Thames Star. FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1923. MAHOMET.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15887, 27 July 1923, Page 4

Thames Star.

FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1923. MAHOMET.

'With malice towards none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”— Lincoln.

It is not surprising that the Indian community In Sydney has protested against the inscription placed upon the bust of Mahomet in the National Gallery of New South Wales, “His was a sensuous face, selfish and cruel.” So runs the inscription, which may do no injustice to the bust, nor may the bust belie the , legend. But that is neither here nor there. 'Clearly the Trustees of the Sydney 'Gallery are open to impeachment for a transgression of the canons of good taste that is certainly calculated to give offence to the children of Islam, of whom so many are good, citizens of the Empire. It may be hoped that they will hasten to correct an error of i judgment and obliterate the inscription which is complained of, justly no doubt as historically inaccurate, as well as gratuitously offensive. They will do well to let their bust of Mahomet speak for itself, or, if an inscription they must have, they might do worse than consult Carlyle. We quote from “Heroes .and Heroj Worship”; “Mahomet himself, with all that may be said about him, wa9 not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man a common voluptuary, intent only on his base enjoyments —nay, an enjoyment of any kind. His household was of the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water: sometimes for months there was not a fire lighted at his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak, A poor hard-toiling, ill-pro-vided man. careless of what vulgar men toil for. Not a bad man I should say; something better in him than hunger of any sort —or these wild Arab men fighting and jostling three and twenty years at his hand, in close contact with him always, should not have reverenced him so!” So much on the score of sensuality! If it be said that the inscription m the Sydney Gallery has reference only to the Prophet’s outward aspect, there is this passage from Carlyle for answer: “One hears of Mahomet’s beauty, his fine sanguine honest face; brown florid complexion, beaming black eyes —I somehow like, too, that vein on the open brow'which swelled up black when he was in anger, like the ‘horse-shoe vein’ in Redgaunllet.” Seemingly the bust at Sydney does not harmonise with Carlyle’s estimate of Mahomet as “a spontaneous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man.”