albeit an earthly splendour.  He became, accordingly, an audacious epicurean who “failed to find any world but this,” and set himself to make the best of what he found.  His was not an exorbitant ambition nor a fiery passion of any kind.  The bitterness and cynicism of it all remind us of the inscription upon Sardanapalus’ tomb—­“Eat, drink, play, the rest is not worth the snap of a finger.”  Drinking-cups have been discovered with such inscriptions on them—­“The future is utterly useless, make the most of to-day,”—­and Omar’s poetry is full both of the cups and the inscription.

The French interpreter, Nicolas, has indeed spiritualised his work.  In his view, when Omar raves about wine, he really means God; when he speaks of love, he means the soul, and so on.  As a matter of fact, no man has ever written a plainer record of what he means, or has left his meaning less ambiguous.  When he says wine and love he means wine and love—­earthly things, which may or may not have their spiritual counterparts, but which at least have given no sign of them to him.  The same persistent note is heard in all his verses.  It is the grape, and wine, and fair women, and books, that make up the sum total of life for Omar as he knows it.

     “Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
     Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: 
       The Bird of Time has but a little way
     To flutter—­and the Bird is on the Wing.

     A Book of verses underneath the Bough,
     A jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—­and Thou
       Beside me singing in the Wilderness—­
     Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

     We are no other than a moving row
     Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
       Round with the sun-illumined Lantern held
     In Midnight by the Master of the Show.”

It would show a sad lack of humour if we were to take this too seriously, and shake our heads over our eastern visitor.  The cult of Omar has been blamed for paganising English society.  Really it came in as a foreign curiosity, and, for the most part, that it has remained.  When we had a visit some years ago from that great oriental potentate Li Hung Chang, we all put on our best clothes and went out to welcome him.  That was all right so long as we did not naturalise him, a course which neither he nor we thought of our adopting.  Had we naturalised him, it would have been a different matter, and even Mayfair might have found the fashions of China somewhat risque.  One remembers that introductory note to Browning’s Ferishtah’s Fancies—­“You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments:  you will say they are Persian; but let them be changed."[1] The only safe way of dealing with Omar Kayyam is to insist that his garments be not changed.  If you naturalise him he will become deadly in the West.  The East thrives upon fatalism, and there is a glamour about its most materialistic writings, through which far spiritual things seem to quiver as in a sun-haze.  The atmosphere of the West is different, and fatalism, adopted by its more practical mind, is sheer suicide.