He was questioned why his countrymen took
no measures to grant them something of that kind of liberty. He jumped
out of his individuality in a twinkling, and entered into the sentiments
of his race, replying, from the pinnacle of a splendid conceit, with
affected humility of manner: 'YOU can look on them without
perturbation--but WE!' . . . And after this profoundly comic
interjection, he added, in deep tones, 'The very face of a woman!' Our
representative of temperate notions demurely consented that the Arab's
pride of inflammability should insist on the prudery of the veil as the
civilizing medium of his race.
There has been fun in Bagdad. But there never will be civilization where
Comedy is not possible; and that comes of some degree of social equality
of the sexes. I am not quoting the Arab to exhort and disturb the
somnolent East; rather for cultivated women to recognize that the Comic
Muse is one of their best friends. They are blind to their interests in
swelling the ranks of the sentimentalists.
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