background of English scenery, faint and unobtrusive yet persistent
and horizoning. In the Danubian forest we talk of past school-
days. The Balkan plain suggests an English park, its trees planted
as if to shut out "some infernal fellow creature in the shape of a
new-made squire"; Jordan recalls the Thames; the Galilean Lake,
Windermere; the Via Dolorosa, Bond Street; the fresh toast of the
desert bivouac, an Eton breakfast; the hungry questing jackals are
the place-hunters of Bridgewater and Taunton; the Damascus gardens,
a neglected English manor from which the "family" has been long
abroad; in the fierce, dry desert air are heard the "Marlen" bells
of home, calling to morning prayer the prim congregation in far-off
St. Mary's parish. And a not less potent factor in the charm is
the magician's self who wields it, shown through each passing
environment of the narrative; the shy, haughty, imperious Solitary,
"a sort of Byron in the desert," of cultured mind and eloquent
speech, headstrong and not always amiable, hiding sentiment with
cynicism, yet therefore irresistible all the more when he
condescends to endear himself by his confidence. He meets the
Plague and its terrors like a gentleman, but shows us, through the
vicarious torments of the cowering Levantine that it was courage
and coolness, not insensibility, which bore him through it. A foe
to marriage, compassionating Carrigaholt as doomed to travel
"Vetturini-wise," pitying the Dead Sea goatherd for his ugly wife,
revelling in the meek surrender of the three young men whom he sees
"led to the altar" in Suez, he is still the frank, susceptible,
gallant bachelor, observantly and critically studious of female
charms: of the magnificent yet formidable Smyrniotes, eyes, brow,
nostrils, throat, sweetly turned lips, alarming in their latent
capacity for fierceness, pride, passion, power: of the Moslem
women in Nablous, "so handsome that they could not keep up their