The Washington herald., 1908-01-05

One ground for the ancient and by no
means extinct contempt of tailors has
been the attitude of the ''sarto.ial artist"
while at work. The tailor squatting on
his shop-board is supposed 10 present an
unmanly spectacle. Il is strange that the
cross-legged position should be regarded
as in any way contemplate when one re-
members that IN other parts OF the world
il is associated with the height of divine
contemplation. When Gautama sat under
the Bo tree lost in contemplation until he
arrived at supreme knowledge and intelli-
gence, il was in the cross-legged position.
And in all Buddhist countries the calm.
passionless Buddha is always represented
in this attitude. sometimes on a gigantic
scale-an attitude indeed, which is one
naturally assumed by many Eastern peo-
p4&s. says the London Globe.
l1'he Oriental can sit cross-legged, i'm
passive. eontemplative, with nothing ap-
parently but his pipe TO link him TO the
active world around him. after a fashion
and for a length Of time that would drive
modern apostle of hustle and hustle
well-nIgh frantic. Your eross-legged
gravely smoking, contemplative Eastern
philosopher knows nothing Of the gospel
Of Get on or get out" lie does neither
Between the hustling shopkeePer of the
West and the seller of goods in an East
ern bazaar there is great gulf fixed
Eliot Warburton. in that famous series OF
graphic travel-pictures called The Cres-
cent and the Cross" writing of the COW
ered-in bazaars of Cairo and their re-
freshingly cool and quiet gloom, says:
There is also an air Of profund repose
in the turbaned merchants as they sit
eross-legged on their counters, embOwered
by the shawls and silks of India and
Persia: they look as if they were forever
sitting for their portraits. and seldom
move a muscle. unless it be to breathe
cloud of smoke from their bearded lips
or to turn their vivid eyes upon some
expected customer-those eyes that seem
to be the only living part of their coun-
tenanee" And if you make purchase of
some value you will be invited to take a
pipe and seat beside the merchant on
his counter. He indicates the carpet on
which he hopes to Allah that your
bene1cent shadow may fall" III you are
wise you ascend his counter and sit
down in the place and attitude of a tailor
with perfect gravity"
Our own north country folk have way
of sitting on their launches, TO watch
sport of one kind or another, with an APP
parent ease and comfort which are diff
cult for a southerner to understand; but
they have not yet learned to sit cross
| legged.
Perhaps it is the traditional association
Of this attitude with the East that has
led TO that persistent blundeT which labels
every cross-legged effigy in our ancient
churches as that of Crusader. Tenny-
son has it in his "Loeksley Hail.
Yonder in that chapel slowly sinking now into the
ground.
Lies the warrior my forefaiher with his feet upon
the hound
Cross d for he said the sea to crush the Mos
lem m his pride.
Dickens also mentions Il in the "Old
Curiosity Shop" in describing that an
eient church with its wealth of medieval
! monuments, which has long since beer
identified with the parish church Of Tong
, Here were efiigies he says. 'of war
riors stretched upon their beds of stone
with folded hands-cross-legged. those
who had fought in the holy wars-girded
with their swords, cased in armor as they
had lived
Cross-legged figures in stone are abun.
dant in our English churches, and wher-
! ever the visitor or tourist may go he vii