BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. K. "I am a part of all that I have met, Yet all Experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades Forever and forever, when I move." "Gottes ist der Orient, Gottes ist der Occident, Nord-und südliches Gelände TENNYSON. Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände." GOETHE. NEW YORK: DIX, EDWARDS & CO., 321 BROADWAY. 1857. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. KUSEUM MILLER & HOLMAN, Printers and Stereotypers, N. Y. 1 TO THE РАСНА. MY DEAR FRIEND,— In making you the Pacha of two tales, I confess with the Syrians, that a friend is fairer than the roses of Damascus, and more costly than the pearls of Omman. You, of all men, will not be surprised by these pages, for you shared with me the fascination of novelty in those eldest lands, which interpreted to us both that pleasant story of Raphael. When his friend, Marc Antonio, discovered him engaged upon the Sistine picture and exclaimed, Cospetto! another Madonna?” Raphael gravely answered, -"Amico mio, my friend, were all artists to paint her portrait forever, they could never exhaust her beauty." NEW YORK, March, 1852. |