Tobit

“ Tobit then with his wife and his son hid him and fled away all naked, for many loved him well. After this, forty-five days, the sons of the king slew the king, and then returned Tobit unto his house, and all his faculties and goods were restored to him again. After this on a high festival day of our Lord when that Tobit had a good dinner in his house, he said to his son: Go and fetch to us some of our tribe dreading God, that they may come and eat with us. And he went forth and anon he returned telling to his father that one of the children of Israel was slain and lay dead in the street. ”

“ The light of our eyes, the staff of our age, the solace of our life, the hope of our posterity, all these only having in thee, we ought not to have let thee go from us. To whom Tobit said: Be still and trouble thee not, our son is safe enough, the man is true and faithful enough with whom we sent him. She might in no wise be comforted, but every day she went and looked and espied the way that he should come if she might see him come from far. Then Raguel said to Tobias his son-in-law: Abide here with me, and I shall send messengers of thy health and welfare to Tobit thy father. ”

“ The Hebrew legend of Tobit and his son Tobias (told in the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha) was a favourite one with the Mediæval Church, and became therefore a traditional subject for painting; see e.g. in the National Gallery, 288, 72, and 48. Tobit, a Jewish exile, having fallen also into poverty, and afterwards becoming blind, prays for death rather than life in noble despair. "To him the angel of all beautiful life (Raphael) is sent, hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all right and happy ways of life" (Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31) . ”

“ Then he said to Tobias, “Prepare yourself for the journey, and may God give you a good journey.” And when his son had prepared everything for the journey, his father said, “Go with this man; and may God who dwells in heaven prosper your journey, and may the angel of God keep you company.” So they both went forth, and the young man’s dog with them. 17 But Anna his mother wept and said to Tobit, “Why have you sent our son away? Is he not the staff of our hand, in going in and out before us? 18 Do not be greedy to add money to money, but consider it as refuse compared to our child. ”

“ Whiles that Tobias tarried because of his marriage, his father Tobit began to be heavy saying: Trowest thou wherefore my son tarrieth and why he is holden there? Trowest thou that Gabael be dead, and no man is there that shall give him his money? ”

“ My seven husbands are already dead and so why should I live? But if it does not please you that I should die, then command some regard to be given to me and pity to be taken on me, so that I will no longer hear reproach.’”
16 So the prayers of them both were heard before the majesty of the great God. 17 And Raphael was sent to heal them both, that is, to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes, and to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel as a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit; and to bind Asmodeus the evil spirit, because she belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance. ”

“ For like as Job was assailed so was Tobit assailed of his kinsmen, scorning him and saying to him: Where is now thy hope and reward for which thou gavest thy alms and madest sepulchres? Tobit blamed them for such words, saying to them: In no wise say ye not so, for we be the sons of holy men, and we abide that life that God shall give to them that never shall change their faith from him. Anna his wife went daily to the work of weaving, and got by the labor of her hands their livelihood as much as she might. ”

“ Such were Tobit and little Tobe, the most conspicuous of the village “characters” of Brickville, a Pennsylvania town deriving sustenance from its brick-kiln, its railroads, and its contiguous farming interests.
It was town talk that Tobit McStenger was a hard father; drunk or sober, he chastised little Tobe upon the slightest occasion.
“But,” said Tobit McStenger, after admitting his severity as a parent before the bar in Couch's saloon, “let any one else lay a finger on that kid! Just let 'em! They'll find out, jail or no jail, I'm ugly!” ”

“ Tobit has become blind, and fallen on evil days in Nineveh; he bids his son Tobias set forth and fetch a sum of money deposited with Gabael in Media. He chooses as a trustworthy companion Azarias, who turns out to [Pg 432] be no other than the angel Raphael, whom God, compassionating both Tobit’s plight and Sara’s subjection to a demon, has sent purposely from heaven.
On the journey Tobias (R.V.) “went down to wash himself in the Tigris and a fish leaped out of the river and would have swallowed him. ”

“ Strangely enough, as in the case of Tobit, an angel appears in the rôle of the grateful dead, and, even more oddly, takes the form of the hero’s uncle, who gave him the money with which he set forth on his journey. ”

“ Returning then to the text, he told the story of Tobit and Tobias's son, and how Tobias had to have resort to burning perfumes in order to save himself from death from the evil spirit, who, when he smelt the perfume, fled into Egypt and was bound by an angel. "We, too, must strive to bind the evil spirit, and we can do so with prayer. ”

“ Now these two widely separated and unrelated prayers were to be brought together into one romantic story by the help of an angel, who becomes a guide to the son of Tobit, young Tobias, who is about to start out in life in quest of a fortune. The angel guides him to Ecbatana, bids him make the eighth to offer marriage to Sara, whose seven husbands had perished on the nuptial night. Though Tobias had never seen the young woman before, he was to her the next of living kin and so should be (according to the Mosaic law) the one to offer his hand to the youthful, much-married widow. ”

“ They come to the house of Raguel, a kinsman of his, and Tobias marries Sarah, the only daughter of Raguel. By burning the heart and liver of the fish in the bridal chamber the evil spirit, Asmodeus (q.v.) , who has already killed seven husbands of Sarah, is driven away. The debt collected, the three return to Nineveh, and Tobias applies the gall of the fish to his father's eyes and their sight is restored. Tobit dies at Nineveh and is buried there; Tobias dies at Ecbatana, yet not before he has heard of the destruction of Nineveh by Nebuchadnezzar. ”

“ The remaining fifty sufficed to make Tobias as rich as Oriental fancy can imagine. The young man fell in love, married his bride, and brought her home. On the threshold stood the Demon: 'How about my fifty per cent?' The Venus d'Ille, you see, was not born yesterday. From the dimmest dawn of time sages have taught us not to trust the gods too far."
Unluckily there seems to be no authority whatever for this alleged Chaldæan version, which should obviously come closer to the folk-tale than to the Book of Tobit. ”

“ Chapter 5 1 Tobias then answered and said, “Father, I will do all things which you have commanded me; 2 but how can I receive the money, since I do not know him?” 3 Then he gave him the handwriting, and said to him, “Seek a man to go with you, while I yet live, and I will give him wages; then go and receive the money.” 4 Therefore, when he went to seek a man, he found Raphael who was an angel, 5 but he did not know it ”

“ And she went out every day into the way which they went, and did eat no meat on the daytime, and ceased not whole nights to bewail her son Tobias, until the fourteen days of the wedding were expired, which Raguel had sworn that he should spend there. Then Tobias said to Raguel, Let me go, for my father and my mother look no more to see me. ”

“ When I reflect, brother Toby, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble—when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance———I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father—but my commission. ”

“ Lord!" said Toby. "The Papers is full of obserwations as it is; and so's the Parliament. Here's last week's paper, now;" taking a very dirty one from his pocket, and holding it from him at arm's length; "full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like to know the news as well as any man," said Toby, slowly; folding it a little smaller, and putting it in his pocket again: "but it almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens me almost. I don't know what we poor people are coming to. Lord send we may be coming to something better in the New Year nigh upon us!" ”

“ An exultation leaped in me, the exultation of old days of peril in the air. I thought of Toby, with whom I had shared so many, with a sudden warming of the heart. Poor old Toby! He had died as after all he perhaps would have wished to die, high up in the infinite blue—dead of shock long before he reached the earth. I thrilled with the old-time sense of mastery over a fine machine, delicately sensitive to the controls, as that massed and pinnacled cloud landscape grew large again beneath me. ”

“ At all events he is cured of the transcendentals.”
“Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and looking like a very old sheep in a reverie.
The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the shade of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good fellow,” said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait here till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. ”

“ And Tobias remembering the angel's word, took out of his bag part of the liver, and laid it upon burning coals.
8:3. Then the angel Raphael took the devil, and bound him in the desert of upper Egypt.
8:4. Then Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said to her: Sara, arise, and let us pray to God to day, and to morrow, and the next day: because for these three nights we are joined to God: and when the third night is over, we will be in our own wedlock.
8:5. For we are the children of saints, and we must not be joined together like heathens that know not God. ”

“ After a giddy night of grand and lofty tumbling, in which, over a big and dying sea, without a breath of wind to steady her, the Uncle Toby rolled every person on board sick of soul, a light breeze sprang up and the reefs were shaken out. ”

“ Ragg, "and Mr. Todd is correct; poor Tobias is as mad as he can be!" "Alas, alas, Tobias, why don't you try to reason yourself into a better state of mind! You don't know a bit what you are saying, any more than the man in the moon." ”

“ Don’t block up the door.”
“’Tis wonderful how she knows,” says Tobin as we walk to the pier.
As we squeezed through the gates a nigger man sticks his lighted segar against Tobin’s ear, and there is trouble. Tobin hammers his neck, and the women squeal, and by presence of mind I drag the little man out of the way before the police comes. Tobin is always in an ugly mood when enjoying himself.
On the boat going back, when the man calls “Who wants the good-looking waiter?” ”

“ Christians always feed the hungry. So I bring him.”
‘“You should have said that first,” said Toby. He pushed plates at me and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine. I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills.
‘“You like pills—eh?” says Toby. “No,” I says. “I’ve seen our ship’s doctor roll too many of em.” ”

“ The way Tobin put it, it did seem to corroborate the art of prediction, though it looked to me that these accidents could happen to any one at Coney without the implication of palmistry.
Tobin got up and walked around on deck, looking close at the passengers out of his little red eyes. I asked him the interpretation of his movements. Ye never know what Tobin has in his mind until he begins to carry it out.
“Ye should know,” says he, “I’m working out the salvation promised by the lines in me palm. I’m looking for the crooked-nose man that’s to bring the good luck. ’Tis all that will save us. ”