Tales and Novels Volume II Part 31

"My friend, Damat Zade, expressed the warmest grat.i.tude to me. 'You formerly saved my fortune: you have now saved my life; and a life yet dearer than my own, that of my daughter Fatima.'

"At the sound of that name I could not, I believe, avoid showing some emotion. I had accidentally seen this lady; and I had been captivated by her beauty, and by the sweetness of her countenance; but as I knew she was destined to be the wife of another, I suppressed my feeling, and determined to banish the recollection of the fair Fatima for ever from my imagination. Her father, however, at this instant, threw into my way a temptation, which it required all my fort.i.tude to resist. 'Saladin, continued he, 'it is but just that you, who have saved our lives, should share our festivity. Come here on the birthday of my Fatima: I will place you in a balcony, which overlooks the garden, and you shall see the whole spectacle. We shall have a _feast of tulips_, in imitation of that which, as you know, is held in the grand seignior's gardens. I a.s.sure you, the sight will be worth seeing; and besides, you will have a chance of beholding my Fatima, for a moment, without her veil.'

"'That,' interrupted I, 'is the thing I most wish to avoid. I dare not indulge myself in a pleasure which might cost me the happiness of my life. I will conceal nothing from you, who treat me with so much confidence. I have already beheld the charming countenance of your Fatima, but I know that she is destined to be the wife of a happier man.'

"Damat Zade seemed much pleased by the frankness with which I explained myself; but he would not give up the idea of my sitting with him, in the balcony, on the day of the feast of tulips; and I, on my part, could not consent to expose myself to another view of the charming Fatima. My friend used every argument, or rather every sort of persuasion, he could imagine to prevail upon me: he then tried to laugh me out of my resolution; and, when all failed, he said, in a voice of anger, 'Go, then, Saladin; I am sure you are deceiving me: you have a pa.s.sion for some other woman, and you would conceal it from me, and persuade me you refuse the favour I offer you from prudence, when, in fact, it is from indifference and contempt. Why could you not speak the truth of your heart to me with that frankness with which one friend should treat another?'

"Astonished at this unexpected charge, and at the anger which flashed from the eyes of Damat Zade, who till this moment had always appeared to me a man of a mild and reasonable temper, I was for an instant tempted to fly into a pa.s.sion and leave him: but friends, once lost, are not easily regained. This consideration had power sufficient to make me command my temper. 'My friend,' replied I, 'we will talk over this affair to-morrow: you are now angry, and cannot do me justice; but to-morrow you will be cool: you will then be convinced that I have not deceived you; and that I have no design but to secure my own happiness, by the most prudent means in my power, by avoiding the sight of the dangerous Fatima. I have no pa.s.sion for any other woman.'

"'Then,' said my friend, embracing me, and quitting the tone of anger which he had a.s.sumed only to try my resolution to the utmost, 'then, Saladin, Fatima is yours.'

"I scarcely dared to believe my senses! I could not express my joy!

'Yes, my friend,' continued the merchant, 'I have tried your prudence to the utmost; it has been victorious, and I resign my Fatima to you, certain that you will make her happy. It is true, I had a greater alliance in view for her: the pacha of Maksoud has demanded her from me; but I have found, upon private inquiry, he is addicted to the intemperate use of opium: and my daughter shall never be the wife of one who is a violent madman one half the day, and a melancholy idiot during the remainder. I have nothing to apprehend from the pacha's resentment, because I have powerful friends with the grand vizier who will oblige him to listen to reason, and to submit quietly to a disappointment he so justly merits. And now, Saladin, have you any objection to seeing the feast of tulips?'

"I replied only by falling at the merchant's feet, and embracing his knees. The feast of tulips came, and on that day I was married to the charming Fatima! The charming Fatima I continue still to think her, though she has now been my wife some years. She is the joy and pride of my heart; and, from our mutual affection, I have experienced more felicity than from all the other circ.u.mstances of my life, which are called so fortunate. Her father gave me the house in which I now live, and joined his possessions to ours; so that I have more wealth even than I desire. My riches, however, give me continually the means of relieving the wants of others; and therefore I cannot affect to despise them. I must persuade my brother Murad to share them with me, and to forget his misfortunes: I shall then think myself completely happy. As to the sultana's looking-gla.s.s, and your broken vase, my dear brother,"

continued Saladin, "we must think of some means----"

"Think no more of the sultana's looking-gla.s.s, or of the broken vase,"

exclaimed the sultan, throwing aside his merchant's habit, and showing beneath it his own imperial vest. "Saladin, I rejoice to have heard, from your own lips, the history of your life. I acknowledge, vizier, I have been in the wrong, in our argument," continued the sultan, turning to his vizier. "I acknowledge that the histories of Saladin the Lucky, and Murad the Unlucky, favour your opinion, that prudence has more influence than chance in human affairs. The success and happiness of Saladin seem to me to have arisen from his prudence: by that prudence, Constantinople has been saved from flames, and from the plague. Had Murad possessed his brother's discretion, he would not have been on the point of losing his head, for selling rolls which he did not bake: he would not have been kicked by a mule, or bastinadoed for finding a ring: he would not have been robbed by one party of soldiers, or shot by another: he would not have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a Jew: he would not have set a s.h.i.+p on fire; nor would he have caught the plague, and spread it through Grand Cairo: he would not have run my sultana's looking-gla.s.s through the body, instead of a robber: he would not have believed that the fate of his life depended on certain verses on a china vase: nor would he, at last, have broken this precious talisman, by was.h.i.+ng it with hot water. Henceforward, let Murad the Unlucky be named Murad the Imprudent: let Saladin preserve the surname he merits, and be henceforth called Saladin the Prudent."

So spake the sultan, who, unlike the generality of monarchs, could bear to find himself in the wrong; and could discover his vizier to be in the right, without cutting off his head. History farther informs us that the sultan offered to make Saladin a pacha, and to commit to him the government of a province; but Saladin the Prudent declined this honour, saying he had no ambition, was perfectly happy in his present situation, and that, when this was the case, it would be folly to change, because no one can be more than happy. What farther adventures befel Murad the Imprudent are not recorded; it is known only that he became a daily visitor to the _Teriaky_; and that he died a martyr to the immoderate use of opium. {Footnote: Those among the Turks who give themselves up to an immoderate use of opium are easily to be distinguished by a sort of rickety complaint, which this poison produces in course of time.

Destined to live agreeably only when in a sort of drunkenness, these men present a curious spectacle, when they are a.s.sembled in a part of Constantinople called Teriaky or Tcharkissy, the market of opium-eaters.

It is there that, towards the evening, you may see the lovers of opium arrive by the different streets which terminate at the Solymania (the greatest mosque in Constantinople): their pale and melancholy countenances would inspire only compa.s.sion, did not their stretched necks, their heads twisted to the right or left, their back-bones crooked, one shoulder up to their ears, and a number of other whimsical att.i.tudes, which are the consequences of the disorder, present the most ludicrous and the most laughable picture.--_Vide_ De Tott's Memoirs.}

THE MANUFACTURERS

CHAPTER I.

By patient persevering attention to business, Mr. John Darford succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a considerable cotton manufactory, by means of which he secured to himself in his old age what is called, or what he called, a competent fortune. His ideas of a competent fortune were, indeed, rather unfas.h.i.+onable; for they included, as he confessed, only the comforts and conveniences, without any of the vanities of life. He went farther still in his unfas.h.i.+onable singularities of opinion, for he was often heard to declare that he thought a busy manufacturer might be as happy as any idle gentleman.

Mr. Darford had taken his two nephews, Charles and William, into partners.h.i.+p with him: William, who had been educated by him, resembled him in character, habits, and opinions. Always active and cheerful, he seemed to take pride and pleasure in the daily exertions and care which his situation, and the trust reposed in him, required. Far from being ashamed of his occupations, he gloried in them; and the sense of duty was a.s.sociated in his mind with the idea of happiness. His cousin Charles, on the contrary, felt his duty and his ideas of happiness continually at variance: he had been brought up in an extravagant family, who considered tradesmen and manufacturers as a _caste_ disgraceful to polite society. Nothing but the utter ruin of his father's fortune could have determined him to go into business.

He never applied to the affairs of the manufactory; he affected to think his understanding above such vulgar concerns, and spent his days in regretting that his brilliant merit was buried in obscurity.

He was sensible that he hazarded the loss of his uncle's favour by the avowal of his prejudices; yet such was his habitual conceit, that he could not suppress frequent expressions of contempt for Mr. Darford's liberal notions. Whenever his uncle's opinion differed from his own, he settled the argument, as he fancied, by saying to himself or to his clerk, "My uncle Darford knows nothing of the world: how should he, poor man! shut up as he has been all his life in a counting-house?"

Nearly sixty years' experience, which his uncle sometimes pleaded as an apology for trusting to his own judgment, availed nothing in the opinion of our prejudiced youth. Prejudiced youth, did we presume to say?

Charles would have thought this a very improper expression; for he had no idea that any but old men could be prejudiced. Uncles, and fathers, and grandfathers, were, as he thought, the race of beings peculiarly subject to this mental malady; from which all young men, especially those who have their boots made by a fas.h.i.+onable bootmaker, are of course exempt.

At length the time came when Charles was at liberty to follow his own opinions: Mr. Darford died, and his fortune and manufactory were equally divided between his two nephews. "Now," said Charles, "I am no longer chained to the oar. I will leave you, William, to do as you please, and drudge on, day after day, in the manufactory, since that is your taste: for my part, I have no genius for business. I shall take my pleasure; and all I have to do is to pay some poor devil for doing my business for me."

"I am afraid the poor devil will not do your business as well as you would do it yourself," said William: "you know the proverb of the master's eye."

"True! true! Very likely," cried Charles, going to the window to look at a regiment of dragoons galloping through the town; "but I have other employment for my eyes. Do look at those fine fellows who are galloping by! Did you ever see a handsomer uniform than the colonel's? And what a fine horse! 'Gad! I wish I had a commission in the army: I should so like to be in his place this minute."

"This minute? Yes, perhaps, you would; because he has, as you say, a handsome uniform and a fine horse: but all his minutes may not be like this minute."

"Faith, William, that is almost as soberly said as my old uncle himself could have spoken. See what it is to live shut up with old folks! You catch all their ways, and grow old and wise before your time."

"The danger of growing wise before my time does not alarm me much: but perhaps, cousin, you feel that danger more than I do?"

"Not I," said Charles, stretching himself still farther out of the window to watch the dragoons, as they were forming on the parade in the market-place. "I can only say, as I said before, that I wish I had been put into the army instead of into this cursed cotton manufactory. Now the army is a genteel profession, and I own I have spirit enough to make it my first object to look and live like a gentleman."

"And I have spirit enough," replied William, "to make it my first object to look and live like an independent man; and I think a manufacturer, whom you despise so much, may be perfectly independent. I am sure, for my part, I am heartily obliged to my uncle for breeding me up to business; for now I am at no man's orders; no one can say to me, 'Go to the east, or go to the west; march here, or march there; fire upon this man, or run your bayonet into that.' I do not think the honour and pleasure of wearing a red coat, or of having what is called a genteel profession, would make me amends for all that a soldier must suffer, if he does his duty. Unless it were for the defence of my country, for which I hope and believe I should fight as well as another, I cannot say that I should like to be hurried away from my wife and children, to fight a battle against people with whom I have no quarrel, and in a cause which perhaps I might not approve of."

"Well, as you say, William, you that have a wife and children are quite in a different situation from me. You cannot leave them, of course.

Thank my stars, I am still at liberty, and I shall take care and keep myself so: my plan is to live for myself, and to have as much pleasure as I possibly can."

Whether this plan of living for himself was compatible with the hopes of having as much pleasure as possible, we leave it to the heads and hearts of our readers to decide. In the mean time we must proceed with his history.

Soon after this conversation had pa.s.sed between the two partners, another opportunity occurred of showing their characters still more distinctly.

A party of ladies and gentlemen, travellers, came to the town, and wished to see the manufactories there. They had letters of recommendation to the Mr. Darfords; and William, with great good-nature, took them to see their works. He pointed out to them, with honest pride, the healthy countenances of the children whom they employed.

"You see," said he, "that we cannot be reproached with sacrificing the health and happiness of our fellow-creatures to our own selfish and mercenary views. My good uncle took all the means in his power to make every person concerned in this manufactory as happy as possible; and I hope we shall follow his example. I am sure the riches of both the Indies could not satisfy me, if my conscience reproached me with having gained wealth by unjustifiable means. If these children were over-worked, or if they had not fresh air and wholesome food, it would be the greatest misery to me to come into this room and look at them. I could not do it. But, on the contrary, knowing, as I do, that they are well treated and well provided for in every respect, I feel joy and pride in coming amongst them, and in bringing my friends here."

William's eyes sparkled, as he thus spoke the generous sentiments of his heart; but Charles, who had thought himself obliged to attend the ladies of the party to see the manufactory, evidently showed he was ashamed of being considered as a partner. William, with perfect simplicity, went on to explain every part of the machinery, and the whole process of the manufacture; whilst his cousin Charles, who thought he should that way show his superior liberality and politeness, every now and then interposed with, "Cousin, I'm afraid we are keeping the ladies too long standing. Cousin, this noise must certainly annoy the ladies horridly.

Cousin, all this sort of thing cannot be very interesting, I apprehend, to the ladies. Besides, they won't have time, at this rate, to see the china-works; which is a style of thing more to their taste, I presume."

The fidgeting impatience of our hero was extreme; till at last he gained his point, and hurried the ladies away to the china-works. Amongst these ladies there was one who claimed particular attention, Miss Maude Germaine, an _elderly young lady_, who, being descended from a high family, thought herself ent.i.tled to be proud. She was yet more vain than proud, and found her vanity in some degree gratified by the officious attention of her new acquaintance, though she affected to ridicule him to her companions, when she could do so un.o.bserved. She asked them, in a whisper, how they liked her new cicerone; and whether he did not show the lions very prettily, considering who and what he was?

It has been well observed "that people are never ridiculous by what they are, but by what they pretend to be." {Footnote: Rochefoucault} These ladies, with the best dispositions imaginable for sarcasm, could find nothing to laugh at in Mr. William Darford's plain una.s.suming manners; as he did not pretend to be a fine gentleman, there was no absurd contrast between his circ.u.mstances and his conversation; while almost every word, look, or motion of his cousin was an object of ridicule, because it was affected. His being utterly unconscious of his foibles, and perfectly secure in the belief of his own gentility, increased the amus.e.m.e.nt of the company. Miss Maude Germaine undertook to play him off, but she took sufficient care to prevent his suspecting her design. As they were examining the beautiful china, she continually appealed to Mr.

Charles Darford, as a man of taste; and he, with awkward gallantry, and still more awkward modesty, always began his answers by protesting he was sure Miss Maude Germaine was infinitely better qualified to decide in such matters than he was: he had not the smallest pretensions to taste; but that, in his humble opinion, the articles she pitched upon were evidently the most superior in elegance, and certainly of the newest fas.h.i.+on. "Fas.h.i.+on, you know, ladies, is all in all in these things, as in every thing else."

Miss Germaine, with a degree of address which afforded much amus.e.m.e.nt to herself and her companions, led him to extol or reprobate whatever she pleased; and she made him p.r.o.nounce an absurd eulogium on the ugliest thing in the room, by observing it was vastly like what her friend, Lady Mary Crawley, had just bought for her chimney-piece.

Not content with showing she could make our man of taste decide as she thought proper, she was determined to prove that she could make him reverse his own decisions, and contradict himself, as often as she pleased. They were at this instant standing opposite to two vases of beautiful workmans.h.i.+p.

"Now," whispered she to one of her companions, "I will lay you any wager I first make him say that both those vases are frightful; then that they are charming; afterward that he does not know which he likes best; next, that no person of any taste can hesitate betwixt them; and at last, when he has p.r.o.nounced his decided humble opinion, he shall reverse his judgment, and protest he meant to say quite the contrary."

All this the lady accomplished much to her satisfaction and to that of her friends; and so blind and deaf is self-love, our hero neither heard nor saw that he was the object of derision. William, however, was rather more clear-sighted; and as he could not bear to see his cousin make himself the b.u.t.t of the company, he interrupted the conversation, by begging the ladies would come into another room to look at the manner in which the china was painted. Charles, with a contemptuous smile, observed that the ladies would probably find the odour of the paint rather too much for their nerves. Full of the sense of his own superior politeness, he followed; since it was determined that they must go, as he said, _nolens volens._ He did not hear Miss Germaine whisper to her companions as they pa.s.sed, "Can any thing in nature be much more ridiculous than a vulgar manufacturer, who sets up for a fine gentleman?"

Amongst the persons who were occupied in painting a set of china with flowers, there was one who attracted particular attention, by the ease and quickness with which she worked. An iris of her painting was produced, which won the admiration of all the spectators; and whilst Charles was falling into ecstasies about the merit of the painting, and the perfection to which the arts are now carried in England, William was observing the flushed and unhealthy countenance of the young artist. He stopped to advise her not to overwork herself, to beg she would not sit in a draught of wind where she was placed, and to ask her, with much humanity, several questions concerning her health and her circ.u.mstances.

Whilst he was speaking to her, he did not perceive that he had set his foot by accident on Miss Germaine's gown; and, as she walked hastily on, it was torn in a deplorable manner. Charles apologized for his cousin's extreme absence of mind and rudeness; and with a candid condescension added, "Ladies, you must not think ill of my cousin William, because he is not quite so much your humble servant as I am: notwithstanding his little rusticities, want of polish, gallantry, and so forth, things that are not in every man's power, I can a.s.sure you there is not a better man in the world; except that he is so entirely given up to business, which indeed ruins a man for every thing else."

The apologist little imagined he was at this moment infinitely more awkward and ill-bred than the person whom he affected to pity and to honour with his protection. Our hero continued to be upon the best terms possible with himself and with Miss Maude Germaine, during the remainder of this day. He discovered that this lady intended to pa.s.s a fortnight with a relation of hers in the town of ----. He waited upon her the next day, to give her an account of the manner in which he had executed some commissions about the choice of china with which she had honoured him.

One visit led to another, and Charles Darford was delighted to find himself admitted into the society of such very genteel persons. At first, he was merely proud of being acquainted with a lady of Miss Maude Germaine's importance, and contented himself with boasting of it to all his acquaintance; by degrees, he became more audacious; he began to fancy himself in love with her, and to flatter himself she would not prove inexorable. The raillery of some of his companions piqued him to make good his boast; and he determined to pay his addresses to a lady, who, they all agreed, could never think of a man in business.

Our hero was not entirely deluded by his vanity: the lady's coquetry contributed to encourage his hopes. Though she always spoke of him to her friends as a person whom it was impossible she could ever think of for a moment, yet as soon as he made a declaration of his love to her, she began to consider that a manufacturer might have common sense, and even some judgment and taste. Her horror of people in business continued in full force; but she began to allow there was no general rule that did not admit of an exception. When her female friends laughed, following the example she had set them, at Charles Darford, her laughter became fainter than theirs; and she was one evening heard to ask a stranger, who saw him for the first time, whether that young gentleman looked as if he was in business?

Sundry matters began to operate in our hero's favour, precedents, opportunely produced by her waiting-maid, of ladies of the first families in England, ladies even of the first fas.h.i.+on, who had married into mercantile houses; a present, too, from her admirer of the beautiful china vase, of which she had so often made him change his opinion, had its due effect; but the preponderating motive was the dread of dying an old maid, if she did not accept of this offer.