The Scented Garden

Introduction 17 even rapturous piety he joins a passionate love for the pleasures of the table and the bed : and the reader will I think grant him both acuteness of in- tellect and elegance of diction. It is instructive : indeed, beyond all comparison better than the laborous and pedantic exposition I had conceived it my duty to attempt : it gives the inside view, and references to the scholars and paederasts who have previously enlarged on this fascinating topic : the style is impassioned and the matter impeccable. I therefore turn my readers over to it without further parley, for I feel that they must be (by this time) thoroughly tired of the prosing of one who is after all not a writer, but a soldier. [In deference to the wishes of the widow of the gallant soldier who penned these lines, and gave his life to his country in S. Africa, we do not carry out his intention of attaching his name to them (during her lifetime) and designate him only by his chosen non de plume, Alain Lutiy. Ed.] 1. The two books have nothing in common but the name. Garden is the almost universal glyph for a book of mystic lore, and Perfume for divine chr- ism. The Arab book is a treatise on the various methods of copulation, plus some obscene stories, and a collection of prescriptions against impotence, pregnancy, and the like. 2. St. Augustine can find no better symbols than El Haji to express his love for God. “ What is it then, that I love, O my God, when I love you ? It is not beauty of bodies, nor the glory which passes, nor the light which our eyes love ; it is not the va- ried harmony of sweet songs nor the aroma of per- fumes and sweet flowers, nor the voluptuous joys of carnal embraces. No, it is more than these that