph of the Cross over the Crescent. But the Crescent
> regained its supremacy and the stout little city held her own against Napoleon, who raised an
> artificial mound against its walls and trained his guns against the fortifications in vain. You may
> still see his cannon balls within the streets. It was stubborn St. Jean d'Acre which checked his
> victorious progress through the Levant. He had dreams of becoming Mohammedan in those
> days, the great Napoleon, and of ruling Islam as its sacred Kaliph. He almost saw the mantle of
> the desert Prophet on his shoulders. The mound is there to this day – a silent monument over
> which Bedouin camels nibble in the spring-time.
> And, through the centuries, Akka remained within her walls, never building outside them,
> never enlarging her boundaries. Hence the pestilences which raged through her narrow streets,
> bordered by high houses and vaulted in from the sky; for the inhabitants built upwards since
> they might not build outwards. The Turkish Government have used it, therefore, as a penal
> settlement. Plague and pestilence are useful deputy executioners, and undesirable captives
> died natural deaths in the prisons – all of which was very convenient to the Sublime Porte. The
> proverb had it that a bird died if it flew over Akka.
> Since the Constitution, the little town, unhealthy as a pot-bound plant, has seen another era.
> Two new gates are being built – before there was but one – and concessions have been made
> to extend the city beyond its century-old limits. The awakening has come late – the ships that
> rock beside the walls of the old fortified khan have yearly become fewer, and Haifa on the other
> side of the bay, which has accommodated herself to the encroachments of progress while her
> prouder sister remained in seclusion, has waxed in favour and flourished, whilst the old glory of
> Akka has declined. But whereas in Haifa Christian women go unveiled and dress like the
> foreigner, in Akka even the handful of Greek Christians prefer to veil their women, and Islam,
> although its pomp and panoply are somewhat tattered, still lords it over submissive
> Christendom. Camels pad the streets, everywhere you are met by the aristocratic impassivity of
> the Moslem, by the dignified reticence which flies before imported civilisation. In Syria above all
> other places, Islam confers a kind of nobility: the Mohammedan is more or less of a gentleman;
> the native Christian – too often-more or less of a cad.
> On this April day, there was a display of bunting in the streets. Everywhere the red flag with
> its white crescent and star fluttered, mingled occasionally in an entente cordiale with the
> tricolour, the stars and stripes, or the Union Jack. But not often – the red flag with the emblem
> of Islam was in predominance. For it was the anniversary of the dawning of the new era of
> freedom, the birth of Young Turkey. That lusty infant was just one year old.
> The decorations were almost the only signs of rejoicing. The new regime had not touched
> the life of the good people of Akka beyond certain externals. They permitted themselves to use
> firearms and to criticise the Government, they considered themselves entitled to a little more
> licence and disorder, and a peasant who before would have humbly dismounted when his
> Excellency the Mutessarif passed by, now rode on his way. This was how the Constitution was
> understood in Akka. On the other hand, it was vaguely suspected by a large proportion of the
> Mohammedan population that the security of Islam was threatened by the new-fangled
> methods of government in Constantinople. The new Sultan was a shadow to them, whereas the
> old had made his hand felt. They distrusted the Committee of Union and Progress, and shook
> their heads over the doings in Constantinople in the coffee-houses. Others there were who had
> an equally vague belief in the new régime. The few Christians mocked at it, were sceptical of it,
> but blessed it.
> Be this as it may, there was a show of jubilation on this hot April day. The red flags over the
> gateway of the old khan of the town, which tradition says was a nuns' cloister in the days of
> Richard the Lion-Heart, rose and fell languidly on the warm wind as a man in a black fez and
> European dress entered the square in front of it, took a seat on one of the rush-bottomed stools
> of the little coffee-house opposite, and unfurled a newspaper, settling his spectacles on his
> nose. The other coffee-drinkers exchanged greetings with him, but without much cordiality. He
> was a stranger – to judge by his silky black beard and fez – most probably a Persian.
> A young Syrian lolling at a table near by remarked with a scarcely lowered voice –
> "An Irani, by Allah, come to see the Persian god!" He spat and uttered some foul references.
> But the stranger read on, unperturbed, drank his coffee slowly, read his paper, paid his
> metallique, saluted the company courteously, and crossed the sunny square towards the khan.
> Beyond the gateway the sun beat fiercely into the courtyard. Some beasts reposed in the
> shadow of the arcading, while some half-dozen camels were watering at the tank in the centre
> of the court, sucking up the muddy liquid into their throats through their loose and heavy lips
> with a hissing sound.
> An uneven stone stairway led to the guest-rooms above, once the living-cells of mediaeval
> nuns, and up this stairway the man in the black fez went. The sun made deep shadows – if the
> courtyard was flooded with hot light, the cloister above was pleasantly cool and dark. One or
> two rusty petroleum tins filled with flowers – an ivy geranium and a carnation plant – placed
> here and there where they would catch the sunlight between the columns, spoke of permanent
> residents in this abode of wanderers; otherwise the rooms were hired out to wayfarers, native
> merchants, and sailors. At one of the doors so marked, the man in the black fez halted, then
> rapped. A quavering voice answered him in Arabic.
> "Mm?" (Who is there).
> "Man" (I), he answered, in Persian.
> "Deign to enter," replied the quavering voice.
> The man with the black fez obeyed.
> An old, old man, whose scanty white hair flowed half-way to his waist beneath his turban, sat
> on a bed within the simple little room. He wore the native Persian dress. This bed, a wooden
> chest or two, a basin, a divan spread with a rug and some faded cushions, were the only pieces
> of furniture; an elaborate specimen of Persian script in black and gold, framed and hung on the
> wall, was the only ornament which the room boasted, except for a glassful of scented stocks
> and coral-plant which stood on the wide sill.
> On the divan a man in a European morning-suit and a fez was seated. At the newcomer's
> entry he averted his head quickly, as one who had no wish to be recognised.
> "Fear not, Excellency," said the old man on the bed, in Arabic.
> "Among the children of Baha there is no treachery to a guest. And this my friend is but newly
> come from Persia."
> Then he greeted the man with the spectacles warmly.
> ''Allahu Abba!" (God is most bright).
> ''Allahu Abba!" returned the other. He spoke in Persian, and after the usual greetings had
> been rapidly exchanged, looked inquiringly at the man who had averted his face.
> "He is one of us?"
> "No – a seeker. Inshallah, he may discover the great Light." He turned to his first guest and
> repeated what he had said.
> The newcomer added gravely in Arabic –
> "Then he is in the first of the seven valleys, of which it was said, 'Not until the traveller
> migrates from himself and has accomplished these journeys will he arrive at the sea of
> nearness and union, or taste of the peerless Wine. The Steed upon which to journey through
> the Valley of Search, is Patience.' "
> "Well said," put in the old man.
> The newcomer stroked his silky black beard.
> "I admire your Arabic, effendi," said the first guest. And the words which you have uttered
> are, I perceive, from a Sufi author."
> "Nay, they were spoken by Baha 'Ullah himself in answer to questions asked by Sheikh
> Abdur Rahman at Bagdad."
> "But Sheikh Abdur Rahman was a Sufi."
> "That is why your Excellency thought the answer revealed by Baha 'Ullah to be Sufi. To the
> Sunni he spake4 as a Sunni, to the Sufi as a Sufi, to the Jew as a Jew, to the Christian as a
> Christian – even as God Himself hath spoken. What are the different creeds save the different
> languages of God? The Speaker is the same, but the words differ according to the medium. If
> the medium be Our Lord Mohammed well, if the medium be His Holiness Jesus, well also."
> "The mollahs would not approve of your commendable utterance, effendi."
> "That does not trouble us. We look for the approval of God and our own hearts, and not that
> of the mollahs."
> It was said with delicate irony, and all three men laughed. "Are you as brave in Persia?"
> asked the first guest.
> "Effendi-we have given our lives and those of our children – yes, even the honour of our
> wives and daughters has been sacrificed for the truth."
> The other man looked at him sharply.
> "I have been ready to give as much for freedom."
> "There is only one complete freedom," said the Persian. "That is freedom from the tyranny of
> one's prejudices. Love and fellowship are the true freedom; there is no other."
> "I have worked for political freedom."
> "Do you think we have not worked for that also? But that is only one part of the greater
> freedom." His eyes glowed through his spectacles. "The Blessed Perfection said concerning
> this, 'Glory is not for him who loveth his native land, but glory is for him who loveth the world.' In
> a city a man preserves order and harmony in his own household not that his family may be
> enabled to devour their neighbours, but that they may live honourably as citizens. So it should
> be with that greater city the world, and the families the nations. Turkey has set her house in
> order, Persia has set her house in order, but it must be for the greater rather than the lesser
> good, or disaster will ensue."
> "Yes, yes – but what have you done?" asked the first guest abruptly. It was perhaps his
> European blood which spoke, though he did not know it. "What have you done? We have exiled
> Abdul Hamid. Have you anything but words to show?"
> "Does a man die for words? What are we doing? We are working steadily in the Cause of
> Unity. We have schools in the West as well as the East; we have a chain of believers all round
> the world, so that in the West you may find Western men who are working steadily with us as
> blood-brothers, in the East a Bahai may sojourn with Bahais in any country from Japan to India,
> 
> Sic.; soll heißen „spoke“
> in the North there is a Great Power who has, by the grace of Allah, given secret support to our
> emissaries because they see in us the apostles of progress in Islam. And in our own country
> thousands of devoted believers have sprung from the blood of the martyrs, ready to sow
> another bloody harvest if need be."
> "'The apostles of progress in Islam,'" repeated the other, as if the words impressed him.
> Then he made a movement as if to brush the impression away. "Words, words," he said. "That
> is what chokes us. It is choking Young Turkey. We talk of a thing, and imagine it done. In
> Europe they do a thing, and talk of it afterwards. That's the paralysis which is on us – the
> paralysis of words."
> "God's apostles of progress in Islam," repeated the Persian earnestly, paying no heed to the
> outburst. "What movement has ever lived among the children of Shem that was not religious?
> What is the sword which pierces the heart of Young Turkey, of Young Persia? of enlightenment
> all through Asia and Africa? It is fanaticism. Disbelief in God learnt in European cities is no
> weapon to parry its thrusts. There is only one weapon which will prevail – a religion inspired by
> God, a religion that burns up prejudice like a flame, that sets men's hearts on fire, that
> intoxicates them with the wine of enthusiasm – the revelation of the ' Blessed Perfection, the
> command of God Himself."
> He spoke with intense emotion; his eyes burnt with conviction, his spectacles making them
> unnaturally large.
> "By Allah," cried the old man on the bed, in his shaking voice, "it is well said, it is the truth!
> By Allah, it is the truth!"
> There was a moment's silence, vibrant, charged with mental excitement, and then the light
> died out of the eyes of the Persian, and his face resumed a more ordinary expression.
> "And now, Mirza Mushkin," said he, "I beg you to show me the writing, if it is finished, for I
> leave to-morrow."
> The old man shuffled off the bed, and going to a wooden chest took from it, after a little
> search, a roll of parchment-like paper. Then he drew his tottering old limbs beneath him on the
> bed again, and handed the roll to the Persian.
> The latter, with a gracious movement, opened it so that Mirza Mushkin's other guest might
> share the sight of it.
> But both men uttered an exclamation of wonder and admiration as they looked. To the
> Oriental, decorative calligraphy holds a high place among the arts; and the peacock in three
> coloured inks, its feathers composed of rows of exquisitely fine Persian writing embellished by
> fanciful curves which showed the adept's touch, was to them a triumph of handicraft, a
> masterpiece of imagination. To the initiated, too, the arrangement of the letters had a mystical
> significance – for each letter has its numerical value, and an esoteric meaning attaches to
> these.
> "Can your Excellency read it?" asked the Persian.
> "It is in Persian – nevertheless I can read a word here and there. What is it, by your
> permission?"
> "It is a tablet revealed by the Blessed Perfection," said the Persian, in a reverent voice. Then
> he added very simply: "When my brother was put to death eighteen years ago in Teheran, he
> recited this tablet while tortures were applied; it was but newly revealed by the Blessed
> Perfection in Akka. And many of the bystanders were moved to tears and came afterwards to
> my uncle and became Bahai. I was one of them." He looked a long time at the odd decorative
> bird in silence. Perhaps memory had misted over his spectacles. "By the mercy of Allah," he
> ended.
> "There is my signature," said the old man, in a piping voice. He put his thin scraggy finger in
> the corner. The Persian translated it. "Mushkin Kalam, slave of Abdul Baha."
> "They know that for my signature anywhere from Bombay to Damascus," said the Mirza, his
> aged face lit up with a senile smile. "For seventy years – for seventy years – I am very old."
> "But your hand does not shake," said his guest.
> "El hamdu'lillah! My hand is sure. They do not understand how to write nowadays; they are
> too quick. The values of the letters are nothing to them. They even write on tables. There is
> only one way to write perfectly, and that is to hold the paper in the palm of the hand. And when
> one is learning, one should practise by night – there is no light like candlelight. But there are
> few who can write – "
> His thin voice was like a lament.
> "The Mirza had great fame in Persia," said the man with the spectacles. "He was celebrated
> as a wit as well as a writer. He was welcome in the house of princes. But he left it all in order to
> share the banishment of the Blessed Perfection, and Abdul Baha after him."
> "Yes, all of it I left, el hamdu'lillah," repeated the old man. His sparse white hair, long like a
> woman's, betokening his rank, gave him an eldritch look, as of something not of this world. But
> there was a youthful triumph in the worn old eyes that had worked so long over the making of
> beautiful things. "I am content," he said. "I shall die in Akka, near Abdul Baha, near the holy
> places. He sent for me to come from India, whither I had been sent by the Blessed Perfection.
> He recalled me. He knew that I should want to die in Akka. I am content."
> He looked out towards the window, from which one could see the masts of vessels swaying
> gently against a gentian-blue sea, lost in dreams of his own, the child-like dreams of those who
> have lived so long that Heaven is as near to them as in their infancy.
> The Persian gave the other man a quick glance, which said: "He forgets that we are here."
> Aloud he said, "I leave to-morrow for Persia; if your Excellency comes to Teheran, I shall hope
> to offer you hospitality." He produced a card, upon which was written a name in Persian, Arabic,
> and French.
> The other man read it in silence, and then produced his own pocketbook, from which he too
> extracted a card.
> "Your Highness will forgive me if I ask you to let no one see this card," said he. "But I have
> the Mirza's word for it that I can trust a Bahai. I have reasons which make it necessary that I
> should conceal my stay in Akka."
> The Persian read the name.
> "I have seen the name of Schmidt Pasha in the Turkish newspapers, Excellence." He put the
> card into an inner recess of his notebook. "It was in a worthy cause, Inshallah, it will serve a
> worthier cause yet.”
> He placed five Turkish pounds beside the still dreaming calligraphist, and with a salutation
> quietly withdrew.
> At the closing of the door, Mirza Mushkin came back to his surroundings with a start.
> "The prince is gone," said Schmidt Pasha.
> "A lot of people are coming," said Sabra, lifting her brown eyes, wet with tears, to the
> horizon. "Look along the ramparts. Noureddin and his cousin are with them; I can see their
> black fezes, and I should know Noureddin's walk anywhere. And so is that old man with the
> bent head we met in their house—Mirza Hosseyn."
> Approaching slowly along the ramparts were some five or six men. Underwood saw that they
> were all Persians by the dress of the older men. But at a slight distance before the others
> walked a single figure. He was clothed in a long, loose iron-grey coat, beneath which his dress
> was white, as was his turban. The rest walked behind, with their hands folded beneath their
> hearts and their heads slightly bent. Presently the figure in front paused, and turning,
> addressed a few words to one of the party. Noureddin suddenly detached himself, and came
> swiftly towards the wall beneath which Sabra and Underwood were seated. His eyes were
> shining, his voice breathless.
> "Mr. Robert! Mr. Underwood! Will you come? The Master has told me to fetch you. I told him
> that you were the friend of Mr. Whitby, and he said, 'Bring him to me.'"
> Underwood rose with the young Persian's eager help, and made his way, as quickly as his
> crutches would let him, to where the little group stood.
> Before him stood the figure with the iron-grey cloak. His beard was white, his hair, which was
> long, was doubled up beneath his turban, from which a snowy strand or two escaped.
> Underwood met the penetrating and kindly gaze of a pair of blue eyes set beneath overhanging
> eyebrows. It was one of the most commanding countenances that he had ever seen. Strength
> was in every line of it. The transparency of the skin showed the spirit triumphing over a
> somewhat tired body; his erect, dignfied carriage, keen self-possession, and look of
> transcendent sweetness, that the conquest was continual and complete. The nose was hooked,
> and very cleanly chiselled; there were lines of gentle humour about his eyes. The whole aspect
> of the man gave an impression of indomitable will, mingled with something difficult to define,
> which made him lovable. Spirituality is an abused word, but it might stand for it.
> "Please tell the effendi that I am glad to have the opportunity of thanking him in person for
> the fruit and flowers which he sent."
> The man in the iron-grey cloak spoke. His voice was sonorous and yet sweet.
> "He says that it is nothing. That he is pleased to serve you. That Christ has commanded us
> to serve each other, whether the creed and nation of those we serve be the same as our own or
> not. He says that he is glad that you have come to the Mountain of God."
> "Please say, Noureddin, that I should like to call on him one day if he will allow me to do so."
> "It is allowed," said Noureddin.
> The little procession moved on in the glare of the noonday, the figure of Abdul Baha moving
> in front, white and silver against the stainless blue.
> "Was the old man who walked first the One they call the Master?" asked Sabra, standing up
> to look after them as soon as Underwood returned.
> "Old man?" repeated Underwood. Then he realised that the strength and sunlight on the
> face of the man with whom he had spoken had somehow given him the impression of eternal
> youth and beauty. Then he added, "Yes, that was he."
> The garden of the Rizwan lay in the fork of the river Namein, or Belus, which winds
> sluggishly down to the sea on either side of the flowery island, to unite its streams again before
> emptying itself over long, flat sands into the sea. The carriage stopped at a wooden gate.
> Noureddin dismounted, and had to knock several times before there was a reply. At last,
> however, the door was unbolted, and the young Persian came back to help Underwood to
> dismount from the high vehicle.
> An old woman, muffled up to the eyes, admitted them into a little garden over a wooden
> bridge, and then disappeared down the flower-bordered walks like a rusty black ghost. The
> sirocco lay heavy still upon the earth, the sky was obscured, and the heat made a thick pall of
> the sky. In this sultry, moist, and sullen atmosphere, the colours of the garden seemed to glow
> with a light of their own. The oranges that hung on the trees shone golden under their glossy
> leaves, the coral plant flamed in the grey air, the lilies rose transcendently white, the roses were
> audaciously red. Verbenas, geraniums, jasmine, a riot and tangle of other sub-tropical plants,
> daturas, oleanders, and the flaming glory of the bougainvillaea, made a rare and beautiful
> paradise of this island set in a waste. Noureddin told Underwood that it had been tilled by the
> Persian exiles as soon as the rigour of their gaolers permitted it, in order that their beloved
> leader, Baha 'Ullah, might come sometimes from the stifling streets of the penal town where he
> was confined, to breathe the purer air and sweeter fragrances of the little pleasaunce. So this
> garden of love was planted after the Persian fashion in beds divided from each other by tiles
> and interlacing paths, over the ordered primness of which, here and there deft gardeners had
> allowed the marigolds to spill their gold in audacious and spendthrift patches.
> Noureddin excused himself to his guests for a moment, and following the centre path they
> found themselves in a little paved court by the river's edge, shaded by two great mulberry trees,
> around which wide wooden benches painted blue and white had been spread with carpets for
> the reception of the foreign guests; carpets made fifty years ago on hand-looms by cunning
> master-workmen in distant Tabriz.
> 
> Noureddin rejoined them a moment later, followed by the old woman, who bore a large
> trayful of freshly picked lettuces, and in the midst of them a china bowl full of a clear amber
> liquid. This last proved to be sweetened vinegar.
> "I went to fetch you these," said Noureddin. "It is a Persian custom. We dip the lettuces in
> the vinegar and eat them so. Rizwaniya will be sorry she is not here. She is very greedy,
> Rizwaniya."
> "Oh, we'll take some back to her," Sabra exclaimed, with a smile. "Poor darling Rizwaniya!"
> Presently she uttered a little exclamation, for down the middle of the court, in a marble
> channel, a stream of water was flowing. It made its plashing way down the steps which led to
> the river. It was fed from a small white fountain in the scented garden above, which was now
> sending a crystal jet into the air.
> "Is it magic, Noureddin?"
> "No, it is the horse. It is working the wheel which sets the fountain in motion."
> "It's magical in its effect, anyway," she said.
> The trickling, plashing water, the call of some peacocks at the farther end of the flowery
> walks, the sleepy rustle of the garden in the still grey air, the enchanted atmosphere, the palms
> on the opposite bank gently swaying as from an unfelt wind, produced a drowsiness in her that
> was overpowering. Oblivion suddenly descended on her like a soft mantle, blotting out the little
> courtyard, and the river, and the thick foliage of the ancient mulberries. She slept.
> They walked slowly up the hill to her house.
> He looked up at the mountain.
> Its long ridge cut sharply into the satin-green sky; the pine trees and cypresses on its dusky
> slope were dark as the plumage of black swans. Stately, benevolent, silent, the mountain
> seemed almost a divine presence, with something of the brooding dignity of the vast images
> carved by primitive races in the virgin rock to symbolise the income-prehensible.
> "It is still to-night," said Sabra, lifting her head.
> "Very still," he answered.
> Moths fluttered past them. Fireflies carried their fugitive lights before them like flying sparks
> of blue flame, hither and thither, as if without purpose.
> They turned in at the gate of her villa. Larifé was in the porch, wondering at their belated
> coming.
> "It is good to be here again," Underwood said simply, as he sat at the table.
> "It's not much of a meal, I'm afraid," she responded.
> "I love your little dinners. It isn't that. It's you. I've missed you."
> "And I you," she replied sincerely.
> "Do you remember my first meal here – lunch, wasn't it? – and how Whitby was expected,
> but didn't turn up?"
> "Mr. Whitby! It seems a year ago since I met him with you at the hotel. And now he is in
> Teheran – or should be."
> "Yes, the Persians have had news of him."
> "I can't understand," said she, "how a man like Mr. Whitby – " She paused.
> "Well, I think I can. I can understand how a man of Whitby's temperament could become a
> mystic instead of only a scholar. Did I tell you of my studies with Noureddin?"
> "Yes, you did."
> "I scribbled down some disjointed verses of the translations he showed me, because I
> thought they might interest you. Read them, and then tell me if they remind you of anything."
> She took the page of manuscript which he drew from his pocket, and read it by the light of
> the red-shaded candles.
> "O Son of Spirit! I have created thee rich: Why dost thou make thyself poor? Noble have I
> made thee: Why dost thou degrade thyself? Of the essence of Knowledge have I manifested
> thee: Why searchest thou for another than Me? From the clay of Love I have kneaded thee:
> Why seekest thou another? Turn thy sight unto thyself that thou mayest find Me standing within
> thee, Powerful, Mighty, and Supreme."
> "O Son of the Highest Sight! I have placed within thee a spirit from Me, that thou mightest be
> My Lover: Why hast thou forsaken Me and sought to love another?"
> "O Son of the Supreme! I made death for thee as glad-tidings: Why art thou in despair at its
> approach? I made light for thee a splendour: Why dost thou hide from it?"
> "O Son of Existence! Thy heart is My Home; purify it for My Descent: Thy spirit is My
> Outlook; prepare it for My Manifestation."
> "O Son of Clay! Be blind, that thou mayest behold My Beauty: Be deaf, that thou mayest
> hear My Sweet Melody and Voice: Be ignorant, that thou mayest enjoy a portion from My
> Knowledge: Be poor, that thou mayest obtain an everlasting share from the sea of My Eternal
> Wealth."
> "O My Children! I fear that, without having enjoyed the melody of the Nightingale, ye may
> return to the region of mortality; and, without seeing the beauty of the Rose, ye may return to
> the water and clay."
> "O Son of Passion! The people of wisdom and insight struggled for years, and failed to attain
> the meeting of the Exalted One, hastened all their lives and did not see the Most Beautiful;
> whilst thou hast arrived at home without hastening, and hast attained the goal without search.
> Yet, after gaining all these degrees and ranks, thou wert so veiled with thyself that thine eyes
> did not behold the Beauty of the Beloved, and thine hand did not reach to the Hem of the
> Friend. Therefore marvel at this, O possessors of insight!"
> "O Servant of the World! At many a dawn has the breeze of My Grace passed through thee,
> and found thee asleep upon the bed of neglect, and returning back it wept over thy condition."
> "It sounds pretty," she said, – "and poetical. Yes, it reminds me of the Imitation of Christ, if
> that's what you mean. My aunt had one."
> "And you read it?"
> "I used to read it in church during the sermon as a variation to the funeral and marriage
> services, and the churching of women, with the psalm that all men are liars. I didn't understand
> it much. I always imagined that the lover who would eventually marry me would talk like that. I
> made a childish confusion of the thing. I've often told you I've no religious sense – not a scrap.
> You have, I believe, or you couldn't enjoy talking to the Persians so much. Tell me, you saw
> Abdul Baha?"
> "Yes," he said, taking the paper again and returning it to his pocket.
> "Won't you leave it with me?" she said. "I'd like to read it more carefully and see if I can
> make any sense out of it."
> He smiled, and handed the paper to her.
> "What did you think of him?" she asked, reverting to her question, when dinner was over and
> they sat in the garden. "Of the Master, I mean."
> "I think," he said, more to himself than to her, "that he is one of the sails of the world."
> "What do you mean?"
> "Why, some one – is it Maeterlinck? – once said that there were some rare spirits that carry
> the ship of humanity forward – beautiful ardent sails that fill with the winds of enthusiasm and
> genius and bear the boat forward. One need never be afraid of crowding too much sail on – for
> every white and wind-eager sail there are millions of heavy and prudent souls that will provide
> the necessary ballast and keep the keel down in the waters of matter-of-fact."
> "But supposing that a generation came which produced nothing but sails?" she asked, lifting
> her cigarette from her mouth.
> "Then we should fly away into the ideal, I suppose."
> "That would be uncomfortable for some of us," said Sabra, with a sigh. "I don't see anything
> attractive in the prospect. Idealism is draughty. I hate idealists. They are usually people who
> don't know how to dress and belong to small societies that issue pamphlets and invite you to
> lunch at Eustace Miles'."
> Underwood was somewhat chilled. Her persistent clinging to her hedonistic principles, her
> adoration of the pagan in life, her refusal to see anything admirable in the spiritual in human
> nature, was something more than inability to understand. She could understand, if she would.
> She had understood, perhaps, once. But her blindness was obstinate. She defied the gods,
> while she suffered. Like Prometheus, who pilfered the fire to animate a thing of flesh, she had
> risked her all in order to lavish it upon that which was least worthy. Had Prometheus stolen the
> divine fire for a godlike use, he need never have known the tortures of the vulture.
> "Surely, Sabra, you believe in some kind of idealism?" he said. "I mean some lifting of the
> head of the brute beast in us, towards a higher horizon. Good Lord! If it weren't for that – "
> "You wouldn't be able to stand living," she ended for him, in a softer voice. "Yes, I
> understand. But ... at best, it's a kind of consolation, a cowardice, this spiritual life. The Persians
> are children. They walk like little Tommy-head-in-Air. And you have the gift for it too. You, and
> people like Father Patrick on the hill, and some of these German peasants. ... But I can't find
> any pleasure in it, and never should. It's not an acquired taste, like tomatoes. It's got to be born
> in you. It wasn't born in me, and there's an end of it. They say women are religious. I think they
> are not. They like it as a soporific, an anaesthetic, or a mild form of intoxicant. What do most
> women pray about? Their lovers, or their husbands, or their children. Is that spiritual, or is it a
> sort of fetish-propitiation?"
> She drummed her fingers upon her knee and smoked without further speech.
> Then, after there had been a long silence between them, she lifted the cigarette from her
> mouth and spoke again, in a softer, more wistful voice.
> "And yet," she confessed, – "I don't know. There must be something in it, after all.”
> "Why not?" said Underwood. "I prefer the fighting chance."
>
> — *The Mountain of God (Used by permission of the curator)*