--commends itself far more to what divines are pleased to call "fallen human
nature" that is the natural man.
And here before crossing the threshold, I would seize the opportunity of
expressing my cordial gratitude and hearty thanks to the Press in general,
which has received my Eastern studies and contributions to Oriental knowledge
in the friendliest and most sympathetic spirit, appreciating my labours far
beyond the modicum of the offerer's expectation and lending potent and
generous aid to place them before the English world in the fairest and most
favourable point of view. To number a small proportion of "black sheep" is no
shame for a flock amounting to myriads: such exceptional varieties must be
bred for the use and delectation of those who prefer to right wrong and
darkness to light. It is with these only that my remarks and retorts will deal
and consequently I have assigned to them the post of honour. The various
extracts from notices, favourable appreciative and complimentary, appear as
the "Opinions of the Press" at the end of this volume, and again I take the
opportunity of professing myself truly thankful for the good word of the
Fourth Estate, and for its wisely detecting the soul of good in things evil.
The romantic and exceptional circumstances under which my large labour was
projected and determined have been sufficiently described in the Foreword
(vol. i. pp. vii- x). I may here add that during a longsome obligatory halt of
some two months at East African Zayla' and throughout a difficult and
dangerous march across the murderous Somali country upon Harar-Gay, then the
Tinbukhtú of Eastern Africa, The Nights rendered me the best of service. The
wildlings listened with the rapt attention of little lads and lasses to the
marvellous recitals of the charming Queen and the monotonous interpellations
of her lay-image sister and looked forward to the evening lecture as the crown
and guerdon of the toilsome day. And assuredly never was there a more suitable
setting, a more admirable mise-en-scène for The Nights than the landscape of
Somali-land, a prospect so adapted to their subject-matter that it lent
credibility even to details the least credible. Barren and grisly for the most
part, without any of the charms gladdening and beautifying the normal
prospects of earth, grassy hill and wooded dale, park-like plain and placid
lake, and the snaking of silvery stream, it displays ever and anon beauties
made all its own by borrowing from the heavens, in an atmosphere of passing
transparency, reflections of magical splendours and of weird shadows proper to
tropical skies. No rose-hue pinker than the virginal blush and dewy flush of
dawn in contrast with the shivering reek of flaming noon-tide, when all
brightness of colour seems burnt out of the world by the white heat of
sun-glow. No brilliancy more gorgeous or more ravishing than the play of light
and shade, the rainbow shiftings and the fiery pinks and purples and embers
and carmines of the sunset scenery--the gorgeous death-bed of the Day. No tint
more tender, more restful, than the uniform grey, pale and pearly, invading by
slowest progress that ocean of crimson that girds the orb of the Sun-King,
diminishing it to a lakelet of fire and finally quenching it in iridescent
haze. No gloom more ghostly than the murky hangings drooping like curtains
from the violet heavens during those traveller's trials the unmoored nights,
when the world seems peopled by weird phantoms and phantasms of man and
monster moving and at rest. No verdure more exquisite than earth's glazing of
greenery, the blend of ethereal azure and yellow; no gold more sheeny than the
foregrounds of sand shimmering in the slant of the sun; no blue more profound
and transparent than the middle distances; no neutral tints more subtle, pure,
delicate and sight-soothing than the French grey which robes the clear-cut
horizon; no variety of landscape more pronounced than the alternations of
glowing sunlight and snowy moonlight and twinkling starlight, all streaming
through diaphanous air. No contrast more admirable than the alternation of
iron upland whereupon hardly a blade of grass may grow and the Wady with its
double avenue of leek-green tamarisks, hedging now a furious rain-torrent then
a ribbon of purest sand, or the purple-gray shadow rising majestic in the
Orient to face the mysterious Zodiacal Light, a white pyramid whose base is
Amenti--region of resting Osiris--and whose apex pierces the zenith. And not
rarely this "after-glow" is followed by a blush of "celestial rosy-red"
mantling the whole circle of the horizon where the hue is deepest and paling
into the upper azure where the stars shine their brightest. How often in
Somali land I repeated to myself
--Contente-vous, mes yeux,
Jamais vous ne verrez chose plus belle;
and the picture still haunts me.
* * * * * *
And now, turning away from these and similar pleasures of memory, and passing
over the once told tale (Foreword, vol. i. pp. viii., ix.) of how, when and
where work was begun, together with the disappointment caused by the death of
my friend and collaborator, Steinhaeuser concerning the copying process which
commenced in 1879 and anent the precedence willingly accorded to the "Villon
Edition," I proceed directly to what may be termed
The Engineering of the Work.
During the autumn of '82, after my return from the Gold Coast (with less than
no share of the noble metal which my companion Cameron and I went forth to
find and found a failure), my task began in all possible earnest with ordering
the old scraps of translation and collating a vast heterogeneous collection of
notes. I was fortunate enough to discover at unlettered Trieste, an excellent
copyist able and willing to decypher a crabbed hand and deft at reproducing
facetious and drolatic words without thoroughly comprehending their
significance. At first my exertions were but fitful and the scene was mostly a
sick bed to which I was bound between October '83 and June '84. Marienbad,
however, and Styrian Sauerbrunn (bed Rohitsch) set me right and on return to
Trieste (Sept. 4, '84), we applied ourselves to the task of advertising, the
first two volumes being almost ready for print.
And here we were confronted by a serious question, What number of copies would
suffice my public? A distinguished Professor who had published some 160,000
texts with prices ranging from 6d. to 50 guineas, wrote to me in all kindness
advising an issue of 150 to 250: an eminent printer-publisher would have
ventured upon some 500: others rose to 750 with a warning-note anent
"wreckage," great risk and ruinous expenditure, while only one friend--and he
not in business--urged an edition of 2,000 to 3,000 with encouraging words as
to its probable reception. After long forethought I chose 1,000 as a just
middle.
We then drew up a long list, names of friends, acquaintances and strangers
likely to patronise the novelty, and caused the following three papers to be
lithographed and printed at Trieste.
No. I.
Captain Burton, having neither agent nor publisher for his forthcoming ARABIAN
NIGHTS, requests that all subscribers will kindly send their names and
addresses to him personally (Captain Burton, Trieste, Austria), when they will
be entered into a book kept for the purpose.
There will be 10 volumes at a guinea a piece, each to be paid for on delivery.
Subscribers may count on the first three volumes being printed in March next.
Captain Burton pledges himself to furnish copies to all subscribers who
address themselves to him; and he also undertakes not to issue, nor to allow
the issue of a cheaper Edition. One thousand copies will be printed, the whole
Manuscript will be ready before going to press in February, and the ten
volumes will be issued within Eighteen Months.