y, literature and music, though removed by many centuries
from the life of the American Negro of today, offers to him many thoughts
for reflection.

While Arabia of the pre-Islamic days is not America of this generation nor
the Semitic people of the East like the Germanic races of the West, still
those human qualities that make for valor, for greatness of spirit, that
reflect genius devoted to literature and social service are compelling
forces in all climes and in all races. An opportunity for a free expression
of them and a recognition of their potent effect in the sum total of human
culture should be the mission of scholarship in all lands. Those elements
of character which the Arabs of Antar's day regarded as their _beau ideal_
were found not unworthy of admiration when manifested in one of Negro
blood. When his poetic fancy reflected the spirit of Arab life his works
were not rejected because his mother was an African slave but one of the
best was placed among the immortal poems of his father's country. When his
genius for warfare was shown it was given an opportunity to develop and
serve the cause of all who preferred valiant deeds to arguments of race.
When his life was spent it was not looked upon as one of an unusual Negro
rising above a sphere previously limited to his fellows of the same blood
but as an epic of success crowning human effort and worthy to be embodied
in the literature of Arabia as the exploits of a hero who exemplified the
spirit of the people, acceptable for all time as their model for valor,
poetic genius, hospitality, and magnanimity.

A. O. STAFFORD

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Palgrave, "Essays on Eastern Questions," 37 et seq.

[2] Huart, "A History of Arabian Literature," 13.

[3] Nicholson, "Literary History of the Arabs," 114.

[4] Huart, "A History of Arabian Literature," 14.

[5] These are two selections from Antar's Mu 'Allakat:

A FAIR LADY

'Twas then her beauties first enslaved my heart--
Those glittering pearls and ruby lips, whose kiss
Was sweeter far than honey to the taste.
As when the merchant opes a precious box
Of perfume, such an odor from her breath
Comes toward me, harbinger of her approach;
Or like an untouched meadow, where the rain
Hath fallen freshly on the fragrant herbs
That carpet all its pure untrodden soil:
A meadow where the fragrant rain-drops fall
Like coins of silver in the quiet pools,