And yet, there is not in all these that immortal intelligence, that living, palpitating soul, which you find in a great book. A man who conceives and writes a great book, my friend, has done more work than all the helots that laboured on these pyramidal futilities. That is why I find no exaggeration in Khalid’s words. For when he loafs, he does so in good earnest. Not like the camel-driver there or the camel, but after the manner of the great thinkers and mystics: like al-Farid and Jalal ad-Din Rumi, like Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi, Khalid loafs.
For can you escape being reproached for idleness by merely working? Are you going to waste your time and power in useless unproductive labour, carrying dates to Hajar (or coals to Newcastle, which is the English equivalent), that you might not be called an idler, a loafer?”
“Indeed not,” we reply; “for the Poet taking in the sea, or the woods, or the starry-night, the poet who might be just sharing the sunshine with the salamander, is as much a labourer as the stoker or the bricklayer.”
And with a few more such remarks, we showed our friend that, not being of india-rubber, we could not but expand under the heat of his grandiosity.
We then make our purpose known, and Shakib is overjoyed. He offers to kiss us for the noble thought.
“Yes, Europe should know Khalid better, and only through you and me can this be done. For you can not properly understand him, unless you read the Histoire Intime , which I have just finished. That will give you les dessous de cartes of his character.”
“ Les dessons ”—and the Poet who intersperses his Arabic with fancy French, explains.—“The lining, the ligaments.”—“Ah, that is exactly what we want.”