"The joy which your volume has occasioned me I will not attempt to express in a short letter. Let us meet soon, and talk of nothing else."
"Dear Burton,
"This is merely a line of greeting in appreciation of your first volume, which I have been reading, just to say how pleased I am with everything—intrinsic and extrinsic."
"September 25th.
"Dear Captain Burton,
"I have received the first volume of the 'Nights,' and beg you to accept my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for the valuable gift. I cannot express the pleasure which it affords me to see this wonderful book reproduced in a form which is as faithful a rendering of the original as it will remain an admirable 'monumentum aere perennius' of the English language.
"Moreover, I am not ashamed to acknowledge that in reading again the text, together with your translation, I have learned more Arabic in a few months than in as many years of former toilsome study."