The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments Translated and Annotated by Richard F. Burton VOLUME FOUR To Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. My Dear Arbuthnot, I have no fear that a friend, whose friendship has lasted nearly a third of a century, will misunderstand my reasons for inscribing his name upon these pages. You have lived long enough in the East and, as your writings show, observantly enough, to detect the pearl which lurks in the kitchen-midden, and to note that its lustre is not dimmed nor its value diminished by its unclean surroundings.
Error was decked in a costly robe of satin of a lavender hue, to contrast
with her gems; while Truth was arrayed in white, with a wreath of ivy on
her brow, and the golden girdle around her waist which her father gave
her at parting. She wore no gems save an arrow of pearl which Astrea gave
her when they parted at the gate of clouds, kept by the goddesses named
the Seasons, which opened to permit the passage of the celestials to
earth and to receive them on their return.
The simple dress and manners of Truth won the admiration of a few, while
the majority paid tribute to Error, who kept her admirers listening to
her wonderful adventures amid the region of the stars. Truth spoke but
seldom; but what she uttered was food for thought, instead of a
constellation of merely dazzling words.
A careful observer might have seen that the elder members lingered,
attracted by her simple charms, near Truth, as did also the youngest
portion of the company, while youth and middle age could not divine her
sphere of pure and earnest thought. The few who sought her would
gladly have continued the acquaintance, and they invited her to their
dwellings; but on the morrow she would set forth on her journey, feeling
that she had implanted in the minds of a few the love of something
beyond externals and mere materialisms.
Her earthly mission was to traverse hill and plain throughout the land,
and sow seeds of righteousness which would spring up in blossoms of
pearl long after her weary feet had traversed other lands and sown again
THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments Translated and Annotated by Richard F. Burton VOLUME FOUR To Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. My Dear Arbuthnot, I have no fear that a friend, whose friendship has lasted nearly a third of a century, will misunderstand my reasons for inscribing his name upon these pages. You have lived long enough in the East and, as your writings show, observantly enough, to detect the pearl which lurks in the kitchen-midden, and to note that its lustre is not dimmed nor its value diminished by its unclean surroundings.