ion to cease to strive, which we
have already found to be the keynote of Goethe's _Faust_. Kingsley, in
one of the most remarkable passages of _Westward Ho!_ describes two of
Amyas Leigh's companions, settled down in a luscious paradise of earthly
delights, while their comrades endured the never-ending hardships of the
march. By the sight of that soft luxury Amyas was tempted of the devil.
But as he gazed, a black jaguar sprang from the cliff above, and
fastened on the fair form of the bride of one of the recreants. "O Lord
Jesus," said Amyas to himself, "Thou hast answered the devil for me!"

It does not, however, need the advent of the jaguar to introduce the
element of sheer tragedy into luxurious life. In his _Conspiracy of
Pontiac_, Parkman tells with rare eloquence the character of the Ojibwa
Indians: "In the calm days of summer, the Ojibwa fisherman pushes out
his birch canoe upon the great inland ocean of the North; ... or he
lifts his canoe from the sandy beach, and, while his camp-fire crackles
on the grass-plot, reclines beneath the trees, and smokes and laughs
away the sultry hours, in a lazy luxury of enjoyment.... But when winter
descends upon the North, sealing up the fountains ... now the hunter can
fight no more against the nipping cold and blinding sleet. Stiff and
stark, with haggard cheek and shrivelled lip, he lies among the
snow-drifts; till, with tooth and claw, the famished wild-cat
strives in vain to pierce the frigid marble of his limbs."

Meredith tells of a bird, playing with a magic ring, and all the time
trying to sing its song; but the ring falls and has to be picked up
again, and the song is broken. It is a good parable of life, that
impossible compromise between the magic ring and the simple song. Those
who choose the earth-magic of Omar's epicureanism will find that the
song of the spirit is broken, until they cease from the vain attempt at
singing and fall into an earth-bound silence.

Thus Omar Kayyam has brought us a rich treasure from the East, of
splendid diction and much delightful and fascinating sweetness of
poetry. All such gifts are an enrichment to the language and a
decoration to the thought of a people. When, however, they are taken
more seriously, they may certainly bring plague with them, as other
Eastern things have sometimes done.

FIONA MACLEOD

To turn suddenly from this curious Persian life and thought to the still
more curious life and thought of ancient Scot