Bubbles of the Foam Part 6

And then, that Lord of the Moony Tire took his darling in his arms, and set her on his lap: and they rose up and floated away together like a cloud to their home on the snowy peak. But the bones of that camel remained alone, lying still in the sand, till the moon got up and gazed at them with wonder, looking down from the sky, as if mistaking them for a reflection of himself, looking back at him with white and silent laughter from the blackness of the earth, and saying as it were: By the help of thy beams, I am whiter than thyself. And the night-wind rushed over them, scattering over them oblivion, in the form of a cloud of its plaything, the ocean of the sand, and danced round and fled away with a wail into the desert, with a music that resembled the moan of the world for the victims of the waste.

The Stories of F. W. Bain

The history of these fascinating little books, which, to a few readers, have always meant so much, and which are every day becoming better known, is not the least curious in modern literature. On the appearance of "A Digit of the Moon" in 1899, the author's mystifying attributions to a Sanscrit original, and the skill with which he kept up the illusion of translation, completely took in even the best scholars, and this work was added to the Oriental Department of the British Museum Library.

Later, however, the discovery was made that Mr. Bain, working with a mind saturated in Hindoo Mysticism and lore and Sanscrit poetry, was wholly its author, and it is now catalogued in the ordinary way.

To describe the charm and appeal of the stories themselves would be a hard task. They are almost indescribable. There is nothing in English literature at once so tender, so pa.s.sionate, so melancholy, and so wise.

The fatalism of the East, and the wistful dubiety of the West, meet in these beautiful allegories of life, which it is possible to compare only with themselves.

Methuen & Co. Ltd., London

The Stories of F. W. Bain

Bubbles of the Foam

The Ashes of a G.o.d

A Digit of the Moon

The Descent of the Sun

An Incarnation of the Snow

A Mine of Faults

A Heifer of the Dawn

In the Great G.o.d's Hair

A Draught of the Blue

An Essence of the Dusk

Methuen & Co. Ltd., London