The Washington weekly post., 1900-10-02
0aas KhAYYAn A BORE.
FaHit IL with Admirers, whs Are Costin,.
ally CaekiiBs, Say.lnns.

Andrew Lana In Ssw YORK Jssrns,.
Omar Khayyam q mean FitzrersIa..
Omar. for my Persian education -.
emitted is a very original and ple,si,.
work. TennysOn admired 4. and he "a,
a good judge, not apt to admire ,,g-s
modern verse But. at best. Omar is no,
everybody.
He is chsttered about. written Aha,
translated. Illustrated. dined over. roe.
ized about. TO an extent which Wo5lg
scarcely be excessive if Omar we're tic.
Mer.
The fault IS not with Fitzgerald. VI,
never blew the trumpet over hi, on.
achievement; and, as ais the world know.
gave his book away 10 bookseller. IT,.
fault Is not with Omar. II any Omar Their.
vas.
1t is with admirers who run about esck-
ling like a hen which has laid an evr
and why hens do this. alone Of aninsrs
Jet Darwinians explain, Omar. OF Frz
gerald. is in the same posture as Burns
whose admirers make his name a burden
The Common omarite is a parallel 10 n.
Heniey's Common BuTnsite Bur m.
"Rubaiyat' and Tam O. Shanter~ a..
none the less excellent poems. dpsrIfa
the myriad mutchkined enthusiasm
and red roses Of indiscreet adore-s.
In Homer I steadfastly believe. ls ,,
Omar. do not care much As 20 whether
he existed or not. To be sure j, is
piquant idea that, in the time % HAROLD
Godwisson and the Norman conquest
uoSsl. a Persian astronomer was writing
pretty. decadent verse, rather In the man
ner of the later authors OF the Greek An
thology. or of Mimnermus. with Oriental
local coloring. But this kind Of thing is
peculiar TO no age. Let us eat and drink"
and make love, for tomorrow We die"
is an old enough maxim in the East: the
merit Of Omar, or Of Fitzgerald, lies in
the admirable expression. not in the idea
Nothing Is more probable. a priori
than that the medieval Persians attribuf-
cd to Omar hundreds Of ruhaiyat which
are not in the oldest collection. whatever
its date The Mahabharats has been
treated I'm the same way. The kalewals
is A tissue Of popular songs. with Lonn-
rOts interpretations 4 great deal passed
as HOmer's, In classic times which the
most conservative criticism must reject
as non-HOmeric. The Hymns. for example
But such merits as these poems possess
must endure. for all that; and the great
rubaiyat remain good. whatever their
date and whoever their author may be-
The mere form Of the quatratns lntroduc-
ed TO US ignorant men by Fitzgerald, IL
an addition 10 the resources Of English
verse Mr.. Swinburne has used ~, with
modifica don. An accomplished scholar
has employed II in by lar tne besi
me;rical translation of the Odyssey.
still unpublished and still incomplete.
Perhaps. of course, the form Of quatrain
NAV be older Tennyson used lyrical
variety in ''The Daisy"
What Roman strength Turbil showed
In ruin. by the mountain road.
How like gem, beneath. the city
on little Monaco. baskng. glowed
Possibly Tennyson had seen Fitzgerald
"Rubaiyat' in manuscript. and adaDtad
the form TO his purpose; in any case the
AS 10 the omar dining club, II Is a din
ing club. like another. and has few
floral peculiarities. | have. fear, been
sparing and infrequent attendant Of It's
mysteries. as one who loves not after
dinner speeches and Is not a "ciub&ba
man." in Or. JOhnson's phrase.
The really sad thing about Omar | tak'
to he this: He is becoming kind Of
shbboleth of cheap culture; short cut
TO literary taste.
Many enraged Omarites know nothing
of Homer and. | fear, uncomm0nly htun
of Soph0cles: greater poets than the An
glo- -Persians. There Is no Homer dining
club. no Sophocles society. no eternal
chatter about these poets. SO much the
better, OF course, but one must keep re-
peating that a passion for Omar does net
suffice for literary salvation.
Long ago Omar was a fsvorite of very
few persons. Mr.. John Addington Sv
mOnds gave me copy nearly thirty
years ago which some one had given u
him, and which / was TO hand TO another
as ! did.
remember that he. or a friend. was on
board a ship In which an American com
mercial traveller was a fellow passenger
He seemed Indifferent TO literature, out
was heard murmuring a quatrain OF Fitz-
geraldS which at once established a kind
of free-masOnry between him and the
English admirer These were "earlv
DAYS when the second edition. n not the
first. was cheap at the book stalls. Now
we have Omars of all sorts and sizes
plain and Illustrated. In fact Omar Is
being made a bore. and when once schp,-
ars have submitted the old pagan To the
Higher Criticism | hope that Omar NAV
be allowed to repose. man or myth, for a
while.