The East is a Career.
- Disraeli's "Tancred"
I SHALL not readily forget the evening of Thursday, December 16, 1869. I had a terrible parting from my dear ones, especially from my mother. As a Frenchman would say, "Je quittais ma mère." We all dined together—the last dinner—at five o'clock, and three hours later I set out for the station. My brothers and sister came down to Victoria to see me off, and at the last moment my brother Rudolph decided to accompany me to Dover, for which I was truly thankful. It was a wild night, and the express to Dover rushed through the raging winter storm. My mind was a curious mixture of exultation and depression, and with it all was a sense of supernormal consciousness that something of this had been enacted before. About a fortnight previously I dreamed one of my curious dreams. I thought that I came to a small harbour,
- ↑ The chapters on Damascus are compiled from letters and diaries of Lady Button, and from some of the rough manuscript notes from which she wrote her Inner Life of Syria.
