Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-20
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD.
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF
THE LIGHT OF ASIA"
A Poem of Great Beauty Which is just
From the Pen of This Distin-
guished Writer.

guished Writer.
Especial Correspondence of the sUND4Y UNIoN.l
SAN FRANcIsco, October II, 1889.
Sir Edwin Arnold and daughter sailed
for Japan this week on the Pacific mail
steamship Belgic. A large delegation
from the Century Club of this city, and
many personal friends bade farewell at the
steamship wharf to the gifted poet and
his charming daughter. As parting
word, Sir Edwin said that he left America
with much reluctance This, his first
visit to the United States, will form the
subject of series of graphic essays in the
London Telegraph, of which newspaper the
author of ''The Light of Asia" is chief ed
itor. To the SUNDAY UNION correspond
ent, Sir Edwin, few hours before his de-
parture. expressed himself as charmed with
America and the American people. He
pronounced New York as grand in its
great men Boston, welcome home for
traveller and STUDENT Washington, the
most beautiful city on the continent; Phil
adelphia, as charmingly picturesque; Chi
cago, as phenomenal Denver, as an oak of
steady, substantial growth; Omaha, a
modern mart, and San Francisco most at
tractive to the tourist.
Upon the morning of his departure Sir
Edwin Arnold smoked an breakfast
cigar, in his room at the Palace Hotel, and
chatted pleasantly with SUNDAYU UNION
correspondent upon timely literary topics.
As moralist, as a poet of sweet purity, as
man of fine sensibilities, there is scarcely
an Englishman to-day better qualified to
speak, in terms i'll or good, of recent Amer
ican literature, and more especially of
erotic fiction and poems of passion, than is
the well known student of Asiatic litera-
ture.
81 have read Ella Wheeler Wilcox and
Amelie Rives," said Sir Edwin, knocking
the ashes from his cigar. "The others |
have not read You speak of Mrs. Ather-
ton, Edgar Saltus, Abb Jackman and other
writers of whom l know nothing, and OF
whom have never heard. The Quick or
the Dead | read with great deal Of in
terest. l do not regard this recent Amer
lean literature as a new school, and GER
tainly such a school should not be estab-
lished. | do not think there exists to-day
a separate, distinct school of this kind.
There are certain writers, headed by our
Swinburne and the gifted men of France
whom | know. | do not admit that these
men constitute a school in literature char
acterized as 1eshliness. Their work is the
old eternal classic revolt against Puritan
ism and the narrow forms of Christianity.
The first of them all was the Emperor
Julian, one of the finest fellows that ever
lived. In his heart there was revolt
against Christ and His teachings, for in
his heart was the old grace of Greece and
the glory of Rome. This new religion of
Christ, draped in gray, seemed odious.
Look round about and see the clergy damn
the babes to everlasting hell, and say It's
wicked for man to look at women's
ankles. Do not misunderstood me.
should never excuse immortality or forgive
offenders against public decorum. Let us
remember Swinburne's verses, and believe
that the poets of the present make but a
natural and even useful protest against
the extravagances of Puritanism. ! agree
with him who writes, 'DoSt thou believe
because thou art virtuous there should be
no more cakes and ale.' / was sitting
with Walt Whitman the other day, and |
repeated to him some of his own verses
and explained their philosophy and their
beauty. He said to me, You are the first
man to explain my own lines AT this |
said to him, 4 am no more ashamed Of
body than of soul look largely, broadly,
at men, at literature, at the affairs of life
Walt Whitman was right. swear l am
no more ashamed of body than of soul.
Read those lines of Robert Browning In
which he says, Nor soul helps body more
than body once helped soul All, me, 1t
is sad spectacle, disgusting thing for
the world to be ashamed of beauty. This
does not apply to bawdy books. There is
no excuse for their birth or their exist
ence. There is no enemy to the beauty of
the world, the Greek of life, like
the obscene man. He is the guerilla
that defaees, mars the shape and
form of nature. If such books are
written to sell, to pander; the man who
writes them is a villain and should be cast
headlong into the broad Pacific, and the
woman-yea, she is worse than the man.
There is Rider Haggard. know him
we'll. and meet him frequently on the
underground His work is clever, his
'She' even better than Cleopatra l
think. There are beautiful things in his
books, vet people will not read. But then
you cannot Judge Cleopatra by the young
women of Boston. You Americans are
very moral except on Dupont street.
There is more propriety here than across
IL. ba for
story in Chaucer. Read the things those
dear old men so blandly printed"
One day last winter Edwin Arnold was
walking along Piccadilly. Soon it was
raining hard. He took refuge in a mu-
scum of Egyptian antiquities. There he
saw the slippers of an Egyptian mummy.
He took them up, and his quick percep-
ton saw the maiden of the Nile, who
wore them, standing before him as a liv-
ing reality. He drew an envelope from
his pocket, took hurried notes, and some
time since completed a poem of great
beauty. The SUNDAY-UNIoN correspond
ent has secured these verses, for exclusive
publication in America, and they are
printed to-day for the first time in this
country.
\
TIoN, PIccADILLY,
/.
Tiny slippers of gold and green,
Tied with moldering golden cord?
What pretty feet they must have been,
When Cesar Augustus was Egypts Lord
Somebody graceful and fair you were
Not many girls could dance in these
When did the shoemaker make you, dear,
Such a nice pair of Egyptian threesg
-, -, -. o-,,~a5 Tr cois ~ IN
Memphis or Thebis, or Pelusium?
Fitting them featly your brown toes upon.
Iacing them deity with finger and thumb
seem 10 see you So long ago
Twenty centurieS-less or more
And here are the sandals; yet none OF us know
What name, or fortune, or face you bore
III.
Your lips would have laughed with rosy seorn
iIfthe merchant or slave had mocSingly SAID:
The feet will pass but the shoes they nave worn
Two thousand years onward Time S road shsll
tread,
And sill be footgear, as good as new
To think that cllfskin, gilded and stltcneo
Should Rome and her Cssars outlive ana you
Be gone Ike a dream from the word you De-
witcned.
Not that we mourn you; 'twere too absurd;