BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS "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 Hånde." GOETHE. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 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. 1890 TO THE PАСНА. 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. 909971 "With a hoste of furious fancies, Whereof I am Commander, And a horse of the ayr, To the wilderness I wander." Mad Tom of Bedlam. ---“ Why should we be of the tribe of Manasseh, when we can wander with Esau? Why should we kick against the pricks, when we can walk on roses? Why should we be owls, when we can be eagles ?" Keats. "For us the winds do blow, The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow : As our delight, or as our treasure, The whole is either our cupboard of food, Or cabinet of pleasure." George Herbert. "And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks. silent as the shadows" Coleridge. |