Ben Hur, Lew Wallace [top 10 novels txt] 📗

from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum⁠—I will give you a letter to him when you become wise enough to accept a suggestion which I am reminded to make you⁠—a little practise of the art of mystery, and Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At the sound of your solemn voice, the Pythia will come down to you with her crown. Seriously, O my friend, in what am I not the Messala I went away? I once heard the greatest logician in the world. His subject was Disputation. One saying I remember⁠—‘Understand your antagonist before you answer him.’ Let me understand you.”

The lad reddened under the cynical look to which he was subjected; yet he replied, firmly, “You have availed yourself, I see, of your opportunities; from your teachers you have brought away much knowledge and many graces. You talk with the ease of a master, yet your speech carries a sting. My Messala, when he went away, had no poison in his nature; not for the world would he have hurt the feelings of a friend.”

The Roman smiled as if complimented, and raised his patrician head a toss higher.

“O my solemn Judah, we are not at Dodona or Pytho. Drop the oracular, and be plain. Wherein have I hurt you?”

The other drew a long breath, and said, pulling at the cord about his waist, “In the five years, I, too, have learned somewhat. Hillel may not be the equal of the logician you heard, and Simeon and Shammai are, no doubt, inferior to your master hard by the Forum. Their learning goes not out into forbidden paths; those who sit at their feet arise enriched simply with knowledge of God, the law, and Israel; and the effect is love and reverence for everything that pertains to them. Attendance at the Great College, and study of what I heard there, have taught me that Judea is not as she used to be. I know the space that lies between an independent kingdom and the petty province Judea is. I were meaner, viler, than a Samaritan not to resent the degradation of my country. Ishmael is not lawfully high-priest, and he cannot be while the noble Hannas lives; yet he is a Levite; one of the devoted who for thousands of years have acceptably served the Lord God of our faith and worship. His⁠—”

Messala broke in upon him with a biting laugh.

“Oh, I understand you now. Ishmael, you say, is a usurper, yet to believe an Idumaean sooner than Ishmael is to sting like an adder. By the drunken son of Semele, what it is to be a Jew! All men and things, even heaven and earth, change; but a Jew never. To him there is no backward, no forward; he is what his ancestor was in the beginning. In this sand I draw you a circle⁠—there! Now tell me what more a Jew’s life is? Round and round, Abraham here, Isaac and Jacob yonder, God in the middle. And the circle⁠—by the master of all thunders! the circle is too large. I draw it again⁠—” He stopped, put his thumb upon the ground, and swept the fingers about it. “See, the thumb spot is the Temple, the finger-lines Judea. Outside the little space is there nothing of value? The arts! Herod was a builder; therefore he is accursed. Painting, sculpture! to look upon them is sin. Poetry you make fast to your altars. Except in the synagogue, who of you attempts eloquence? In war all you conquer in the six days you lose on the seventh. Such your life and limit; who shall say no if I laugh at you? Satisfied with the worship of such a people, what is your God to our Roman Jove, who lends us his eagles that we may compass the universe with our arms? Hillel, Simeon, Shammai, Abtalion⁠—what are they to the masters who teach that everything is worth knowing that can be known?”

The Jew arose, his face much flushed.

“No, no; keep your place, my Judah, keep your place,” Messala cried, extending his hand.

“You mock me.”

“Listen a little further. Directly”⁠—the Roman smiled derisively⁠—“directly Jupiter and his whole family, Greek and Latin, will come to me, as is their habit, and make an end of serious speech. I am mindful of your goodness in walking from the old house of your fathers to welcome me back and renew the love of our childhood⁠—if we can. ‘Go,’ said my teacher, in his last lecture⁠—‘Go, and, to make your lives great, remember Mars reigns and Eros has found his eyes.’ He meant love is nothing, war everything. It is so in Rome. Marriage is the first step to divorce. Virtue is a tradesman’s jewel. Cleopatra, dying, bequeathed her arts, and is avenged; she has a successor in every Roman’s house. The world is going the same way; so, as to our future, down Eros, up Mars! I am to be a soldier; and you, O my Judah, I pity you; what can you be?”

The Jew moved nearer the pool; Messala’s drawl deepened.

“Yes, I pity you, my fine Judah. From the college to the synagogue; then to the Temple; then⁠—oh, a crowning glory!⁠—the seat in the Sanhedrim. A life without opportunities; the gods help you! But I⁠—”

Judah looked at him in time to see the flush of pride that kindled in his haughty face as he went on.

“But I⁠—ah, the world is not all conquered. The sea has islands unseen. In the north there are nations yet unvisited. The glory of completing Alexander’s march to the Far East remains to someone. See what possibilities lie before a Roman.”

Next instant he resumed his drawl.

“A campaign into Africa; another after the Scythian; then⁠—a legion! Most careers end there; but not mine. I⁠—by Jupiter! what a conception!⁠—I will give up my legion for a prefecture. Think of life in Rome with money⁠—money, wine, women, games⁠—poets at the banquet, intrigues in the court, dice all the year round. Such