The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XVI Part 19

The Biography of the Book

and

Its Reviewers Reviewed.

[" It has occurred to me that perhaps it would be a good plan to put a set of notes . . . to the 'Origin,' which now has none, exclusively devoted to the errors of my reviewers. It has occurred to me that where a reviewer has erred a common reader might err. Secondly, it will show the reader that we must not trust implicitly to reviewers."--DARWIN'S LIFE. ii. 349.]

TO RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON.

The Thousand Nights and a Night.

Athwart the welkin slant the snows and pile On sill and balcony, their feathery feet Trip o'er the landscape, and pursuing sleet Earth's brow beglooming, robs the skies of smile: Lies in her mourning-shroud our Northern Isle And bitter winds in battle o'er her meet.

Her world is death-like, when behold! we greet Light-gleams from morning-land in welcome while.

A light of golden mine and orient pearl-- Vistas of fairy-land, where Beauty reigns And Valiance revels; cloudless moon, fierce sun, The wold, the palm-tree; cities; hosts; a whirl Of life in tents and palaces and fanes: The light that streams from THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE.

Isabel Burton, Tangier, Marocco: Feb. 19, 1886.

The Biography of the Book and Its Reviewers Reviewed.

Preliminary.

I here propose to produce what may be called the "biography" of a book whereof, methinks, the writer has some reason to be proud, a work which, after occupying him for the third of a century, well nigh half the life of average man and the normal endurance of a generation, can show for result these sixteen volumes. A labour of such parts and magnitude deserves, in my humble opinion, some notice of the main features distinguishing its career, especially of its presentation to Court (Public Opinion) and its reception by the high officials of the Palace, the critics, reviewers and criticasters.

And there is yet another consideration. To ignore the charges and criminations brought forward by certain literary Sir Oracles would be wilfully suffering judgment to go by default. However unpopular and despised may be, as a rule, the criticism of critique, and however veridical the famous apothegm "A controversy in the Press with the Press is the controversy of a fly with a spider," I hold it the author's bounder duty, in presence of the Great Public, to put forth his reply, if he have any satisfactory and interesting rejoinder, and by such ordeal to purge himself and prove his innocence unless he would incur wittingly impeachment for contumacy and contempt of court.

It is not only an instinct of human nature expressed by nemo me impure lacessit which impels to answering in presence of the pa.s.sers by the enemy at the gate; it is also a debt which his honour and a respectful regard for the good opinion of his fellows compel the author to repay. The man who is feeble enough silently to suffer detraction and calumny at the hands of some sciolist or Halb-bildung sheltering his miserable individuality under the shadow (may it never be less!) of " King We," simply sins against himself as the Arabs say and offends good manners by holding out a premium to wanton aggression and injurious doing. The reading world has a right to hear the alteram partem before it shall deliver that judgment and shall p.r.o.nounce that sentence wherefrom lies no appeal. To ignore and not to visit with represailles unworthy and calumnious censure, may become that ideal and transcendental man who forgives (for a personal and egoistical reason) those who trespa.s.s against him. But the sublime doctrine which commands us to love our enemies and affect those who despitefully entreat us is in perilous proximity to the ridiculous; at any rate it is a vain and futile rule of life which the general never thinks of obeying. It contrasts poorly with the common sense of the pagan--Fiat Just.i.tia, ruat c?lum; and the heathenish and old- Adamical sentiment of the clansman anent Roderick Dhu--

"Who rights his wrong where it was given If it were in the court of Heaven,"

L. of the Lake, v. 6.

--commends itself far more to what divines are pleased to call "fallen human nature" that is the natural man.

And here before crossing the threshold, I would seize the opportunity of expressing my cordial grat.i.tude and hearty thanks to the Press in general, which has received my Eastern studies and contributions to Oriental knowledge in the friendliest and most sympathetic spirit, appreciating my labours far beyond the modic.u.m of the offerer's expectation and lending potent and generous aid to place them before the English world in the fairest and most favourable point of view. To number a small proportion of "black sheep" is no shame for a flock amounting to myriads: such exceptional varieties must be bred for the use and delectation of those who prefer to right wrong and darkness to light. It is with these only that my remarks and retorts will deal and consequently I have a.s.signed to them the post of honour. The various extracts from notices, favourable appreciative and complimentary, appear as the "Opinions of the Press" at the end of this volume, and again I take the opportunity of professing myself truly thankful for the good word of the Fourth Estate, and for its wisely detecting the soul of good in things evil.

The romantic and exceptional circ.u.mstances under which my large labour was projected and determined have been sufficiently described in the Foreword (vol. i. pp. vii- x). I may here add that during a longsome obligatory halt of some two months at East African Zayla' and throughout a difficult and dangerous march across the murderous Somali country upon Harar-Gay, then the Tinbukhtu of Eastern Africa, The Nights rendered me the best of service. The wildlings listened with the rapt attention of little lads and la.s.ses to the marvellous recitals of the charming Queen and the monotonous interpellations of her lay-image sister and looked forward to the evening lecture as the crown and guerdon of the toilsome day. And a.s.suredly never was there a more suitable setting, a more admirable mise-en-scene for The Nights than the landscape of Somali-land, a prospect so adapted to their subject-matter that it lent credibility even to details the least credible. Barren and grisly for the most part, without any of the charms gladdening and beautifying the normal prospects of earth, gra.s.sy hill and wooded dale, park-like plain and placid lake, and the snaking of silvery stream, it displays ever and anon beauties made all its own by borrowing from the heavens, in an atmosphere of pa.s.sing transparency, reflections of magical splendours and of weird shadows proper to tropical skies. No rose-hue pinker than the virginal blush and dewy flush of dawn in contrast with the shivering reek of flaming noon-tide, when all brightness of colour seems burnt out of the world by the white heat of sun-glow. No brilliancy more gorgeous or more ravishing than the play of light and shade, the rainbow shiftings and the fiery pinks and purples and embers and carmines of the sunset scenery--the gorgeous death-bed of the Day. No tint more tender, more restful, than the uniform grey, pale and pearly, invading by slowest progress that ocean of crimson that girds the orb of the Sun-King, diminishing it to a lakelet of fire and finally quenching it in iridescent haze. No gloom more ghostly than the murky hangings drooping like curtains from the violet heavens during those traveller's trials the unmoored nights, when the world seems peopled by weird phantoms and phantasms of man and monster moving and at rest. No verdure more exquisite than earth's glazing of greenery, the blend of ethereal azure and yellow; no gold more sheeny than the foregrounds of sand shimmering in the slant of the sun; no blue more profound and transparent than the middle distances; no neutral tints more subtle, pure, delicate and sight-soothing than the French grey which robes the clear-cut horizon; no variety of landscape more p.r.o.nounced than the alternations of glowing sunlight and snowy moonlight and twinkling starlight, all streaming through diaphanous air. No contrast more admirable than the alternation of iron upland whereupon hardly a blade of gra.s.s may grow and the Wady with its double avenue of leek-green tamarisks, hedging now a furious rain-torrent then a ribbon of purest sand, or the purple-gray shadow rising majestic in the Orient to face the mysterious Zodiacal Light, a white pyramid whose base is Amenti--region of resting Osiris--and whose apex pierces the zenith. And not rarely this "after-glow" is followed by a blush of "celestial rosy-red"

mantling the whole circle of the horizon where the hue is deepest and paling into the upper azure where the stars shine their brightest. How often in Somali land I repeated to myself

--Contente-vous, mes yeux, Jamais vous ne verrez chose plus belle;

and the picture still haunts me.

And now, turning away from these and similar pleasures of memory, and pa.s.sing over the once told tale (Foreword, vol. i. pp. viii., ix.) of how, when and where work was begun, together with the disappointment caused by the death of my friend and collaborator, Steinhaeuser concerning the copying process which commenced in 1879 and anent the precedence willingly accorded to the "Villon Edition," I proceed directly to what may be termed

The Engineering of the Work.

During the autumn of '82, after my return from the Gold Coast (with less than no share of the n.o.ble metal which my companion Cameron and I went forth to find and found a failure), my task began in all possible earnest with ordering the old sc.r.a.ps of translation and collating a vast heterogeneous collection of notes. I was fortunate enough to discover at unlettered Trieste, an excellent copyist able and willing to decypher a crabbed hand and deft at reproducing facetious and drolatic words without thoroughly comprehending their significance. At first my exertions were but fitful and the scene was mostly a sick bed to which I was bound between October '83 and June '84. Marienbad, however, and Styrian Sauerbrunn (bed Rohitsch) set me right and on return to Trieste (Sept. 4, '84), we applied ourselves to the task of advertising, the first two volumes being almost ready for print.

And here we were confronted by a serious question, What number of copies would suffice my public? A distinguished Professor who had published some 160,000 texts with prices ranging from 6d. to 50 guineas, wrote to me in all kindness advising an issue of 150 to 250: an eminent printer-publisher would have ventured upon some 500: others rose to 750 with a warning-note anent "wreckage," great risk and ruinous expenditure, while only one friend--and he not in business--urged an edition of 2,000 to 3,000 with encouraging words as to its probable reception. After long forethought I chose 1,000 as a just middle.

We then drew up a long list, names of friends, acquaintances and strangers likely to patronise the novelty, and caused the following three papers to be lithographed and printed at Trieste.

No. I.

Captain Burton, having neither agent nor publisher for his forthcoming ARABIAN NIGHTS, requests that all subscribers will kindly send their names and addresses to him personally (Captain Burton, Trieste, Austria), when they will be entered into a book kept for the purpose.

There will be 10 volumes at a guinea a piece, each to be paid for on delivery.

Subscribers may count on the first three volumes being printed in March next.

Captain Burton pledges himself to furnish copies to all subscribers who address themselves to him; and he also undertakes not to issue, nor to allow the issue of a cheaper Edition. One thousand copies will be printed, the whole Ma.n.u.script will be ready before going to press in February, and the ten volumes will be issued within Eighteen Months.

This was presently followed by

No. II.

The Student of Arabic who reads "THE NIGHTS" with this version, will not only be competent to join in any conversation, to peruse the popular books and newspapers, and to write letters to his friends, he will also find in the notes a repertoire of those Arabian Manners and Customs, Beliefs and Practices, which are not discussed in popular works.

The 10 volumes will be handsomely bound in black and gold.