Laurence Oliphant

“ Do you think it is the fault of the religion that you don't make converts, or the fault of the system under which it is propagated? If you gave up 'the enticing words of man's wisdom,' and tried a little of 'the demonstration of the spirit and of power,' don't you think the result would be different? If you are only illumined by 'a dim religious light' yourselves, how do you expect to dissipate the gross darkness of paganism? You have only got an imitation blaze that warms nobody at home, and you wonder when you take it abroad that it leaves everybody as cold and as dead as it finds them. ”

“ From the vine-covered terrace on which our camp is situated we look down a wild, rocky, precipitous gorge eighteen hundred feet upon the plain of the Kishon, scarce a mile distant, so steep is it. To the right this gorge widens into an amphitheatre, and the hillsides, sloping more gently, are terraced with vines, figs, and pomegranates, and at its head is the copious spring which supplies us with water, to which one of our donkeys makes several pilgrimages a day with a large earthen jar slung in a straw cradle on each side. ”

“ My Mr Plumper! Ah, Adolphus, there is not a fibre in our bodies or souls—and why should not souls have fibres?—that does not vibrate in harmony! We are like Æolian harps that make the same music to the same airs of the affections, while electrically our brains respond sympathetically to the same wave-current of idea. Emotionally, intellectually, we are one. Why should I allow an absurd custom of conventional civilisation, degrading to the sex, to prevent my telling him so? ”

“ Northward, and not thirty miles distant, the Himalayas reared their heaven-piercing summits, peak succeeding peak, and crag succeeding crag, far as the eye could reach, from east to west a glittering chain, while here and there the light clouds which hung upon its rocks and precipices became thinned, till they vanished altogether, or, rising in denser masses from some dark valley, obscured the lower portions of the range, only to give relief to the summits and elevate them in appearance—an aid they little needed, for the height of the lowest level of the chain is upwards of 15,000 feet. ”

“ Lady Broadhem, Chundango, Grandon, and Ursula—backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, like some horrid word that I had to spell in a game of letters, and could never bring right. Love, friendship, hate, pity, admiration, treachery—more words to spell, ever combining wrongly, and never letting me rest, till I thought something must crack under the strain. ”

“ Here, if we leave the regular track, and make up our minds to follow a dizzy path cut out of the precipitous cliff, which winds back up the gorge, soon disappearing in the depth of its gloomy recesses, we plunge into one of the wildest and weirdest scenes that the ingenuity of nature has conceived in any country, so fantastic are the crags and so labyrinthine the gorges. ”

“ It is the landscape in front, however, that most powerfully attracts the attention—the scenery in this direction rising to an amphitheatre, and exhibiting to the delighted view the cities and numberless temples of the valley below, the stupendous mountain of Sheopoori, the still supertowering Jib Jibia, clothed to its snow-capped peak with pendulous forests, and finally the gigantic Himaleh, forming the majestic background to this wonderful and sublime picture. ”

“ I heard Lady Broadhem leave the room, but did not raise my head, and indeed only slowly comprehended the purport of her last speech. As it dawned upon me, the hopelessness of the whole situation seemed to overwhelm me. Chaos and ruin like gaunt spectres stared me in the face! What mattered it if the Broadhem family were bankrupt in estate, if I was to become bankrupt in mind? What matter if they lost all their worldly possessions? Had I not lost all hope of Ursula since I had heard of her attachment to Grandon, and with her every generous impulse of my nature? ”

“ It was an oasis, not actually in a desert—for the rocky mountain ranges were covered with wild herbage—but in a savage wilderness of desolation, in the midst of which the village nestled in a forest of orange, almond, fig, and pomegranate trees, the tiny rills of water by which they were irrigated glistening like silver threads in the sunlight, and the yellow crops beyond contrasting with the dull green of the hill verdure, long deprived of water, and the gray rocks which reared their craggy pinnacles above it. ”

“ Gradually, and quite unconsciously to myself, so far as any mental effort was concerned, my thoughts seemed to condense into a definite plan of action; now and then a brilliant idea would appear like a flash, and vanish sometimes before I could catch it; but in so far as the complication in which Grandon, Ursula, the Broadhem family, and myself were concerned, I seemed to see my way, or at all events to feel sure that my way would be shown to me, if I let my inspirations guide me. When once one achieves this thorough confidence in one's inspirations, the journey of life becomes simplified. ”

“ The carriage in which we were driving was one I had seen brought over the mountain passes on men’s shoulders in detached portions; and this emanation from Long-Acre was to be trundled for the rest of its existence along the three or four miles of carriage-road which the valley of Nepaul can boast. Our way lay through narrow lanes, walled in by the enclosures of different rich men’s suburban residences, and the prolific orange-trees drooped their luscious fruit over the garden walls for the benefit of any one who chose to pick them, as they hung temptingly overhead. ”

“ Haifa, Oct. 7.—The village of Mugheir, where we halted to rest after our long and weary scramble from the Jordan valley, is one of the most out-of-the-way places to be found in Palestine. It is not on the way anywhere, but a sort of Ultima Thule—the last spot where ground fit for cultivation is to be found. It stands on the margin of a charming little plain, where there is a fine olive grove. Indeed, looking westward, the prospect is cheery enough, but eastward it is wild rock, black, gloomy gorges, or less precipitous but equally barren valleys. ”

“ We ascended a handsome gateway of the mosque, 120 feet in height, whence I looked over a wide expanse of level country, while the intricate maze of ruins through which we had been wandering lay spread at our feet like a map; the wall of the city is still entire, and encloses a space of six miles in circumference, the extent of this once famous place.
The court-yard of the mosque, which was at least 150 yards square, contains the white marble tomb of the holy man. It is, without exception, the most perfect little bijou imaginable. ”

“ Haifa, May 10.—The interest which attaches to the memory of the late General Gordon must be my apology for devoting a letter to my personal reminiscences of one whose singularly pure and lofty character attracted me to him at a time when he was comparatively unknown. Nothing is in fact more remarkable than the suddenness of the notoriety into which he sprang, a notoriety from which he of all men would have the most shrunk, and of the knowledge of which, by the singular fatality which isolated him from the world in his beleaguered garrison, he was to the last unconscious. ”

“ Again, if Lady Broadhem thinks I am really going to do what my conscience urges, and sacrifice myself for Grandon, then, poor girl, she will be sacrificed to Chundango.
Nothing but misery will come out of that double event: if I do what is right, it will bring misery; if I do what is wrong, it will bring misery too,—that is one consolation—it makes the straight and narrow path easier. The only difficulty is, I can't find it—and standing here with my hand on her chair, my head swimming, and Lady Ursula looking anxiously up at me, I am not likely to find it. ”