The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do with it—with just one of those golden disks!
Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr. Chenery (of The Times), translated twenty-six of his poems from the Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought, the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep jest.
Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar, the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates belong to it. First he chants its praises:—
How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
Told abroad are its fame and repute:
Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
Its bright look is loved by mankind,
As though it had been molten of their hearts.
By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
Charming are its sufficiency and help.
How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it, would be endless!
How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has softened.
How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure, it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are bold, it helps everyone who has it, it banishes all cares, and one might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all mighty.
All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret, leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for good—if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
But the golden coin has another side—the obverse—another Fate, for evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:—
Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it,
The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
But for it no thief’s right hand were cut off;
Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that withholds;
Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
Is that it helps thee not in straits,
Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a lover,
Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
“I have no mind for intimacy with thee—begone!”
“The worst quality that it possesses” remains to this day, and could Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor’s, fleeing like a runaway slave.
But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all powerful to bless.
How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of things.
It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
XXV
Though the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often twice a day, to her flowers to pray.
From the woods she brought the delicate primrose opening on the mossy bank among the grey ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of hawthorn coming before the swallow; the garden crocus from the grass of the garden; the first green spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the beautiful white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April morning while the nightingale sang.
With these she came to pray each day, at the window-niche. After she had sat awhile at the table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt at the window with her face in her hands; the scent of the violets filled her hair.
Her prayer was deeper than words and was not
