Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/259

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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
253

just rent a fearful chasm. I know not why, but I never see a stream of his painting but I recall those lines of Coleridge's:

'Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Down to a sunless sea.'

If he had lived in the days of the Caliphs, Zobeide would have chosen him to paint the palace of pictures she wagered with Haroun Alraschid."

Edward Lorraine.—"What an illustrator he would be of the Arabian Nights! His pencil would be like the wand of their own genii; the lamp itself could not call up a more gorgeous hall than he would. Think of those magnificent windows, of which even a king had not gems enough in his treasury to finish only one; or what would he not image of the enchanted garden itself, where the grapes were rubies, the flowers of pearl, and the mysterious shrine where burnt the mystic lamp. I would assemble them in a picture-gallery, where once a year I would ask my friends to a banquet, sacred to the memory of M. de Caillaud."

Miss Arundel.—"And drink his health in Shiraz wine."

Edward Lorraine.—"I would do as he has