FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  
er, he says, would hold constant, as they, to the constantly unseen--a trebly cataphractic Invisible. The Rajah professes curiosity to know how it is that the singular people nourish their loyalty, since they cannot attest to the continued being of the object in which they put their faith. He is informed by his prostrate servant of a settled habit they have of diligently seeking their Divinity, hidden above, below; and of copiously taking inside them doses of what is denied to their external vision: thus they fortify credence chemically on an abundance of meats and liquors; fire they eat, and they drink fire; they become consequently instinct with fire. Necessarily therefore they believe in fire. Believing, they worship. Worshipping, they march Eastward at morn, Westward at eve. For that way lies the key, this way the cupboard, of the supplies, their fuel. According to Stage directions, THE RAJAH AND HIS MINISTER Enter a Gin-Palace.--It is to witness a service that they have learnt to appreciate as Anglicanly religious. On the step of the return to their Indian clime, they speak of the hatted sect, which is most, or most commercially, succoured and fattened by our rule there: they wave adieu to the conquering Islanders, as to 'Parsees beneath a cloud.' The two are seen last on the deck of the vessel, in perusal of a medical pamphlet composed of statistics and sketches, traceries, horrid blots, diagrams with numbers referring to notes, of the various maladies caused by the prolonged prosecution of that form of worship. 'But can they suffer so and live?' exclaims the Rajah, vexed by the physical sympathetic twinges which set him wincing. 'Science,' his Minister answers, 'took them up where Nature, in pity of their martyrdom, dropped them. They do not live; they are engines, insensible things of repairs and patches; insteamed to pursue their infuriate course, to the one end of exhausting supplies for the renewing of them, on peril of an instant suspension if they deviate a step or stop: nor do they.' The Rajah is of opinion, that he sails home with the key of the riddle of their power to vanquish. In some apparent allusion to an Indian story of a married couple who successfully made their way, he accounts for their solid and resistless advance, resembling that of-- The doubly-wedded man and wife, Pledged to each other and against the world With mutual union. One would like to
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

worship

 

supplies

 
Indian
 

wincing

 

Science

 

Minister

 

twinges

 
sympathetic
 

exclaims

 

physical


answers

 

engines

 

insensible

 
dropped
 
martyrdom
 

Nature

 

suffer

 
composed
 

pamphlet

 

statistics


sketches
 

traceries

 
medical
 

perusal

 

vessel

 

horrid

 

prolonged

 

caused

 

prosecution

 
maladies

diagrams

 

numbers

 

referring

 
things
 

repairs

 
resistless
 
advance
 

resembling

 

doubly

 
accounts

married

 
couple
 
successfully
 

wedded

 

mutual

 

Pledged

 

allusion

 
apparent
 
exhausting
 

renewing