t between a staunch Protestant family such as the Stisteds, and
an uncompromising Catholic like Lady Burton there should have been
friction; but both Lady Burton and Miss Stisted are dead. Each made,
during Lady Burton's lifetime, an honest attempt to think well of the
other; each wrote to the other many sweet, sincere, and womanly letters;
but success did not follow. Death, however, is a very loving mother. She
gently hushes her little ones to sleep; and, as they drop off, the red
spot on the cheek gradually fades away, and even the tears on the pillow
soon dry.

Although Miss Stisted's book has been a help to me I cannot endorse
her opinion that Burton's recall from Damascus was the result of
Lady Burton's indiscretions. Her books give some very interesting
reminiscences of Sir Richard's childhood and early manhood, [16] but
practically it finishes with the Damascus episode. Her innocent remarks
on The Scented Garden must have made the anthropological sides
of Ashbee, Arbuthnot, and Burton's other old friends shake with
uncontrollable laughter. Unfortunately, she was as careless as Lady
Burton. Thus on page 48 she relates a story about Burton's attempt to
carry off a nun; but readers of Burton's book on Goa will find that it
had no connection with Burton whatever. It was a story someone had told
him.

In these pages Burton will be seen on his travels, among his friends,
among his books, fighting, writing, quarrelling, exploring, joking,
flying like a squib from place to place--a 19th century Lord
Peterborough, though with the world instead of a mere continent for
theatre. Even late in life, when his infirmities prevented larger
circuits, he careered about Europe in a Walpurgic style that makes the
mind giddy to dwell upon.

Of Burton's original works I have given brief summaries; but as a writer
he shines only in isolated passages. We go to him not for style but for
facts. Many of his books throw welcome light on historical portions of
the Bible. [17]

Of those of his works which are erotic in the true sense of the word I
have given a sufficient account, and one with which I am convinced even
the most captious will not find fault. [18] When necessity has obliged
me to touch upon the subject to which Sir Richard devoted his last
lustrum, I have been as brief as possible, and have written in a way
that only scholars could understand. In short I have kept steadily
in view the fact that this work is one which will li