le, show what it aims at.
It is said that the Khans, or story-tellers in Ispahan and other
cities of the East, attain a controlling power over their audience,
keeping them for many hours attentive to the most fanciful and
extravagant adventures. The whole world knows pretty well the style of
these improvisators, and how fascinating they are, in our translations
of the "Arabian Nights." Scheherzarade tells these stories to save her
life, and the delight of young Europe and young America in them proves
that she fairly earned it. And who does not remember in childhood some
white or black or yellow Scheherzarade, who, by that talent of telling
endless feats of fairies and magicians, and kings and queens, was more
dear and wonderful to a circle of children than any orator of England
or America is now? The more indolent and imaginative complexion of the
Eastern nations makes them much more impressible by these appeals to
the fancy.

These legends are only exaggerations of real occurrences, and every
literature contains these high compliments to the art of the orator
and the bard, from the Hebrew and the Greek down to the Scottish
Glenkindie, who

--"harpit a fish out o' saut water,
Or water out of a stone,
Or milk out of a maiden's breast
Who bairn had never none."

Homer specially delighted in drawing the same figure. For what is the
"Odyssey," but a history of the orator, in the largest style, carried
through a series of adventures furnishing brilliant opportunities to
his talent? See with what care and pleasure the poet brings him on the
stage. Helen is pointing out to Antenor, from a tower, the different
Grecian chiefs. "Antenor said: 'Tell me, dear child, who is that man,
shorter by a head than Agamemnon, yet he looks broader in his
shoulders and breast. His arms lie on the ground, but he, like a
leader, walks about the bands of the men. He seems to me like a
stately ram, who goes as a master of the flock.' Him answered Helen,
daughter of Jove: 'This is the wise Ulysses, son of Laertes, who was
reared in the state of craggy Ithaca, knowing all wiles and wise
counsels.' To her the prudent Antenor replied again: 'O woman, you
have spoken truly. For once the wise Ulysses came hither on an
embassy, with Menelaus, beloved by Mars. I received them, and
entertained them at my house. I became acquainted with the genius and
the prudent judgments of both. When they mixed with the assembled
Trojans and stood, the