Fellah

“ The Fellah does not stand very high in the evolution of society, and neither his wife nor his child is particularly fortunate; one would not wish to be a Fellah, but, at any rate, he does not know the pinch of want, he is on good terms with everybody, he has a ready joke, which perhaps it is better you do not understand, and a quick smile; he is a well-fed and contented animal.
The Fellah can be studied near at hand in your donkey boy, who is simply a Nile peasant quickened by contact with Europeans. ”

“ Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting, and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the more that man cried to the lover "Come," the faster did he run away; so the Fellah returned and said, "He misliketh to come and he hath fled." ”

“ Thus, in these latter days, has the patriarch found in the modern saint a rival in popular regard; the dark man thinking little of Job and much of his own Sheikh Saʿad, while the native fellah, overborne by the majesty of hoary tradition, bows in reverence before the old-world saint, esteeming the village sheikh a mere upstart. ”

“ In the taro patch Felisi often puckers her brow over the problems of an eventful life, but in this particular case she can get no further in her deductions than that "the law" is a "big fellah," and the way of the white man beyond belief. ”

“ This belief in kismet, and lack of co-operation, tells favourably in one way—the fellah is not revengeful. No matter whether he deserves what ill befalls him, or is an innocent sufferer, he never goes about for simple vengeance, but yields, and is ready to act as if no grudge or ill-feeling rested in his mind. ”

“ Unless therefore there is something very seriously amiss, the fellah in general will not fly to the European official, on the rare occasion when he sees him in the distance, and get himself into the fire by trying to put some one else into the frying-pan. If any one wanted to learn what was going on, and what was the state of affairs, let him go on foot occasionally and tramp through some villages, chat to the people by the way, avoid the shekhs like poison ”

“ Such, slightly sketched, are the occupations and daily pursuits of the Fellahîn. It is almost unnecessary to point out how every act of their lives, not less than every word of their mouths, contains some echo of the old Bible times. Their peculiar habits are handed down from so remote a period that they themselves—being accustomed, with the ordinary conservatism of Orientals, to tread, without a thought of change, in their fathers’ steps, have forgotten the origin of many of their customs. ”

“ The Fellahs have but a feeble conception of the dignity of man and of their own value; the only answer they give to blows is a complaint. Sometimes, indeed, they rebel like a flock of sheep, but with a conviction that their effort will be of no avail. It is thus, at the times of conscription, they resist the soldiery; but after a few have been killed, the rest allow themselves to be huddled on board the man-of-war, in which they are taken down the Nile to Cairo, the women and the young girls following them for some miles along the banks with cries and lamentations. ”

“ We hear them without alarm, having so frequently heard them before. But if, like Felix, we had been brought up in the darkness of paganism, and if another Paul had come and opened our eyes, and unveiled those sacred terrors, how exceedingly should we have feared! This was the case with Felix. He perceived the bandage which conceals the sight of futurity drop in a moment. He heard St. Paul, that herald of grace and ambassador to the Gentiles, he heard him reason on temperance and a judgment to come. His soul was amazed; his heart trembled; his knees smote one against another. ”

“ The accusers being now come, Felix sat to judge the matter, and hear what each party had to say. "And when he was called forth, Tertullus," in the name of the Jewish priests and rulers, "began to accuse" Paul, "saying, Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, we accept it always, and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words." ”

“ Is it a man that's bent over his staff for the last twenty years! Hut, tut, Phelim, don't say sich a thing.”
“Why, ma'am, sure he takes wid it himself; he doesn't deny it at all, the ould sinner.”
“Oh, that I mayn't sin, Phelim, if one knows who to thrust in this world, so they don't. Why the desateful ould—hut, Phelim, I can't give into it.”
“Faix, ma'am, no wondher; but sure when he confesses it himself! Bedad, Mrs. Doran, I never seen you look so well. Upon my sowl, you'd take the shine out o' the youngest o' thim!”
“Is it me, Phelim? Why, you're beside yourself.” ”

“ But seeing at length from what source the supposed shyness came, the Count ceased to smile. The Countess, after some time, felt it her duty to return to the rigorous ways of the convent and reproach her husband for his faults; and this she did with the inconsiderate stiffness and arrogance of conscious virtue which marks both the old and the young bigot. She showed no respect for him, either before strangers or servants, and regarded him more and more as a lost sheep. Such conduct a man of even less violent temper than Count Felsenburk certainly would not have endured. ”

“ The Count, seeing that he had frightened his daughter, now tried to console her.
“Mind your father, Felicia, quietly and sensibly,” he said; “do not interrupt his words with nonsense, and do not provoke him with childish objections. You, being young and inexperienced, do not anticipate how important a period has begun in your life; that in your hand lies the power of adding to the Felsenburk name a new luster and undying glory. ”

“ There was ample reason for the trembling of Felix when Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." Felix was a notoriously unjust ruler who had taken bribes, murdered a high-priest and, relying upon the influence of his infamous brother Pallas at Rome, was steeped in crimes. He had induced his wife Drusilla to desert her husband to marry him. Felix showed his character when he sent for Paul a number of times and communed with him, hoping to receive a bribe. ”

“ The red and white plaid looked exactly like Fel's dress; and as the little girl turned around, there were the soft, brown eyes, and the dark, wavy hair, and the lovely pale face of Fel Allen herself!
I never expect to be much happier till I get to heaven than I was for the next hour or two. I danced and screamed, and laughed and cried, and wondered how Fel could keep so calm, when we hadn't seen each other for as much as three weeks. ”

“ But a person who was at once irreligious and over-dressed, who constantly had to be 'put down' for fear he should become offensive, and who was a stranger to all the little Masonic signals by which ladies and gentlemen can find each other out—the very idea of his presuming to cross the pale, and to form any other tie than those of the most indifferent acquaintance, filled Felicia with the strongest repugnance. ”

“ Then a great shout went up from all round to heaven, “He has killed him! He has killed him! We have a new-made god! Tu-Kila-Kila is dead! Long live Tu-Kila-Kila!”
Felix drew back for a moment, panting and breathless, and wiped his wet brow with his sleeve, his brain all whirling. At his feet, the savage lay stretched, like a log. Felix gazed at the blood-bespattered face remorsefully. It is an awful thing, even in a just quarrel, to feel that you have really taken a human life! The responsibility is enough to appall the bravest of us. ”

“ Feli. ’Tis steady and must seem so impregnably fortressed with his own content that no envious thought could ever invade his spirit; never surveying any man so unmeasuredly happy, whom I thought not justly hateful for some true impoverishment; never beholding any favour of Madam Felicity gracing another, which his well-bounded content persuaded not to hang in the front of his own fortune; and therefore as far from envying any man, as he valued all men infinitely distant from accomplished beatitude. These native adjuncts appropriate to me the name of Feliche. ”

“ Felsburg reared himself back in his chair at his desk with an expectant, eager look on his face. In the doorway at the top of the stairs appeared the man for whom he waited—a middle-aged man with slumped shoulders, in worn, soiled garments, and in every line of his harassed face expressing the fact that here stood a failure, mutely craving the pardon of the world for being a failure. ”

“ Yet I ventured to offer my hand to Felicitas. I, an invalid, a student, and a hermit, with nothing to recommend me except my estate and my honourable intentions, to Felicitas, a creature so soft, and made for pleasure, so irresistibly open to every impression of the imagination and every sensuous charm, who repays the world in such full measure for what she receives from it. Surely it were a crime if I tried to interest her in my quiet abstract speculations. In allowing her every imaginable freedom, I purchase the right to live near her as her husband. She is fond of men's society ... ”

“ Am I a Jew or a heretic that I should endure this sight and not smite this queen of earth, which dareth to insult the Queen of Saints? Yea, if I should be torn to pieces, I will not suffer them to proceed."
I clung to him affrighted, and cried out, "Basil, you shall not go. Our Blessed Lady forbids it; your passion doth blind you. You will offend God and lose your soul if you do. Basil, dearest Basil, 'tis human anger, not godly sorrow only, moves you now." ”

“ Felix still believed there was a heaven and hell, in some form or other, as punishment or reward for what one did in this life. And he had always been taught that putting an end to things one's self was about the worst sin aman could commit. Well, wasn't he willing to commit the worst sin and suffer the consequences to save Sheilah? He'd been willing to go to hell for her when he joined the army. ”

“ Guy little dreaming of this so sudden thaw, and wanting the balm of love to apply to his sores, resolved to make a second encounter. So coming again to his Felice, said, "Fair Lady, I have been arraigned long ago, and now am come to receive my just sentence from the Tribunal of Love. It is life, or death, fair Felice that I look for, let me not languish in despair; give judgment, O ye fair, give judgment, that I may know my doom. A word from thy sacred lips can cure my bleeding heart, or a frown can doom me to the pit of misery." ”

“ Maria Felicia feared the convent bars, the life awaiting her behind them, that terrible living death, that giving up of will, activity, conviction, that dull devotion and blind obedience—and yet not for one moment did she falter or succumb. For her, just for her, such a lot was meted out—for her, whose blood ran so rapidly, in whom was such an abundance of strength, such a strong instinct and love of liberty. ”

“ I'm afeard, Phelim, that I'll be too foolish about you—that I'll be too fond of you.”
Phelim looked at her in solemn silence, and then replied—“Let us trust in God that you may be enabled to overcome the weakness. Pray to Him to avoid all folly, an' above everything, to give you a dacent stock of discration, for it's a mighty fine thing for a woman of your yea—hem—a mighty fine thing it is, indeed, for a sasoned woman, as you say you are.” ”

“ This independence of mind, so conspicuous among libertines, is consequently an art,—not of disengaging themselves from prejudices, but of shutting their eyes against the light, and of extinguishing the purest sentiments of the heart. Felix, educated in a court fraught with the maxims of the great instantly ridicules the apostle's preaching. St. Paul, undismayed, attacks him, and finds a conscience concealed in his bosom: the very dignity of Felix is constrained to aid our apostle by adding weight to his ministry. He demolishes the edifice of Felix's pride. ”

“ Mused Ferlie's mother, it was all very well for the men-folk to content themselves with prayer by proxy, reaping where their loyal wives had sown, but if the women were also to desert the old and tried paths to that Better Land, Far, Far Away, the chances were that the Judgment would fall due before anyone had reached those Eternal Bowers, and the travellers find themselves shooed into Outer Darkness to the tune of "Depart, ye Cursed!" ”

“ Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix, and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty; and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. ”

“ This answer was repeated to Sudun when he called on them in a voice of thunder to advance. When he heard this, he forced his way through them till he perceived Wakhs El Fellat. "Who are you, Satan?" cried he, "and who brought you here?" "I came here," replied he, "to cut off your head, and destroy your memory." "Have you any blood-feud against me?" asked Sudun, "or any offence to revenge upon me?" "I have no enmity against you in my heart," said Wakhs El Fellat, "and you have never injured me; but I have asked Shama in marriage of her father, and he has demanded of me your head as a condition. ”

“ He was a worthy upholder of the Laudian tradition at Oxford, an enlightened and untiring patron of learning, and a man of exemplary morals and great piety which remained unsullied in the midst of a busy life and much contact with the world. A sum of money was left by John Cross to perpetuate Fell’s memory by an annual speech in his praise, but the Felii laudes have been discontinued since 1866. There are two interesting pictures of Fell at Christ Church, one where he is represented with his two friends Allestree and Dolben, and another by Vandyck. ”