XI
Dear Lady: There once lived an Eastern Sultan who reigned over a city fairer than far Samarcand. He dwelt in a gorgeous palace of the most bizarre and fantastically beautiful Saracenic design,—columns of chalcedony and gold-veined quartz, of onyx and sardonyx, of porphyry and jasper, upheld fretted arches of a fashion lovelier than the arches of the Mosque of Cordova There were colonnades upon colonnades, domes rising above courts where silver fountains sang the songs of the Water-Spirit; here were minarets whose gilded crescents kissed the azure heaven; there were eunuchs, officers, executioners, viziers, odalisques, women graceful of form as undulating flame.
In a neighboring kingdom dwelt a sultry-eyed Sultana,—a daughter of sunrise, shaped of fire and snow, impulsive, generous, and far more potent than the Sultan. Either desired to become the friend of the other, but either feared to cross the line of purple hills which separated the kingdom. But they held communication by messengers. The Sultana's messengers always spoke the truth, yet scarcely spoke plainly, having great faith in diplomatic suggestion rather than in blunt and forcible utterance. The Sultan's messengers, on the other hand, only spoke half of the truth, being fearful lest their words should be overheard by the keen ears of men who desired that no courtesies should be exchanged between their mistress and her neighboring brother. At last the Sultana became wroth with a great wrath at the messengers, forasmuch as they conversed only in enigmas, the Sultana being apparently quite unable to imagine why they should so speak. Therefore the Sultana bound the messengers, stripped them naked, and, placing them in bags, despatched them by a camel caravan to the Sultan, expressing much anger at the conduct of the messengers. The Sultan, being alarmed at the detention of his messengers, knowing their proverbial loquacity, and fearing they had turned traitors, thanked Allah for their return, and swore by the Beard of his Father that ere sunrise they should die the death of cravens, inasmuch as they had not fulfilled their duty satisfactorily. He decided that they should be burnt with fire, and their ashes cast into the waters of the great river—
"sweeping down
Past carven pillars, under tamarisk groves
To where the broad sea sparkled."
"Kara-Mustapha," exclaimed the Sultan to his trusty vizier, "I desire the death of these dogs. May their fathers' graves be everlastingly defiled! Let them be burnt even as we burn the bones of the unclean beast. Let them be consumed in the furnaces of thy kitchen, that my viands may partake of a sweeter flavor." And so they died.
Meanwhile the Sultana repented of her wrath against the messengers, and despatched a sable eunuch in all haste to save them. But the eunuch arrived before midday, while the prince was yet in his harem dreaming of satiny-skinned houris and the flowers of the valley of Nourjahad, the fruits of the golden-leaved vines of Paradise, and the honeyed lips of the daughters of the prophet, which make mad those who kiss them with the madness of furious love. And the prince, being aroused by his favorite odalisque, lifted up his eyes and beheld the eunuch there standing with a message from the Sultana. And reading the message he fell from the tapestried couch upon the floor, exclaiming, "May all the Ghouls devour my father's bones, and may they tear and devour me when next I visit my mother's grave! By the beard of Allah, those messengers are not; they have died the dog's death, and have vanished even as the smoke of a narghile vanisheth." And a soft wind from the sensuous rosy-skied South toyed and caressed the volatile dust of the bones of the messengers; the dust fructified flowers of intoxicating perfume, and the spirit of the messengers melted into the glory of Paradise. There is but one God—Mahomet is his prophet. [This is signed by a crescent and with L and H interwoven.]
XII
Dear Lady: I felt glad for divers reasons on receiving your letter and the little parcel,—firstly, because I felt that you were not very angry at my foolish fable; and secondly, because I always feel happy on having something nice to read. I had already read considerable of Darwin's "Voyages;" but just now I happened to desire a work of just that kind in order to educate myself in regard to certain ethnological points. I accept Darwin fully.
I do not believe in God—neither god of Greece nor of Rome nor any other god. I do indeed revere Woman as the creator, and I respect—yes, I almost believe in—the graceful Hellenic anthropomorphism which worshipped feminine softness and serpentine fascination and intoxicating loveliness in the garb of Venus Anadyomene. Yes, I could almost worship Aphrodite arisen, were there another renaissance of the antique paganism; and I feel all through me the spirit of that exquisite idolatry expressed in Swinburne's ode to "Our Lady of Pain." But I do not believe in Christ or in Christianity,—the former is not a grand character in my eyes, even as a myth; the latter I abhor as antagonistic to art, to nature, to passion, and to justice. As Théophile Gautier wrote, "I have never gathered passionflowers on the rocks of Calvary; and the river which flows from the flank of the Cross, making a crimson girdle about the world, has never bathed me with its waves."
I always take good care of books, and will return these you have so kindly lent me in a week or two.