ur streets, and that on the stage,
singers of both sexes indulge in open exaltation of that thing called
love, which your prophet has confined within the walls of the
_haremlik_."

Abu Nozeyr laughed. "Your knowledge of our customs, Harding Effendi, is
fifty years behind the times. True, I come from the desert, and have
never heard your singing women of the stage. But did not one of the
learned muftis at yesterday's evening repast declare that 'Aida' was
written for the Khedewi Ismail Pasha, may his soul rest in peace?"

"Yes," I said; "but you will understand, Dispenser of a Thousand
Mercies, why at first blush Islam and the lyric stage should strike me
as somewhat incompatible."

"Not modern Islam," he replied. "Take us not too literally. I am told
that your people, like others of the Feringhi, have succeeded in
building battleships which are really instruments of peace; that you
have trust companies in which you place no confidence, and Open Doors
which you close against people from my part of the world; you have
legislators who speak but do not legislate, and a Speaker who legislates
but does not speak; you have had men in your White House who always saw
red, and you have red-emblazoned newspapers which are yellow; you call
your politicians public servants who are your masters, and you call your
women the masters, but will not let them vote. Why, then, should you be
so surprised at any seeming incongruity in others?"

"I am convinced, Abu Nozeyr," I said, "and to-morrow we will go to see
'Tristan und Isolde.' But shall I attempt to describe for you, in a few
words, just what Grand Opera is?"

"My ear is open to your words, Harding Effendi."

"Know, then, Protector of the Fatherless, that the music-drama is a
perfect blending of all the arts. It calls to its aid the resources of
sculpture, painting, dancing, together with numerous mechanical
agencies, and to a minor extent, music and the drama. For observe, O Abu
Nozeyr, that each art aims to awake its own specific emotion. Sculpture
appeals to our sense of form, painting to our delight in colour, dancing
to the pleasure of rhythmic motion, the mechanic arts to our liking for
sudden action, while music and the uttered word represent the union of
the clearest and vaguest modes of expressing thought. It follows
therefore that the highest phase of human emotion can only be expressed
by that art which gives us simultaneously the living form of a Venus de
Milo with