Note 11 — Chapter I · THE IMAGINATIVE GROUP

Proverbial despite the “extreme simplicity of its style,” noted by Mr. John Payne, Vol. IX., pp. 373, 375, of his edition of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. London, 1884. “Nothing can be more unlike the idea of barbaric splendour, of excessive and heterogeneous ornament, that we are accustomed to associate with the name, than the majority of the tales that compose the collection. The life described in it is mainly that of the people, those Arabs so essentially brave, sober, hospitable, and kindly, almost hysterically sensitive to emotions of love and pity as well as to artistic impressions.

The splendours of description, the showers of barbaric pearl and gold, that are generally attributed to the work exist but in isolated instances. The descriptions are usually extremely naïve.”