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Updated: May 17, 2025
He had no religion, having studied all. He was a pagan beyond redemption, though his wife maintained that he was a Catholic. Unfortunately, for her, his masterpiece refutes her overwhelmingly. He wrote the most remarkable poem of the last forty years, one that is to be classed only with Tennyson's "In Memoriam" and the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam.
It the book was called a Rubaiyat by Omar Quinine, or something like that. This Omar party never wrote a comic opera in his life. But Alla wasn't discouraged, for she looked through every page in hopes of finding a Clearing House certificate, but not a leaf stirred.
In this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the Rubaiyat stands first in our time; but it does not stand alone. Many of the most brilliant intellects of our time have urged us to the same self-conscious snatching at a rare delight. Walter Pater said that we were all under sentence of death, and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply for those moments' sake.
The true American never gets Europeanized, nor does he want to, however long he may stay on the wrong side of the Atlantic. When I was with Vedder, Broadway always seemed nearer than the Corso. He had recently finished the illustrations for the Rubaiyat and the book was published while we were in Rome. It was never long out of his talk.
He always declared he could feel it farther if he drank standing. "What's his name?" whispered Jimmy, releasing the glass. "Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam," panted the Captain, and was lost. Jimmy finished the round of his friends, and then approached the bar. His voice was softening.
Oliver Herford is perhaps best known by his "Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten," and there is a kitten also in "This Giddy Globe": "Hurray!" cried the Kitten, "Hurray!" As he merrily set the sails, "I sail o'er the ocean to-day To look at the Prince of Wales." this was when the Prince was making his triumphant visit to New York in 1919
"Who was Omar?" Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, nor the next, nor the next. In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubaiyat, and it was to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, possibly two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainder without difficulty.
Yet the value to any book of a worthy translation is beyond calculation. The outstanding literary illustration of that fact is familiar. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam lay in Persian literature and in different English translations long before Fitzgerald made it a household classic for literary people. The translator made the book for us in more marked way than the original writer did.
Ultimately a man cannot rejoice in anything except the nature of things. Ultimately a man can enjoy nothing except religion. Once in the world's history men did believe that the stars were dancing to the tune of their temples, and they danced as men have never danced since. With this old pagan eudaemonism the sage of the Rubaiyat has quite as little to do as he has with any Christian variety.
The crown of all the victories of the Crescent is that nobody reads the Koran and everybody reads the Rubaiyat. Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in Punch, representing a festive old gentleman in a state of collapse on the pavement, and a philanthropic old lady anxiously calling the attention of a cabman to the calamity.
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