"Thy picture, sitting among the ruins of the City of Zion, appeals to my soul. Why, I know not. It may be because I myself once sat in that posture among the ruins of my native City of Baal. But the ruins did not grieve me as did the uncle who slammed the door in my face that night. True, I wept in the ruins, but not over them. Something else had punctured the bladderets of my tears. And who knows who punctured thine, O Jeremiah? Perhaps a daughter of Tamar had stuck a bodkin in thine eye, and in lamenting thine own fate--Pardon me, O Jeremiah. Melikes not all these tears of thine. Nor did Zion and her children in Juhannam, I am sure.... Instead of a scroll in thy hand, I would have thee hold a harp. Since King David, Allah has not thought of endowing his prophets with musical talent. Why, think what an honest prophet could accomplish if his message were put into music. And withal, if he himself could sing it. Yes, our modern Jeremiahs should all take music lessons; for no matter how deep and poignant our sorrows, we can always rise from them, harp in hand, to an ecstasy, joyous and divine."
Now, connect with this the following from the _Histoire Intime_, and you have the complete history of this Prophet in Khalid's cellar. For Khalid himself never gives us the facts in the case. Our Scribe, however, comes not short in this.
"The picture of the Prophet Jeremiah," writes he, "Khalid hung on the wall, above his bed. And every night he would look up to it invokingly, muttering I know not what. One evening, while in this posture, he took up his lute and trolled a favourite ditty. For three days and three nights that picture hung on the wall. And on the morning of the fourth day--it was a cold December morning, I remember--he took it down and lighted the fire with it. The Pamphlet he had read a few days since, he also threw into the fire, and thereupon called to me saying, 'Come, Shakib, and warm yourself.'"
And the Pamphlet, we learn, which was thus baptised in the same fire with the Prophet's picture, was Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_.
For two years and more Khalid's young mind went leaping from one swing to another, from one carousel or toboggan-chute to the next, without having any special object in view, without knowing why and wherefor. He even entered such mazes of philosophy, such labyrinths of mysticism as put those of the Arabian grammaticasters in the shade. To him, education was a sport, pursued in a free spirit after his own fancy, without method or discipline. For two years and more he did little but ramble thus, drawing meanwhile on his account in the bank, and burning pamphlets.