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The amethyst light had gone, and the dusk descended. Anne's gray dress was merged into the gray of the rock. She seemed just voice, and phantom outline, and faint rose fragrance. Christopher recognized the scent. He had sent her a precious vial in a sandalwood box. Nothing had seemed too good for the wife of his old friend Dunbar.
The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves, with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs, bracelets, sandalwood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of heaven one might or might not desire.
"If this sort of thing is to continue, I will let Tress have his pipe again. He may have the laugh of me, but anything is better than this." It was with almost funereal forebodings that I went to the cabinet in which I had placed the sandalwood box. But when I opened it my feelings of gloom partially vanished. Of what phantasies had I been guilty!
The next morning, two handsome Sandalwood ponies were brought round, and H took me over the estate. We rode between coffee and cinchona plantations on roads of various widths cut in zigzags or curves up the mountain sides, sometimes with the sun blazing full above us, sometimes shaded by the light foliage of the albizzias, until we reached a rough stone monument which marked the highest point.
Two five-branched candlesticks were lighted; and the manner of their lighting was as follows. Each branch ended in a little cup, and in the cups five pieces of camphor were placed, all approximately equal in size. After offerings had been made, of fruit, flowers and sandalwood, the five camphors in each candlestick were lighted.
And the Emeer Moosa drew near to the dome-crowned chamber, and, lo, it had eight doors of sandalwood, with nails of gold, ornamented with stars of silver set with various jewels, and he beheld in it a long tomb, of terrible appearance, whereon was a tablet of iron of China; and the Sheikh Abd-Es-Samad drew near to it, and read its inscription; and, lo, on it was written: Shouldst thou think upon me after the length of my age, and the vicissitudes of days and circumstances, I am the son of Sheddad, who held dominion over mankind and each tract of the whole earth.
But let us rather turn to sayings in which the subtlety of psychological observation deserves admiration: “The drunkard, the careless, the insane, the fatigued, the angry, the hungry, the greedy, the timid, the hasty, and the lover know no law”; “If a man commits a crime, his voice and the colour of his face become changed, his look becomes furtive, and the fire is gone from his eye”; “The best remedy for a pain is no longer to think of it; if you think of it, the pain will increase”; “A greedy man can be won by money, an angry man by folding the hands, a fool by doing his will, and an educated man by speaking the truth”; “The wise man can recognize the inner thoughts of another from the colour of his face, from his look, from the sound of his words, from his walk, from the reflections in his eyes, and from the form of his mouth”; “The good and bad thoughts, however much they are hidden, can be discovered from a man when he talks in his sleep or in his drunkenness”; “The ignorant can be satisfied easily, and still more easily the well educated, but a man who has become confused by a little knowledge cannot be won over even by Brahma”; “Good people are pacified by fair treatment, even if they have been very angry, but not common people; gold, though it is hard, can be melted, but not grass”; “By too great familiarity we produce low esteem, by too frequent visits, indifference; in the Malaja mountains a beggar woman uses the sandalwood tree for firewood”; “The silly man steps in without being invited, talks much without being questioned, and trusts him who does not deserve confidence”; “New knowledge does not last in the mind of the uneducated any more than a string of pearls about the neck of a monkey”; “The inner power of great men becomes more evident in their misfortune than in their fortune; the fine perfume of aloes wood is strongest when it falls into the fire”; “The anger of the best man lasts an instant, of the mediocre man six hours, of the common man a day and a night, and the rascal will never get rid of it”; “The scholar laughs with his eyes, mediocre people show their teeth when they laugh, common people roar, and true men of wisdom never laugh”; “Truthfulness and cleverness can be found out in the course of a conversation, but modesty and restraint are visible at the first glance”; “Grief destroys wisdom, grief destroys scholarship, grief destroys endurance; there is no perturbation of the mind like grief.” Often we hardly know whether a psychological observation or a metaphor is given to us.
Study this guide of life, my friend, and there will be no need to worry your brain with tomes of the presumptuous wights who from their own imaginings dare attempt to dictate laws and impiously substitute them for the laws revealed to Mohammed from on high. Accept this gift and study it." With the sandalwood case containing the precious volume of the law under his arm, Mr. Middleton departed.
But "in for a penny in for a pound." The negroes led me to the banks of the Mississippi, where I was soon the owner of both a sugar and a cotton plantation. In addition to these purchases I took shares in divers South-Seamen, owned a coral and pearl fishery of my own, and sent an agent with a proposition to King Tamamamaah to create a monopoly of sandalwood in our joint behalf.
Beverley slid back the sandalwood panel, and opened the steel door behind it, which was manipulated by a miniature time-lock. "Suppose I wear diamonds and emeralds," she thought, "and tell Roger they match better with my dress than the pearls that I'll wear the pearls another time?" But at the best this would only postpone the evil moment.
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