A Dumpster Yields a Gem

One of my most prized possessions is a small, well-worn book bound in faded blue cardboard. Four-inches wide by six-and-a-half inches tall, the book hides between more massive tomes in my shelves. Sometimes it takes me awhile to find it, but every Christmas I seek it out.

I’ve owned this book for more than 50 years. It has followed me from Colorado to Missouri to Michigan to Nevada (where my parents stored my possessions while I served for three-and-a-half years in the Army) to Georgia back to Nevada and then to California. The book itself is much older as it was published in 1899 and is the slightly revised version of the original, which was printed in 1895.

Discovering two treasures

If memory serves, I found the book in a dumpster.

When I was in high school in Golden, Colorado, I worked part-time for the Jefferson County Library. In my junior year, I was a bookmobile assistant, riding county back roads to bring books to those living in small mountain communities. In my senior year I drove a station wagon and delivered books to various local libraries in the system.

Returning to the main library one summer day after completing deliveries, I learned from a librarian that they were getting rid of books no longer needed. If I wanted any, I could fish them out of the dumpster in the back.

I discovered two treasures: one was the second volume of the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, the second was the little book.

I’ve long lost the Grant book. I’ve no regrets, however, as it was the fourth or so printing and had no commercial value. And I never read Grant’s war chronicles until five years ago, and then I read the Kindle version of the complete memoirs.

But the little book immediately attracted me. Its title and author’s name are debossed on the cover in faux gold leaf. Stamped on the flyleaf in blue are the words “Property of The West Alameda Federated Club.” The same words appear on the back inside cover.

A black-and-white drawing facing the title page shows a young woman cradling an old, bearded man slumped against a wall. Then comes the title page with italic blue letters:

The Story of the Other Wise Man

By Henry van Dyke  

A Presbyterian minister and United States diplomat, Van Dyke (1852–1933) wrote stories and poems as well as the lyrics to “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” set to “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. But his greatest legacy, in my opinion, is “The Other Wise Man”—at 73 pages a masterpiece.

Briefly Van Dyke’s tale relates how a fourth Magi planned to give three jewels to the child Jesus. Unfortunately, he just missed meeting the Holy Family (who were escaping to Egypt as Herod’s soldiers were descending on Bethlehem). He spent the rest of his life searching for the King. Finally, he saw the Savior on His way to Calvary and tried to save Him.

Van Dyke tinkered with the story over the years, making a few minor changes in wording. My copy is the second version, and I believe there is a third. To my knowledge, the second version is the only one that comes with a preface (see below), which is worth reading on its own.

Next to Mathew’s account of the birth of Christ and the visitors from the East, “The Other Wise Man” is my favorite story of the season. I read it almost every Christmas, and I always tear up at the end. It takes about 45 minutes to finish. Sometimes I read it while waiting for Christmas midnight Mass. (A wise family knows to show up about an hour early to be sure of a pew.)

Every few years a priest will base his sermon on “The Other Wise Man.” Unfortunately, he will call the story a legend. I have to restrain myself from screaming that it is no legend, but the creation of Henry van Dyke!

Order your own copy

You can order a paper copy of “The Other Wise Man” from Amazon for a few bucks. But, rejoice, it’s available here on the Web for free, or you can download a version at Project Gutenberg to your Kindle. (Nowadays I use the Kindle app on my smart phone to read the story while in church.) Just be careful that you are not ordering “The Legend of the Fourth Wise Man,” a different book written in the 1980s.

And absolutely do not watch “The Fourth Wise Man,” an abominable television adaptation of Van Dyke’s story. For some reason the scriptwriter thought he needed to add comic relief by incorporating a servant not included in the original tale.

May you have a blessed Christmas. And may you like Artaban, the Other Wise Man, find the King at last.

Second edition preface

It is now some five years since this little story was set afloat on the sea of books. It is not a man-of-war, nor even a high-sided merchantman; only a small, peaceful sailing-vessel. Yet it has had rather an adventurous voyage. Twice it has fallen into the hands of pirates. The tides have carried it to far countries. It has been passed through the translator’s port of entry into German, French, Armenian, Turkish, and perhaps some other foreign regions. Once I caught sight of it flying the outlandish flag of a brand-new phonetic language along the coasts of France; and once it was claimed by a dealer in antiquities as along-lost legend of the Orient. Best of all, it has slipped quietly into many a far-away harbor that I have never seen and found a kindly welcome, and brought back messages of good cheer from unknown friends.

Now it has turned home to be new-rigged and fitted for further voyaging. Before it is sent out again I have been asked to tell where the story came from and what it means.

I do not know where it came from?—out of the air, perhaps. One thing is certain, it is not written in any other book, nor is it to be found among the ancient lore of the East. And yet I have never felt as if it were my own. It was gift. It was sent to me; and it seemed as if I knew the Giver, though His name was not spoken.

The year had been full of sickness and sorrow. Every day brought trouble. Every night was tormented with pain. They are very long—those nights when one lies awake, and hears the laboring heart pumping wearily at its task, and watches for the morning, not knowing whether it will ever dawn. They are not nights of fear; tor the thought of death grows strangely familiar when you have lived with it for a year. Besides, after a time you come to feel like a soldier who has been long standing still under fire; any change would be a relief. But they are lonely nights; they are very heavy nights. And their heaviest burden is this:

You must face the thought that your work in the world may be almost ended, but you know that it is not nearly finished.

You have not solved the problems that perplexed you. You have not reached the goal that you aimed at. You have not accomplished the great task that you set for yourself. You are still on the way; and perhaps your journey must end now,—nowhere,—in the dark.

Well, it was in one of these long, lonely nights that this story came to me. I had studied and loved the curious tales of the Three Wise Men of the East as they are told in the “Golden Legend” of Jacobus de Voragine and other mediaeval books. But of the Fourth Wise Man I had never heard until that night. Then I saw him distinctly, moving through the shadows in a little circle of light. His countenance was a clear as the memory of my father’s face as I saw it for the last time a few months before. The narrative of his journeyings and trials and disappointments ran without a break. Even certain sentences came to me complete and unforgettable, clear-cut like a cameo. All that I had to do was to follow Artaban, step by step, as the tale went on, from the beginning to the end of his pilgrimage.

Perhaps this may explain some things in the story. I have been asked many times why I made the Fourth Wise Man tell a lie, in the cottage at Bethlehem, to save the little child’s life.

I did not make him tell a lie.

What Artaban said to the soldiers he said for himself, because he could not help it.

Is a lie ever justifiable? Perhaps not. But may it not sometimes seem inevitable?

And if it were a sin, might not a man confess it, and be pardoned for it more easily than for the greater sin of spiritual selfishness, or indifference, or the betrayal of innocent blood? That is what I saw Artaban do. That is what I heard him say. All through his life he was trying to do the best that he could. It was not perfect. But there are some kinds of failure that are better than success.

Though the story of the Fourth Wise Man came to me suddenly and without labor, there was a great deal of study and toil to be done before it could be written down. An idea arrives without effort; a form can only be wrought out by patient labor. If your story is worth telling, you ought to love it enough to be willing to work over it until it is true,—true, not only to the ideal, but true also to the real. The light is a gift; but the local color can only be seen by one who looks for it long and steadily. Artaban went with me while I toiled through a score of volumes of ancient history and travel. I saw his figure while I journeyed on the motionless sea of the desert and in the strange cities of the East.

And now that his story is told, what does it mean?

How can I tell? What does life mean? If the meaning could be put into a sentence there would be no need of telling the story.

Henry van Dyke.

Note: Punctuation style is from the original.