“‘The winter is past,—the rain is over and gone!—Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!’” quoted the monk softly, half to himself and half to El-Râmi as he saw the latter enter the room—“Even in this great and densely-peopled city of London, Nature sends her messengers of spring—see here!”
And he held out on his hand a delicate insect with shining iridescent wings that glistened like jewels.
“This creature flew in as I opened the window,” he continued, surveying it tenderly. “What quaint and charming stories of Flower-land it could tell us if we could but understand its language! Of the poppy-palaces, and rose-leaf saloons coloured through by the kindly sun,—of the loves of the ladybirds and the political controversies of the bees! How dare we make a boast of wisdom!—this tiny denizen of air baffles us—it knows more than we do.”
“With regard to the things of its own sphere it knows more, doubtless,” said El-Râmi—“but concerning our part of creation it knows less. These things are equally balanced. You seem to me to be more of a poet than either a devotee or a scientist.”
“Perhaps I am!” and the monk smiled, as he carefully wafted the pretty insect out into the darkness of the night again—“Yet poets are often the best scientists, because they never know they are scientists. They arrive by a sudden intuition at the facts which it takes several Professors Dry-as-Dust years to discover. When once you feel you are a scientist, it is all over with you. You are a clever biped who has got hold of a crumb out of the universal loaf, and for all your days afterwards you are turning that crumb over and over under your analytical lens. But a poet takes up the whole loaf unconsciously, and hands portions of it about at haphazard and with the abstracted behaviour of one in a dream,—a wild and extravagant process,—but then, what would you?—his nature could not do with a crumb. No—I dare not call myself ‘poet’; if I gave myself any title at all, I would say, with all humbleness, that I am a sympathiser.”
“You do not sympathise with me,” observed El-Râmi gloomily.
“My friend, at the immediate moment, you do not need my sympathy. You are sufficient for yourself. But, should you ever make a claim upon me, be sure I shall not fail.”
He spoke earnestly and cheerily, and smiled,—but El-Râmi did not return the smile. He was bending over a deep drawer in his writing-table, and after a little search he took out two bulky rolls of manuscript tied and sealed.
“Look there!” he said, indicating the titles with an air of triumph.
The monk obeyed and read aloud: