Ch. 22 - The Poet's Symbol

If a man would seek for the symbol of the poet, he need not look
farther than "The Arabian Nights' Tales." Scherezade who interprets
the stories for the Sultan--Scherezade is the poet, and the Sultan is
the public who is to be agreeably entertained, or else he will
decapitate Scherezade.

Powerful Sultan! Poor Scherezade!

The Sultan-public sits in more than a thousand and one forms, and
listens. Let us regard a few of these forms.

There sits a sallow, peevish, scholar; the tree of his life bears
leaves impressed with long and learned words: diligence and
perseverance crawl like snails on the hog's leather bark: the moths
have got into the inside--and that is bad, very bad! Pardon the rich
fulness of the song, the inconsiderate enthusiasm, the fresh young,
intellect. Do not behead Scherezade! But he beheads her out of hand,
_sans_ remorse.

There sits a dress-maker, a sempstress who has had some experience of
the world. She comes from strange families, from a solitary chamber
where she sat and gained a knowledge of mankind--she knows and loves
the romantic. Pardon, Miss, if the story has not excitement enough for
you, who have sat over the needle and the muslin, and having had so
much of life's prose, gasp after romance.

"Behead her!" says the dress-maker.

There sits a figure in a dressing gown--this oriental dress of the
North, for the lordly minion, the petty prince, the rich brewer's son,
&c., &c., &c. It is not to be learned from the dressing gown, nor from
that lordly look and the fine smile around the mouth, to what stem he
belongs: his demands on Scherezade are just the same as the
dress-maker's: he must be excited, he must be brought to shudder all
down the vertebrae, through the very spine: he must be crammed with
mysteries, such as those which Spriez knew how to connect and thicken.

Scherezade is beheaded!

Wise, enlightened Sultan! Thou comest in the form of a schoolboy; thou
bearest the Romans and Greeks together in a satchel on thy back, as
Atlas sustained the world. Do not cast an evil eye upon poor
Scherezade; do not judge her before thou hast learned thy lesson, and
art a child again,--do not behead Scherezade!

Young, full-dressed diplomatist, on whose breast we can count, by the
badges of honour, how many courts thou hast visited with thy princely
master, speak mildly of Scherezade's name! speak of her in French,
that she may be ennobled above her mother tongue! translate but one
strophe of her song, as badly as thou canst, but carry it into the
brilliant saloon, and her sentence of death is annulled in the sweet,
absolving _charmant_!

Mighty annihilator and elevator!--the newspapers' Zeus--thou