that will make the earth shake. All the dates imported come from
the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant
knocked out the eye of the genie's invisible son. All olives are of
the stock of that fresh fruit, concerning which the Commander of the
Faithful overheard the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the
fraudulent olive merchant; all apples are akin to the apple
purchased (with two others) from the Sultan's gardener for three
sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child. All
dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who
jumped upon the baker's counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad
money. All rice recalls the rice which the awful lady, who was a
ghoule, could only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in
the burial-place. My very rocking-horse,--there he is, with his
nostrils turned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood!--should
have a peg in his neck, by virtue thereof to fly away with me, as
the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all
his father's Court.

Yes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of
my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light! When I wake in bed, at
daybreak, on the cold, dark, winter mornings, the white snow dimly
beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear
Dinarzade. "Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish
the history of the Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade
replies, "If my lord the Sultan will suffer me to live another day,
sister, I will not only finish that, but tell you a more wonderful
story yet." Then, the gracious Sultan goes out, giving no orders
for the execution, and we all three breathe again.

At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves--