The Worlds Greatest Books - Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
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I was caught up and swept towards Jerusalem. It was the twilight of a
summer evening. Town and wall lay bathed in a sea of purple; the Temple
rose from its centre like an island of light; the host of Heaven came
riding up the blue fields alone; all was the sweetness, calm, and
splendour of a painted vision. As the night deepened, a murmur from the
city caught my ear; it grew loud, various, wild; it was soon mixed with
the clash of arms; trumpets rang, torches blazed along battlements and
turrets; the roar of battle rose, deepened into cries of agony, swelled
into furious exultation. "Behold," said the possessed, "these are but
the beginnings of evil!" I looked up; the spirit was gone. In another
minute I was plunging into the valley, and rushing forward to the
battle.
From that moment I became a chieftain of Israel, and as Prince of
Naphtali led my people against the legions of Rome. I came to be a
priest, I became a captain. I was ever in the midst of battle; I was
cast into dungeons; brought to the cross; cast among lions; shipwrecked,
driven out to sea on a blazing trireme; accused before Nero and Titus;
exposed a thousand times to death; and yet ever at the extreme moment
some mysterious hand interfered between my life and its destruction. I
could not die.
_III.--The Abomination of Desolation_
And through all these awful years of incessant warfare I was now lifted
up on a wave of victory to heights of dazzling glory, and now plunged
down into the abysm of defeat. I saw my wife and children torn from me;
restored, only to be dragged away again. I saw Rome driven from the Holy
City, only to see her return in triumph. And all through these maddening
vicissitudes, suspected by my own people, and knowing my own infamy, I
heard the voice, "Tarry thou till I come!"
The fall of our illustrious and unhappy city was supernatural. During
the latter days of the siege, a hostility, to which that of man was as
the grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on, overpowered our
strength and senses. Fearful shapes and voices in the air; visions
startling us from our short and troubled sleep; lunacy in its most
hideous forms; sudden death in the midst of vigour; the fury of the
elements let loose upon our unsheltered heads; we had every evil and
terror that could beset human nature, but pestilence, the most probable
of all in a city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded,
and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with the unburied;
though every wall and trench was teeming; though six hundred thousand
corpses lay flung over the ramparts, and naked to the sun--pestilence
came not. But the abomination of desolation, the pagan standard, was
fixed; where it was to remain until the plough passed over the ruins of
Jerusalem.
On this fatal night no man laid his head upon his pillow. Heaven and
earth were in conflict. Meteors burned above us; the ground shook under
our feet; the volcano blazed; the wind burst forth in irresistible
blasts, and swept the living and the dead in whirlwinds far off into the
desert. Thunder pealed from every quarter of the heavens. Lightning, in
immense sheets, withering eye and soul, burned from the zenith to the
ground, and marked its track by forests on flame, and the shattered
summits of hills.
Defence was unthought of; for the mortal enemy had passed from the mind.
Our hearts quaked from fear, but it was to see the powers of heaven
shaken. All cast away the shield and the spear, and crouched before the
descending judgment. Our cries of remorse, anguish, and horror were
heard through the uproar of the storm. We howled to the caverns to hide
us; we plunged into the sepulchres, to escape the wrath that consumed
the living.
I knew the cause, the unspeakable cause; knew that the last hour of
crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to see one man not sunk
into the lowest feebleness of fear, besought me to lead them into
safety. I said they were to die, and pointed them to the hallowed ground
of the Temple. More, I led them towards it myself. But advance was
checked. Piles of cloud, whose darkness was palpable even in the
midnight, covered the holy hill. I attempted to pass through it, and was
swept downward by a gust that tore the rocks in a flinty shower around
me.
While I lay helpless, I heard the whirlwind roar through the cloudy
hill; and the vapours began to revolve. A pale light, like that of the
rising moon, quivered on their edges; and the clouds rose, and rapidly
shaped themselves into the forms of battlements and towers. Voices were
heard within, low and distant, yet strangely sweet. Still the lustre
brightened, and the airy building rose, tower on tower, and battlement
on battlement. In awe we knelt and gazed upon this more than mortal
architecture. It stood full to earth and heaven, the colossal image of
the first Temple. All Jerusalem saw the image; and the shout that, in
the midst of their despair, ascended from its thousands and tens of
thousands told what proud remembrances were there. But a hymn was heard,
that might have hushed the world. Never fell on mortal ear sound so
majestic and subduing, so full of melancholy and grandeur and command.
The vast portal opened, and from it marched a host such as man had never
seen before, such as man shall never see but once again; the guardian
angels of the city of David! They came forth glorious, but with woe in
their steps, tears flowing down their celestial beauty. "Let us go
hence," was their song of sorrow. "Let us go hence," was announced by
the echoes of the mountains.
The procession lingered on the summit. The thunder pealed, and they rose
at the command, diffusing waves of light over the expanse of heaven.
Then the thunder roared again; the cloudy temple was scattered on the
winds; and darkness, the omen of her grave, settled upon Jerusalem.
_IV.--The Hour of Doom_
I was roused by the voice of a man. "What!" said he, "poring over the
faces of dead men, when you should be foremost among the living? All
Jerusalem in arms, and yet you scorn your time to gain laurels?" I
sprang up, and drew my scimitar, for the man was--Roman.
"You should know me," he said calmly; "it is some years since we met,
but we have not been often asunder."
"Are you not a Roman?" I exclaimed. He denied that nationality, and
offered me his Roman trappings, cuirass and falchion, saying they would
help me to money, riot, violence, and vice in the doomed city; "and,"
said he, "what else do nine-tenths of mankind ask for in their souls?"
He tore his helmet from his forehead, and, with a start of inward pain,
flung it to a measureless distance in the air. I beheld--Epiphanes! "I
told you," he said, "that this day would come. One grand hope was given
to your countrymen; they cast it from them! Ages on ages shall pass
before they learn the loftiness of that hope, or fulfill the punishment
of that rejection. Yet, in the fullness of time, light shall break upon
their darkness. They shall ask: Why are barbarians and civilised alike
our oppressors? Why do contending faiths join in crushing us alone? Why
do realms, distant as the ends of the earth, unite in scorn of us?"
"Man of terrible knowledge," I demanded, "tell me for what crime this
judgment comes?"
"There is no name for it," he said, with solemn fear.
"Is there no hope?" said I, trembling.
"Look to that mountain," was the answer, as he pointed to Moriah. "It is
now covered with war and slaughter. But upon that mountain shall yet be
enthroned a Sovereign, before whom the sun shall hide his head. From
that mountain shall light flow to the ends of the universe, and the
government shall be of the everlasting."
In a few minutes he had carried me to the city, placed me on a
battlement, and had disappeared.
Below me war raged in its boundless fury. The Romans had forced their
way; the Jews were fighting like wild beasts. When the lance was broke,
the knife was the weapon; when the knife failed, they tore with their
hands and teeth. But the Romans advanced against all. They advanced till
they were near the inner temple. A scream of wrath and agony at the
possible profanation of the Holy of Holies rose from the multitude. I
leaped from the battlement, called upon Israel to follow me, and drove
the Romans back.
But Jerusalem was marked for ruin. A madman, prophesying the succour of
heaven, prevented Israel from surrendering, and thus saving the Temple.
Infuriated by his words, the populace kept up the strife, and the Temple
burst into flames. The fire sprang through the roof, and the whole of
its defenders, to the number of thousands, sank into the conflagration.
In another minute the inner temple was on fire. I rushed forward, and
took my post before the veil of the portico, to guard the entrance with
my blood.
But the legions rushed onward, crying that "they were led by the Fates,"
and that "the God of the Jews had given his people and city into their
hands." The torrent was irresistible. Titus rushed in at its head,
exclaiming that "the Divinity alone could have given the stronghold into
his power, for it was beyond the hope and strength of man." My
companions were torn down. I was forced back to the veil of the Holy of
Holies. I longed to die! I fought, I taunted, covered from head to foot
in gore. I remained without a wound.
Then came a new enemy--fire. I heard its roar round the sanctuary. The
Romans fled to the portal. A wall of fire stood before them. They rushed
back, tore down the veil, and the Holy of Holies stood open.
The blaze melted the plates of the roof in a golden shower above me. It
calcined the marble floor; it dissipated in vapour the inestimable gems
that studded the walls. All who entered lay turned to ashes. But on the
sacred Ark the flame had no power. It whirled and swept in a red orb
round the untouched symbol of the throne of thrones. Still I lived; but
I felt my strength giving way--the heat withered my sinews, the flame
extinguished my sight. I sank upon the threshold, rejoicing that death
was inevitable. Then, once again, I heard the words of terror. "Tarry
thou till I come!" The world disappeared before me.
_V.--The Pilgrim of Time_
Here I pause. I had undergone that portion of my career which was to be
passed among my people. My life as father, husband, citizen, was at an
end. Thenceforth I was to be a solitary man. I was to make my couch with
the savage, the outcast, and the slave. I was to see the ruin of the
mighty and the overthrow of empires. Yet, in the tumult that changed the
face of the world, I was still to live and be unchanged.
In revenge for the fall of Jerusalem, I traversed the globe to seek out
an enemy of Rome. I found in the northern snows a man of blood; I
stirred up the soul of Alaric, and led him to the sack of Rome. In
revenge for the insults heaped upon the Jew by the dotards and dastards
of the city of Constantine, I sought out an instrument of compendious
ruin. I found him in the Arabian sands, and poured ambition into the
soul of Mecca. In revenge for the pollution of the ruins of the Temple,
I roused the iron tribes of the West, and at the head of the Crusaders
expelled the Saracens. I fed full on revenge, and fed the misery of
revenge.
A passion for human fame seized me. I drew my sword for Italy;
triumphed, was a king, and learned to curse the hour when I first
dreamed of fame. A passion for gold seized me. Wealth came to my wish,
and to my torment. Days and nights of misery were the gift of avarice.
In my passion I longed for regions where the hand of man had never
rifled the mine. I found a bold Genoese, and led him to the discovering
of a new world. With its metals I inundated the old; and to my misery
added the misery of two hemispheres.
Yet the circle of passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever.
Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of
true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch,
stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at
Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge
imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the
pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; Israelite as I was,
and am, I did involuntary homage to the mind of Luther.
At this hour I see the dawn of things to whose glory the glory of the
past is but a dream. But I must close these thoughts, wandering as the
steps of my pilgrimage. I have more to tell--strange, magnificent, and
sad. But I must await the impulse of my heart.
* * * * *
RICHARD HENRY DANA
Two Years Before the Mast
Richard Henry Dana was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on
August 1, 1815. He was the son of the American poet who, with
W.C. Bryant, founded "The North American Review," and grandson
of Francis Dana, for some time United States Minister to
Russia, and afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Young
Dana entered Harvard in 1832, but being troubled with an
affection of the eyes, shipped as a common sailor on board an
American merchant vessel, and made a voyage round Cape Horn to
California and back. His experiences are embodied in his "Two
Years Before the Mast," which was published in 1840, about
three years after his return, when he had graduated at
Harvard, and in the year in which he was admitted to the
Massachusetts Bar. His best known work gives a vivid account
of life at sea in the days of the old sailing ships, touches
sympathetically on the hardships of the seafaring life, which
its publication helped to ameliorate, and affords also an
intimate glimpse of California when it was still a province of
Mexico. "If," he writes, "California ever becomes a prosperous
country, this--San Francisco--bay will be the centre of its
prosperity." He died at Rome on January 7, 1882.
_I.--Life on a Merchantman_
On August 14 the brig Pilgrim left Boston for a voyage round Cape Horn
to the western coast of America. I made my appearance on board at twelve
o'clock with an outfit for a two or three years' voyage, which I had
undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire
change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness
of the eyes.
The vessel got under way early in the afternoon. I joined the crew, and
we hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night. The
next day we were employed in preparations for sea. On the following
night I stood my first watch. During the first few days we had bad
weather, and I began to feel the discomforts of a sailor's life. But I
knew that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, I
should be ruined at once. So I performed my duties to the best of my
ability, and after a time I felt somewhat of a man. I cannot describe
the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a biscuit or two
produced in me after having taken no sustenance for three days. I was a
new being.
As we had now a long "spell" of fine weather, without any incident to
break the monotony of our lives, there can be no better place to
describe the duties, regulations, and customs of an American
merchantman, of which ours was a fair specimen.
The captain is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when
he pleases, is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything.
The prime minister, the official organ, and the active and
superintending officer is the chief mate. The mate also keeps the
log-book, and has charge of the stowage, safe keeping, and delivery of
the cargo.
The second mate's is a dog's berth. The men do not respect him as an
officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to put his hands into the tar and
slush with the rest. The crew call him the "sailors' waiter," and he has
to furnish them with all the stuffs they need in their work. His wages
are usually double those of a common sailor, and he eats and sleeps in
the cabin; but he is obliged to be on deck nearly all his time, and eats
at the second table--that is, makes a meal out of what the captain and
the chief mate leave.
The steward is the captain's servant, and has charge of the pantry, from
which everyone, including the mate, is excluded. The cook is the patron
of the crew, and those who are in his favour can get their wet mittens
and stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the night
watch. These two worthies, together with the carpenter and the
sailmaker, if there be one, stand no watch, but, being employed all day,
are allowed to "sleep in" at night, unless "all hands" are called.
The crew are divided into two watches. Of these the chief mate commands
the larboard, and the second mate the starboard, being on and off duty,
or on deck and below, every other four hours. The watch from 4 p.m. to 8
p.m. is divided into two half, or dog, watches. By this means they
divide the twenty-four hours into seven instead of six, and thus shift
the hours every night.
The morning commences with the watch on deck turning-to at daybreak, and
washing-down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, with filling the
"scuttle butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually
occupies the time until seven bells (half after seven), when all hands
get breakfast. At eight the day's work begins, and lasts until sundown,
with the exception of an hour for dinner. The discipline of the ship
requires every man to be at work upon something when he is up on deck,
except at night and on Sundays. No conversation is allowed among the
crew at their duty.
When I first left port, and found that we were kept regularly employed
for a week or two, I supposed that we were getting the vessel into
sea-trim, and that it would soon be over, and we should have nothing to
do but to sail the ship; but I found that it continued so for two years,
and at the end of two years there was as much to be done as ever. If,
after all the labour on sails, rigging, tarring, greasing, oiling,
varnishing, painting, scraping, scrubbing, watching, steering, reefing,
furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and
climbing in every direction, the merchants and captains think the
sailors have not earned their twelve dollars a month, their salt beef
and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum--_ad infinitum_. The
Philadelphia catechism is
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh, holystone the decks and scrape the cable.
We crossed the Equator on October 1 and rounded Cape Horn early in
November. Monday, November 17, was a black day in our calendar. At seven
in the morning we were aroused from sleep by the cry of "All hands,
ahoy! A man overboard!" This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the
heart of everyone, and hurrying on deck we found the vessel hove flat
aback, with all her studding sails set; for the boy who was at the helm
left it to throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old
sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her
aback. The watch on deck were lowering away the quarter-boat, and I got
on deck just in time to heave myself into her as she was leaving the
side. But it was not until out on the wide Pacific in our little boat
that I knew we had lost George Ballmer, a young English sailor, who was
prized by the officers as an active and willing seaman, and by the crew
as a lively, hearty fellow and a good shipmate.
He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main-topmast head for
ringtail halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards, and
a marlin spike about his neck. He fell, and not knowing how to swim, and
being heavily dressed, with all those things around his neck, he
probably sank immediately. We pulled astern in the direction in which he
fell, and though we knew that there was no hope of saving him, yet no
one wished to speak of returning, and we rowed about for nearly an hour,
unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that we must give him up.
Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea; and the
effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness
shown by the officers, and by the crew to one another. The lost man is
seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor's rude eulogy, "Well,
poor George is gone! His cruise is up soon. He knew his work, and did
his duty, and was a good shipmate." We had hardly returned on board with
our sad report before an auction was held of the POOR man's clothes.
_II.--At the Ends of the Earth_
On Tuesday, November 25, we reached the Island of Juan Fernandez. We
were then probably seventy miles from it; and so high did it appear that
I took it for a cloud, until it gradually turned to a greener and deader
colour. By the afternoon the island lay fairly before us, and we
directed our course to the only harbour. Never shall I forget the
sensation which I experienced on finding myself once more surrounded by
land as I stood my watch at about three the following morning, feeling
the breeze coming off shore and hearing the frogs and crickets. To my
joy I was among the number ordered ashore to fill the water-casks. By
the morning of the 27th we were again upon the wide Pacific, and we saw
neither land nor sail again until, on January 13, 1835, we reached Point
Conception, on the coast of California. We had sailed well to the
westward, to have the full advantage of the north-east trades, and so
had now to sail southward to reach the port of Santa Barbara, where we
arrived on the 14th, after a voyage of 150 days from Boston.
At Santa Barbara we came into touch with other vessels engaged in
loading hides and tallow, and as this was the work in which we were soon
to be engaged, we looked on with some curiosity, especially at the
labours of the crew of the Ayacucho, who were dusky Sandwich Islanders.
And besides practice in landing on this difficult coast, we experienced
the difficulties involved in having suddenly to slip our cables and
then, when the weather allowed of it, coming to at our former moorings.
From this time until May 8, 1836, I was engaged in trading and loading,
drying and storing hides, between Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Pedro,
San Diego, San Juan, and San Francisco.
The ship California, belonging to the same firm, had been nearly two
years on the coast before she collected her full cargo of 40,000 hides.
Another vessel, the Lagoda, carrying 31,000 or 32,000, had been nearly
two years getting her cargo; and when it appeared that we were to
collect some 40,000 hides besides our own, which would be 12,000 or
15,000, the men became discontented. It was bad for others, but worse
for me, who did not mean to be a sailor for life. Three or four years
would make me a sailor in every respect, mind and habits as well as
body, and would put all my companions so far ahead of me that college
and a profession would be in vain to think of.
We were at the ends of the earth, in a country where there is neither
law nor gospel, and where sailors are at their captain's mercy. We lost
all interest in the voyage, cared nothing about the cargo, while we were
only collecting for others, began to patch our clothes, and felt as
though we were fixed beyond hope of change.
_III.--A Tyrannical Captain_
Apart from the incessant labour on board ship, at San Pedro we had to
roll heavy casks and barrels of goods up a steep hill, to unload the
hides from the carts at the summit, reload these carts with our goods,
cast the hides over the side of the hill, collect them, and take them on
board. After we had been employed in this manner for several days, the
captain quarrelled with the cook, had a dispute with the mate, and
turned his displeasure particularly against a large, heavy-moulded
fellow called Sam.
The man hesitated in his speech, and was rather slow in his motions, but
was a pretty good sailor, and always seemed to do his best. But the
captain found fault with everything he did. One morning, when the gig
had been ordered by the captain, Mr. Russell, an officer taken on at
Santa Barbara, John the Swede, and I heard his voice raised in violent
dispute with somebody. Then came blows and scuffling. Then we heard the
captain's voice down the hatchway.
"You see your condition! Will you ever give me any more of your jaw?"
No answer; and then came wrestling and heaving, as though the man was
trying to turn him.
"You may as well keep still, for I have got you!" said the captain, who
repeated his question.
"I never gave you any," said Sam, for it was his voice that we heard.
"That's not what I ask you. Will you ever be impudent to me again?"
"I never have been, sir," said Sam.
"Answer my question, or I'll make a spread-eagle of you!"
"I'm no negro slave!" said Sam.
"Then I'll make you one!" said the captain; and he came, to the
hatchway, sprang on deck, threw off his coat, and, rolling up his
sleeves, called out to the mate, "Seize that man up, Mr. A--! Seize him
up! Make a spread-eagle of him! I'll teach you all who is master
aboard!"