The chamber was entirely of porcelain; a golden flower on a
ground of delicate green.
'I will send your people to you,' said Fakredeen; 'but, in the meantime,
there are attendants here who are, perhaps, more used to the duty;' and,
so saying, he clapped his hands, and several servants appeared, bearing
baskets of curious linen, whiter than the snow of Lebanon, and a variety
of robes.
CHAPTER XLII.
_Strange Ceremonies._
IT HAS been long decreed that no poet may introduce the Phoenix. Scylla
and Charybdis are both successfully avoided even by provincial rhetoric.
The performance of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted, and Mahomet's
unhappy coffin, these are illustrations that have long been the
prerogative of dolts and dullards. It is not for a moment to be
tolerated that an oasis should be met with anywhere except in the
desert.
We sadly lack a new stock of public images. The current similes, if
not absolutely counterfeit, are quite worn out. They have no intrinsic
value, and serve only as counters to represent the absence of ideas.
The critics should really call them in. In the good old days, when the
superscription was fresh, and the mint mark bright upon the metal, we
should have compared the friendship of two young men to that of Damon
and Pythias.
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