ll-post in India, nor a village in England, where there is not a
coterie to whom Omar Khayyam is a familiar friend and a bond of union.
In America he has an equal following, in many regions and conditions. In
the Eastern States his adepts form an esoteric sect; the beautiful
volume of drawings by Mr. Vedder is a centre of delight and suggestion
wherever it exists. In the cities of the West you will find the
Quatrains one of the most thoroughly read books in every Club Library.
I heard Omar quoted once in one of the most lovely and desolate spots of
the High Rockies. We had been camping on the Great Divide, our "roof of
the world," where in the space of a few feet you may see two springs,
one sending its water to the Polar solitudes, the other to the eternal
Carib summer. One morning at sunrise as we were breaking camp, I was
startled to hear one of our party, a frontiersman born, intoning these
words of sombre majesty:--

"'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultan to the realm of death addressed.
The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash
Strikes, and prepares it for another guest."

I thought that sublime setting of primeval forest and pouring canon was
worthy of the lines; I am sure the dewless, crystalline air never
vibrated to strains of more solemn music.

Certainly our poet can never be numbered among the great popular writers
of all times. He has told no story; he has never unpacked his heart in
public; he has never thrown the reins on the neck of the winged horse,
and let his imagination carry him where it listed. "Ah! the crowd must
have emphatic warrant." Its suffrages are not for the cool, collected
observer, whose eye no glitter can ever dazzle, no mist suffuse. The
many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and
subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number
who, like Lucretius and Epicurus--without rage or defiance, even without
unbecoming mirth--look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse
credence to the absurd, and allegiance to the arrogant authority,
sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions;
with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammelled by
creed, too wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely poets to be
implacably wise. [Loud cheers.]

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

NATIONAL SENTIMENTS

[Speech of Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States, at the
first annual