compass of which nothing is impossible. And with these mystical circumlocutions of ceremony, they plunge into an intimacy which is bordered by the metaphysical on one side, and the physical on the other. For though the Medium is at the threshold of her climacteric, Khalid afterwards tells Shakib that there be something in her eyes and limbs which always seem to be waxing young. And of a truth, the American woman, of all others, knows best how to preserve her beauty from the ravages of sorrow and the years. That is why, we presume, in calling him, “child,” she does not permit him to call her, “mother.” Indeed, the Medium and the Dervish often jest, and somewhiles mix the frivolous with the mysterious.
We would still follow our Scribe here, were it not that his pruriency often reaches the edge. He speaks of “the liaison” with all the rude simplicity and frankness of the Arabian Nights . And though, as the Mohammedans say, “To the pure everything is pure,” and again, “Who quotes a heresy is not guilty of it”; nevertheless, we do not feel warranted in rending the veil of the reader’s