... Jeune artiste, tu attends un sujet? Tout est sujet; le sujet c'est toi-même: ce sont tes impressions, tes emotions devant la nature. C'est toi qu'il faut regarder, et non autour de toi.
Eugène Delacroix.
CONTENTS
[INTRODUCTION]
[FLORIDIAN REVERIES]
[TO THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH]
[A TROPICAL INTERMEZZO]
[A NAME IN THE PLAZA]
[VULTUR AURA]
[CREOLE PAPERS]
[QUAINT NEW ORLEANS AND ITS HABITANTS]
[CREOLE WOMEN IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES]
[ARABESQUES]
[ARABIAN WOMEN]
[RABYAH'S LAST RIDE]
[INTRODUCTION]
I
On a memorable day a good many years ago a certain sub-editor, exploring the morning's mail, found his sense enthralled by a weird, sad, delicious odor. Perfumes in the mail were not unheard-of: violets there had been, and musk, and orange blossoms, and tobacco; and the sub-editor, with a fantasy appropriate to his station, even prided himself on his ability to close his eyes and pick out a California contribution by the unaided sense of smell. But never before had there been anything like this. Its chief essence was sandalwood, that was clear, but sandalwood so etherealized and mingled with I know not what of exotic scents that it gave to the imagination a provocative ghostly thrill indescribable. The basket of the Muses, hastily tumbled, disclosed a portentous envelope of straw color, with queer blue stamps in one corner, and queer unknown characters in another; yet queerest of all was the address in an odd orientalized hand, done with delicate, curiously curving strokes of the pen. Within, in a script still less Spencerian, these words met the sub-editor's excited eye:—
The Dream of Akinosuké