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"Bah!" says the ram. But the smiling young fellow said nothing at all as he passed Jurgen, because it is not the custom of Harpocrates to speak. "Which would be well enough," reflected Jurgen, "if only his custom did not make for stiffness and the embarrassment of others." Thereafter Jurgen came upon a considerable commotion in the bushes, where a satyr was at play with an oread.
"With a secretary the statue of Harpocrates, and in tapestry or bas-relief, the story of Alexander shutting Hephæstion's mouth with a seal-ring; also the emblem of fidelity, or a goose with a stone in its bill." Methinks the director, or governor, of the East India Company, must look very small beside his bedizened accessory, meant to represent Company.
But conceive me alone in this strange place, which seemed, from the universal silence, to be the very temple of Harpocrates remember that this is my first excursion from home forget not that the manner in which I had been brought hither had the dignity of danger and something the air of an adventure, and that there was a mysterious incongruity in all I had hitherto witnessed; and you will not, I think, be surprised that these circumstances, though trifling, should force themselves on my notice at the time, and dwell in my memory afterwards.
Handsome book-cases, burdened with precious lore, lined the walls of the rear room; and on either side of a massive ormolu escritoire, bronze candelabra shed light on the blue velvet desk where lay delicate sheets of gossamer paper with varied and outré monograms, guarded by an exquisite marble statuette of Harpocrates, which stood in the mirror-panelled recess reserved for pen, ink, and sealing-wax.
What a quiet world this would be if everyone would smoke! I suspect that the reason why the fairer sex decry thee is, that thou art the cause of silence. The ancients knew thee not, or the lips of Harpocrates would have been closed with a cigar, and his forefinger removed from the mouth unto the temple.
After making my bow to each, I gave myself over to the worship of Harpocrates, and without too great an air of listening was all ears and eyes. The conversation at first was of no special interest as they were talking of the Seine being frozen over, the ice being a foot thick.
A prophet's proper mantle is the long cloak of Harpocrates, and his best vaticinations are inspired more than uttered. So it came about that Duncan Yordas, difficult as he was to lead, largely shared the devious courses of Christopher Bert the workman, and these few months of friendship made a lasting mark upon the younger man. Soon after this a heavy blow befell the ingenious wanderer.
In the cases where an ox, a ram, or a dog is worshipped with, or as a symbol of, a god, we probably have the survival of a very early local idolatry. Horus or Harpocrates, named above, was the son of Osiris. He is sometimes represented, seated on a Lotus-flower, with his finger on his lips, as the god of silence. In one of Moore's Irish Melodies is an allusion to Harpocrates:
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