The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani

To graft the strenuosity of Europe and America upon the ease of the Orient, the materialism of the West upon the spirituality of the East -- this to us seems to be the principal aim of Khalid. But often in his wanderings and divagations of thought does he give us fresh proof of the truism that no two opposing elements meet and fuse without both losing their original identity. You may place the bit of contentment in the mouth of ambition, so to speak, and jog along in your sterile course between the vast wheat fields groaning under the thousand-toothed plough and the gardens of delight swooning with devotion and sensuality. But cross ambition with contentment and you get the hinny of indifference or the monster of fatalism. We do not say that indifference at certain passes of life, and certain stages, is not healthy, and fatalism not powerful; but both we believe are factors as potent in commerce and trade as pertinacity and calculation. "But is there not room in the garden of delight for a wheat field? " asks Khalid. "Can we not apply the bow to the telegraph wires of the world and make them the vehicle of music as of stock quotations? Can we not simplify life as we are simplifying the machinery of industry? Can we not consecrate its Temple to the Trinity of Devotion, Art, and Work, or Religion, Romance, and Trade?"

This seems to be the gist of Khalid's gospel. This, through the labyrinths of doubt and contradiction, is the pinnacle of faith he would reach. And often in this labyrinthic gloom, where a gleam of light from some recess of thought or fancy reveals here a Hermit in his cloister, there an Artist in his studio, below a Nawab in his orgies, above a Broker on the Stock Exchange, we have paused to ask a question about these glaring contrarieties in his life and thought. And always would he make this reply: "I have frequently moved and removed between extremes; I have often worked and slept in opposing camps. So, do not expect from me anything like the consistency with which the majority of mankind solder and shape their life. Deep thought seems often, if not always, inconsistent at the first blush. The intensity and passiveness of the spirit are as natural in their attraction and repulsion as the elements, whose harmony is only patent on the surface. Consistency is superficial, narrow, one-sided. I am both ambitious, therefore, and contented. My ambition is that of the earth, the ever producing and resuscitating earth, doing the will of God, combatting the rasure of time; and my contentment is that of the majestic pines, faring alike in shade and sunshine, in calm and storm, in winter as in spring. Ambition and Contentment are the night and day of my life-journey. The day makes room for the fruits of solacement which the night brings; and the night gives a cup of the cordial of contentment to make good the promise of day to day.