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    Being gif ted , moreover , with a keen sight , and a lively colloquial st y le , she relates , with intelligence and animation , her experiences of Eastern Hie . An early glimpse was given her at a camp at Azerbijan , where a Persian Highness entertained the English lady in a style that surprised her . There was the Orientalism of a tent lined with lustrous silk , and the seclusion of a canvas wall j but there appeared also a silver-tipped half-dozen of champagne , a case of Spanish wines , and a service of European plate , glass , and china . This , if less picturesque than a scene from the " V eiled Prophet , " was not a blot upon the scene . However , at Tabreez , the " Arabian Nights" and Anacreon Moore seemed destined to be insulted at every step . Dilapidated streets , uncouth excavations , deaf animals , shapeless piles of unburnt clay , with here and there a trace of ornament and colour , illustrated the actual condition

    of the Persian cities . But Lady Sheil soon learned that modern Orientals do not devote their splendours to the sun . Brown clay is not a bad material for the builder in a not climate . At Suleimaneeya , a rural palace of the Shahs , she found the innumerable courts and apartments of the anderoon inhabited by several hundreds of ladies , represented in the second generation by the eighty sons and innumerable daughters of his Hi g hness . Some of these royal princes , so extensively propagated , think it no dishonour to buy a loaf in the markets , and still less to borrow a sovereign from an English traveller . As for the princesses , Lady Sheil heard of one who had married a cobbler . However , the Shah himself lived in prodigal splendour , in his palace , surrounded not only by as many graces as Solomon , but by pictures of girls from all parts of Europe and Asia , frescoed luxuriously on the coloured and gilded walls .

    At Teheran Lady Sheil visited the royal anderoon , and was invited " to take her brightness into the presence" of the Shah ' s mother . That lady sat on a chair , and was excessively courteous . She hoped that her guest ' s nose was fat , and that her heart had not grown narrow , and was altogether very affable and communicative . Here Lady Sheil of course describes the dress of a Persian lady , which she professes not to admire . Above ten pairs of trousers , each more magnificent than the other , the princess wore an outer pair of gold brocade , wide , stiff , bulky , and edged with pearls . Above the waist her attire was composed of transparent gauze , with a small velvet vest ,

    capriciously adorned . Lady Sheil enumerates many pleasant aspects in the life of a Persian woman . Others , of a different complexion , are indicated by the high clay tower at Tabreez , where the frailer handmaids of the great are flung , even in these latter days , and the power of life and death often exercised by the husband over his wives . The women have one method of revenge—poison ; and that , Lady Sheil says , is reported to be used from time to time . While her residence lasted , a young girl was strangled at Teheran for participation in political and religious conspiracy . Persia is full of sects , some professing mystic doctrines of extraordinary antiquity , while others are branches grafted on the Mohammedan stem . An illustration of Lady Shell ' s remarks on the life of women in Persia is here supplied :

    I went to see the Shah ' s half-sister , a beautiful girl of fifteen , who lived with her mother in an obscure part of the anderoon , neglected by the Shah and consequently by every one else . She was really lovely ; fair , with indescribable eyes , and a figure only equalled by some of the chefs d ' oeuvre of Italian art . This is so rare among Persian women , that she was one of the few persons I saw in that country with an approach to a good figure . She was dressed in the usual fashion of trousers on trousers , the last pair being of such stiff brocade , that if put standing upright in the middle of the room , there they would remain . Her hair was curled , not plaited , and she was literallv covered with diamonds . She was quiet in her manners and seemed

    dejected . She was most anxious to hear about European customs . What seemed to surprise her most was , that we took the trouble to undress every night going to bed ; and she asked me , was it true we put on a long white dress to pass the night in ? All Persian women are astonished at this custom , and are quite unable to account for it . They never undress at night ; they untie their thin mattress from its silken cover , draw it out from its place against the wall , and roll themselves up in the wadded quilt which forms their blanket . The only time they change their clothes is when they go to the bath . If they go out to visit , they , of course , put on their best garments , and take them off at night ; but generally they lie down just as they are , and even in cold weather they wear their chadoor , or out-of-door veil , at night .

    At Ispahan she saw what Persia was in the days of its historical glory . There , consulting Chardin instead of Moore , she surveyed the city once inhabited by six hundred thousand Persians , the most intelligent and industrious , and the least courageous in the empire . The remains of vast bridges , mosques , and palaces , of bazaars and gates , of gardens ; and canals , attest the ancient prosperity of the capital . Its modern politics arc illustrated by a " leader" from the Teheran Gazette , detailing the discovery of a plot and the fate of the conspirators . These are characteristic opusculcc from the Persian Moniteur : "The Minister of Foreign Affairs , full of religious and moral zeal , took the first shot at Moolla Zeyn-ul-ubedcen , and the secretaries of his department finished him . " * 'The nobles of the court sent Sheikh Abbas of Teheran to hell . "

    "The artillerymen first dugout the eye of Mahoinmcd Ali , and then blew him away from a mortar . " Lady Shell ' s is essentially a pleasant volume , light , well-toned , in substance original , in style unaffected and easy . The East is faded , its colours are dim , it has been robbed of its jewels , but it , is still sunny and warm , and redolent of the old romance . Lady Sheil has told us many now things of Persia , and told them elegantly and pictorially .

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    IMAGINATIVE ARTISTS . Modern Painters . Volume IV . Of Mountain lteauty . Hy . lohn Kiwkin , M . A . Smith , Elder , and Co . ( Sicconi ) Notkjib . ) Tub general remarks on painting which Mr . ltuakin so prodigally puts forth apply with equal force to other arts . When , for example , ho lays down the canon , " It is always wrong to draw what you don't sec , ' it in a canon as applicable to the poet ( ami novelist ) as to tho painter ; and one , indeed , which has been iterated in these columns with , almost wearisome pertinacity . We have sometimes been misunderstood , as Mr . Kuskin will bo

    misunderstood , to mean that only actual visible objects , or events actually experienced , should be chosen ; whereas the vision and the faculty divine , although essentially consisting in seeing and in representing only what is seen , may be exercised upon things non-existent as well as existent . Some minds see only things visible to the physical eye , others see things with the mental eye . But no one should attempt to paint what he does not see ; no one should feign to see or feel what he does not see or feel . "If , " says Mr . Kuskin , " people really see these non-apparent things , they are quite right to draw them ; the only harm is when people try to draw non-apparent things who don't see them , but think they can calculate or compose into existence what is to them for evermore invisible . If some people really see angels where others see only empty space , let them paint the angels ; only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too , on any calculated

    principles of the angelic . " Alexander Smith has never seen the sea about which he writes so exquisitely ; that is to say , he has never stood upon the actual shores , scenting its iodine-bearing breezes and slipping on its fucuscovered rocks . But he has seen it with bis mental eye , and has painted what he saw . The truth of his vision is manifest not only in the originality and concreteness of his images , but in the spontaneous irrepressible manner with which the sea for ever recurs to his mind , insisting on his painting it . This Mr . Ruskin properly regards as the significant fact about invention . A man can easily determine for himself whether he has invention or not . " If visions of unreal things present themselves to him with or without his own will , praying to be painted , quite ungovernable in their coming and going—neither to be summoned if they do not choose to come , nor banished if ttey do—he has invention . If , on the contrary , he only sees the commonly visible facts , and , should he not like them , and want to alter them , finds that he must think of a rule whereby to do so , he has no invention . "

    Unhappily , few are capable of this self-knowledge ; few are strong enough to resign themselves to the fact that they are five feet eight when their desire is to be six feet . A friend of ours suggests that all the bad poets should be set to make indexes . The world wants indexes , and extremely does not want bad poets . Even should the indignant poets scorn this suggestion , they might bethink them of another , namely , to write prose , and in that prose tell only what they themselves actually have seen , felt , or thought . " Pure history and pure topography , " as Mr . Kuskin says of the painters , " are precious things ; in many cases more useful to the human race than high imaginative work ; and assuredly it is intended that a large majority of those who are employed in art should never aim at anything higher . It is only vanity , never love , nor any other noble feeling , which prompts men to desert their allegiance to the simple truth in vain pursuit of the imaginative truth which has been appointed to be evermore sealed to them . ' Ye 9 , vanity is the root of the mischief . The useful hackney wants to be thought a hunter .

    How , it may be asked , is a man to know whether he is gifted with high powers unless he tries ? High powers he may have , and these may be shown in every genuine kind of work ; the conscientious and sagacious index maker will manifest his power in indexes , although in poems he is feeble and flatulent . How is he to know what kind of work is suited to him ? By doing that and that only which he feels strongly prompted to do for its own sake . " In general , " says Mr . Kuskin , " when the imagination is at all noble , it is irresistible , and therefore those who can at all resist it ought to resist it . Be a plain topographer if you possibly can ; if Nature meant you to be anything else , she will force you to it , but never try to be a prophet . Never try to be an imaginative poet , a profound thinker , a fanciful creator . Be what you are , do not try to be anything . You will never remake yourself . The faculties which are in you will speak without hint from you , and no amount of truing will create them where they are absent . If you paint them is

    historical pictures because great men have painted , ana nign arc a grand thing , you will daub canvas ; if you write raptures about Nature because Wordsworth does , or Locksley Halls because Tennyson has stung you , you are only spoiling paper ; if because Jane Eyre agitated novel readers , you , who never saw Mr . Rochester , and never were in love with your master , write Jane Eyrish novels , you are wasting your time and the reader ' s temper . Paint what you see , write what you have experienced , and the utmost success possible for yon will be achieved . For the better comfort of the non-imaginative painter , Mr . Ruskin properly observes that it is not possible to find a landscape which , it painted preciselas it iswill not mako an impressive picture All the woridI ran

    y , after Mr . Anthony ' s picture , representing nothing but an oak tree amid ferns It was worth a thousand imaginative landscapes . We remembpr beii » ff ravished with tho beauty of a bit of landscape ( in the park ot the summer palace of Belvidere at Weimar ) reflected in one of the glass globes which it is the happy fashion in Germany to place about the grounds Here was a little bit of the park , isolated from the rest , mid reflected in about a foot of glass . No sense of skill , or of " difficulty vanquished , came to heighten the enjoyment . It was a simple reflexion of reality , and by isolating one part of the landscape , and thus concentrating attention on it done produced what may be called the ideal of a prre-Raphaelite

    landscape . . , In another part of his work Mr . Kuskin incidentally explains the peculiarity of even the imaginative painters , their imagination consisting not m tho voluntary production of new images , but an involuntary remembrance , exactly at the rig ht moment , of something they had actually Been . Ima-Kino an that these men had seen or heard in the whole course of their lives , Kiid up accurately in their memories as in vast storehouses , extending , as with tho poets , even to tho slightest intonation of nyllables heard in the be " iniin- of their lives , and with painters down to minute folds of drapery ami Znos of leaves and stones ; and over all this un . ndexed and immeasurable ' nass of treasure , the imagination brooding and wandering , but dre -. Mflecl , so as to summon at any moment exactly such groups ot . dens is bhilf justly fit each other : this I conceive to bo the real nature of the mac at vo mi d , and this I conceive it would bo of tener explained to us as b " f ^ by tl e me » themselves who poaeess it , but that they have no idea wh t th / statc of other persons' mind is in comparison ; they suppose thnt

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    June 7 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 545

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 545, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2144/page/17/