the
truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like
you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do
good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of
the first volume. I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though
some were spiteful that need not discourage... Believe me, dearest G.,
your affectionate Zookins."

Miss Stisted's novel was her first and last, but she did write another
book some considerable time later, which, however, would not have won
Mrs. Burton's approval. [330]

101. The Kasidah, 1880.

This year, Burton, emulous of fame as an original poet, published The
Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, A Lay of the Higher Law, which treats
of the great questions of Life, Death and Immortality, and has certain
resemblances to that brilliant poem which is the actual father of it,
Edward FitzGerald's rendering of The Rubaiyat of Oman Khayyam. Lady
Burton tells us that The Kasidah was written about 1853, or six years
before the appearance of FitzGerald's poem. Nothing, however, is more
certain than that, with the exception of a few verses, it was written
after FitzGerald's poem. The veriest tyro in literature, by comparing
the two productions, would easily understand their relationship. [331]
The facts are these. About 1853, Burton, in a time of dejection, caused
by the injustice done him in India, planned a poem of this nature, wrote
a few stanzas, and then put it by and forgot all about it. FitzGerald's
version of Omar Khayyam appeared in 1859, and Burton no sooner read than
he burned to rival it. So he drew from the pigeon-hole what he called
his Lay, furbished up the few old verses, made a number of new ones,
reconstructed the whole, and lo, The Kasidah! Burton calls it a
translation of a poem by a certain Haji Abdu. There may have been a
Haji Abdu who supplied thoughts, and even verses, but the production
is really a collection of ideas gathered from all quarters. Confucius,
Longfellow, Plato, the FitzGeraldian Oman Khayyam, Aristotle, Pope, Das
Kabir and the Pulambal are drawn upon; the world is placed under tribute
from Pekin to the Salt Lake City. A more careless "borrower" to use
Emerson's expression, never lifted poetry. Some of his lines are
transferred bodily, and without acknowledgment, from Hafiz; [332] and,
no doubt, if anybody were to take the trouble to investigate, it would
be found that many other lines are not original. I