Читать книгу On онлайн

4 страница из 40

"He wanted to meet with a return of love." Only that? My word, Achmet, you were easily pleased! You desired the wealth that is beyond the world: not only did you desire it, you claimed it as a matter of course. You wondered why you had it not, you thought it your due: your rightful food—this thing unknown to all the exiled sons of Pithecanthropus, this lost serene of Eden! The simple words give it in its high simplicity. "He wanted." Well! We also want, and we may go on wanting.

But you did not stand halted in mere wanting, strong soldier of the Nile. You struck spurs and rode. You are a model for us here. You set out to conquer and to hold. Life passes while we seek here and there forlornly; and how many little experiments must be tried, each separate, each ending in despair, before the first hint of achievement comes to us. We, the lesser ones, have ourselves to thank for such poor spoil, after such single-handed hunting! Not so you! You swept widely and at once—ranging a vast field, marching on a broad front, taking large sample of the world. Hence those masterly words, that you "had assembled at a very considerable expense a numerous seraglio." What manhood and what courtesy combined; what generosity and largesse, what proper care as well! You did not drive or coerce—for not thus is the unseizable attained. You did not order, no, nor wheedle; and you did not command, though you sat on the throne of a king. You did not coax or threaten, or play a pretended indifference, or protest a passionate worship. You "assembled" them.