The whole tree faintly rustled, though there was no wind. It emitted a shrill plaintive ringing sound, as of a glass bell; it seemed it was conscious of Jaffar’s approach. ‘Youth!’ said the old man, ‘pick any one of these apples and know, if you pick and eat the white one, you will be the wisest of all men; if you pick and eat the red, you will be rich as the Jew Rothschild; if you pick and eat the yellow one, you will be liked by old women. Make up your mind! and do not delay. Within an hour the apples will wither, and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths of the earth!’ Jaffar looked down, and pondered. ‘How am I to act?’ he said in an undertone, as though arguing with himself. ‘If you become too wise, maybe you will not care to live; if you become richer than any one, every one will envy you; I had better pick and eat the third, the withered apple!’ And so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh, and said: ‘O wise young man! You have chosen the better part! What need have you of the white apple? You are wiser than Solomon as it is. And you’ve no need of the red apple either.... You will be rich without it. Only your wealth no one will envy.’ ‘Tell me, old man,’ said Jaffar, rousing himself, ‘where lives the honoured mother of our Caliph, protected of heaven?’ The old man bowed down to the earth, and pointed out to the young man the way. Who in Bagdad knows not the Sun of the Universe, the great, the renowned Jaffar? _April 1878._ TWO STANZAS There was once a town, the inhabitants of which were so passionately fond of poetry, that if some weeks passed by without the appearance of any good new poems, they regarded such a poetic dearth as a public misfortune. They used at such times to put on their worst clothes, to sprinkle ashes on their heads; and, assembling in crowds in the public squares, to shed tears and bitterly to upbraid the muse who had deserted them. On one such inauspicious day, the young poet Junius came into a square, thronged with the grieving populace. With rapid steps he ascended a forum constructed for this purpose, and made signs that he wished to recite a poem. The lictors at once brandished their fasces. ‘Silence! attention!’ they shouted loudly, and the crowd was hushed in expectation. ‘Friends! Comrades!’ began Junius, in a loud but not quite steady voice:-- ‘Friends! Comrades! Lovers of the Muse! Ye worshippers of beauty and of grace! Let not a moment’s gloom dismay your souls, Your heart’s desire is nigh, and light shall banish darkness.’ Junius ceased ... and in answer to him, from every part of the square, rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter. Every face, turned to him, glowed with indignation, every eye sparkled with anger, every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist!