Privately Printed By The Burton Club
General Studholme J. Hodgson
My Dear General,
To whom with more pleasure or propriety can I inscribe this volume than to my preceptor of past times; my dear old friend, whose deep study and vast experience of such light literature as The Nights made me so often resort to him for good counsel and right direction? Accept this little token of gratitude, and believe me, with the best of wishes and the kindest of memories, Ever your sincere and attached Richard F. Burton.
London, July 15, 1886.
"To the pure all things are pure"
(Puris omnia pura)
—Arab Proverb.
"Niuna corrotta mente intese mai sanamente parole."
—"Decameron" —conclusion.
"Erubuit, posuitque meum Lucretia librum
sed coram Bruto. Brute! recede, leget."
—Martial.
"Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre,
Pour ce que rire est le propre des hommes."
—Rabelais.
"The pleasure we derive from perusing the Thousand-and-One
Stories makes us regret that we possess only a comparatively
small part of these truly enchanting fictions."
—Crichton's "History of Arabia."