Produced by Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, Dinand Library (College of the Holy Cross) and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+
EMMANUEL BURDEN A CHANGE IN THE CABINET PARIS THE PYRENEES MARIE ANTOINETTE HILLS AND THE SEA ON NOTHING ON EVERYTHING ON SOMETHING FIRST AND LAST THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER A PICKED COMPANY
NEW [Illustration: Logo] YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
ON KIND HEARTS BEING MORE THAN CORONETS 26
ON THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE AND "THE MISANTHROPE" 66
ON THE "BUCOLICS" OF VIRGIL, A CAFÉ IN PARIS, THE LENGTH OF ESSAYS, PHŒBUS, BACCHUS, A WANTON MAID, AND OTHER MATTERS 74
There is a book, I have a book, printed in 1806. It was compiled (rather than written) by a country clergyman, who had before him (so he tells me on the title page) these objects:--"To increase _knowledge_, to promote _virtue_, to discourage _vice_, and to furnish Topics for Innocent and Ingenious _Conversation_."
The Pacha Achmet Boulee Bey, Governor of Egypt, was remarkable for a great sensibility of heart. The pleasures permitted to him by law were far from satisfying him. He wanted to meet with a return of love, and had assembled, at a very considerable expense, a numerous seraglio, in hopes of meeting a beauty not only capable of inspiring love but of feeling all its force and impulse. Not one of this disposition did he find among twelve hundred Circassian, Georgian and Greek ladies whom he had purchased at different times.
Oh, admirable excerpt! Oh, Divine anecdote! Oh, perfect theme!
What! You also, Achmet? You also, Boulee? _You_ set out upon that quest, there, among the Levantines so many years ago--and with what advantages!... _You_ also failed?... My soul is fired to exalt the high complaint of man. But stay. First let me savour, point by point, that complete, that inimitable, text.
This Governor of Egypt "was remarkable for a great sensibility of heart." More sensible than the mass of us, was he? Greater in him than in you and me, my brothers, the hunger for the answering tone, for the echo to the soul? Yes, it would seem so. A more active hunger, at least; for it produced action, as we see farther on: he did not dream, he did. He did not ache forlorn, he sought: he hunted. Hence was he "remarkable." All men have wasted for the home of the spirit, for the completion of their being. All, all have waited in vain for the woman that should call them by their name. But in varying degrees. _He_ was at the head of the chase. For _him_ it was a rage, a fury, a crusade. He did not wait, he plunged, he charged. He would discover. He put it to trial and reached the limit of effort. He is our master and our exemplar. My homage is to Achmet Boulee Bey.