discoursing music, mournful Russian
music, then with many wrinkles on your brow you will hold the
book at arm's length.

"The Serbonian Bog," says Miss Fox, repeating the last lines of
the dictation.

Your face is held sideways with what is called, I believe, a
quizzical expression.

"Morocco," says she, "viewed from the banks of the Seine, is
becoming more and more like the Serbonian Bog." Then she waits,
discreet as always, while you think. Miss Fox, his thoughts are
on the Adriatic!

There his boat, eleven years ago, was sailing underneath a net of
stars and he was talking to a fellow-traveller. They had been
joined at first by common suffering,--and how shall mortals find
a stronger link? On board that boat there was an elderly
American, the widow of a senator's brother-in-law, whose mission
was, she took it, to convert those two. What specially attracted
her to them was not, perhaps, that they excelled the other
passengers in luridness, but that they had the privilege of
understanding, more or less, her language.

"Feci quod potui," said Dr. Dillon, "faciant meliora potentes."

She said, and let us hope with truth, that recently a Chinaman,
another object of her ministrations, had addressed her as "Your
honour, the foreign devil." And this caused her to discuss the
details of our final journey--in the meantime we have taken many
others of a more delightful sort--and she assured us that we
should be joined by Chinamen and all those Easterners. She had
extremely little hope for any of them, and Abu'l-Ala, the Syrian
poet, whom Dr. Dillon had been putting into English prose,--
Abu'l-Ala she steadily refused to read. Nor did the prospect of
beholding him in English verse evoke a sign of joy upon her
countenance. "Oh," she exclaimed, "what good is it?" And there is
naught for me to say but "Feci quod potui, faciant meliora
potentes."

H. B.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN

THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA

APPENDIX

EDITORIAL NOTE

The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one.
They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these
books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding
between East and West--the old world of Thought and the new of
Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but
followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident
that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy
of Oriental thought