Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
knows no caste or country.
_Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
"Gentle boy, whose silver feet
Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
Fill us quick the generous wine,
Ever fresh and ever fine!"
* * * * *
BOOKS.
It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found, and the
best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly
there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and
do nothing for us. In Plato's "Gorgias," Socrates says, "The
ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his
passengers from Aegina or from Pontus, not thinking he has done
anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are
the same, and in no respect better than when he took them on board."
So is it with books, for the most part; they work no redemption in us.
The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no
respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The
volume is dear at a dollar, and, after reading to weariness the
lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did,
without surprise, of a surly bank-director, that in bank parlors
they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
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