the coffee-houses and around the bowl. For the Arab is an
inveterate story-teller; and in nearly all the prose that he writes,
this character of the "teller" shimmers clearly through the work of the
"writer." He is an elegant narrator. Not only does he intersperse verses
and lines more frequently than our own taste would license: by nature,
he easily falls into the half-hearted poetry of rhymed prose, for which
the rich assonances of his language predispose. His own learning was
further cultivated by his early contact with Persian literature; through
which the fable and the wisdom of India spoken from the mouths of dumb
animals reached him. In this more frivolous form of inculcating wisdom,
the Prophet scented danger to his strait-laced demands: "men who bring
sportive legends, to lead astray from God's path without knowledge and
to make a jest of it; for such is shameful woe," is written in the
thirty-first Surah. In vain; for in hours of relaxation, such works as
the 'Fables of Bidpai' (translated from the Persian in 750 by 'Abd Allah
ibn Mukaffah), the 'Ten Viziers,' the 'Seven Wise Masters,' etc., proved
to be food too palatable. Nor were the Arabs wanting in their own
peculiar 'Romances,' influenced only in some portions of the setting by
Persian ideas. Such were the 'Story of Saif ibn dhi Yazan,' the 'Tale of
al-Zir,' the 'Romance of Dalhmah,' and especially the 'Romance of Antar'
and the 'Thousand Nights and A Night.' The last two romances are
excellent commentaries on Arab life, at its dawn and at its fullness,
among the roving chiefs of the desert and the homes of revelry in
Bagdad. As the rough-hewn poetry of Imr-al-Kais and Zuheir is a clearer
exponent of the real Arab mind, roving at its own suggestion, than the
more perfect and softer lines of a Mutanabbi, so is the 'Romance of
Antar' the full expression of real Arab hero-worship. And even in the
cities of the Orient to-day, the loungers in their cups can never weary
of following the exploits of this black son of the desert, who in his
person unites the great virtues of his people, magnanimity and bravery,
with the gift of poetic speech. Its tone is elevated; its coarseness has
as its origin the outspokenness of unvarnished man; it does not peep
through the thin veneer of licentious suggestiveness. It is never
trivial, even in its long and wearisome descriptions, in its
ever-recurring outbursts of love. Its language suits its thought: choice
and educated, and