"KISMET."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1570, 14 October 1912, Page 2

"KISMET."

THE SPELL OF THE EAST. "Kismet!" The very name .of it conjures up pictures of the East—all that wo have ever rend, seen, or heard of it. Probably there have been few ploys that have roused so much discussion, or given so much room for difference of opinion as "Kismet," and all because of one's susceptibility (or otherwise) to what is commonly called "the spell of tho East." Exactly" what that spell is, might perhaps bp a difficult matter to indicate. It might lie for some in its strong appeal to the senses—subtle, creeping, and overpowering —and its riot of colour and sunshine. There are others upon whom all the civilisations that have ever been cradled in its world-old-arms lay compelling fingers and conjure in their minds a strange knowledge, a curious sense of memory of things tliat, till then, had had no foothold in their consciousness.

If it be true, as has been stated, that not a sound, not a thing has been done, not. a thought that has taken ~hapo in une's mind, not; a. passion that has ever come into existence, has vanished from the world .but lives on in space, then it is no wonder that to some the East should speak'so strongly. Out of tho East has come civilisation after civilisation, and grope as far back as we may into that twilight of tho past, we can never determine how far back that chain had its beginning.' All that is left of them are the sands of (he desert, tho ruins of palaces and temples where

" the Lion and tlie Lizard keep Tho Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: And Bahrain, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep."

Sucli things must speak, dead and vanished though their tangible form might

lie. . ];rom beginning to end "Kismet' is beautiful, with the splendour of the Orient and full of suggestions of a life that flows beneath the surface of things. Mosques and minarets and towers stand cold and silent in the pale grey light of the enrly dawn—centres of all the bigotry, heroism! and cruelty of tlio followers of the Faith. High walls surround gardens iii which countless dramas of love, treachery, and hatred are played. Behind the high, barred windows live the women of the harem in their gilded seclusion, intriguing, rebelling, loving, and idling their lives-away. Nothing is strange, nothing unfamiliar, and all might be but a long turned over page of life. Hajj, who lived his "day of days," is dead ono thousand and one years ago, and dust also is MarBinah, "fairer than fair, with a voice like a nightingale's. When she dances—tho gates of Paradise aro opened." And yet they might have died but yesterday, so well we'know them. "Unforgettable, and age.old, too, is the bazaar scene. Tho tall, white buildings, with deep blue shadows, minarets, and towers, the narrow streets, the gorgeouslyrobed crowds gathered from desert wnstcs and wilds, the traffickers of silks, and all manner of strange wares have been there forever and a day, it seems. And, even here, is the suggestion of under-currents, of a life hidden from tho eyes of day. Unforgettable, too, was the procession of Egyptian figures; slim, narrow, and angular, swathed in blue, with the quaint Egyptian head-dress, made so familiar to us "in old vases ami nottery. Most unforgettable and marvellous was Zara, tho dancer, tho incarnation of serpentine grace —mistress of a spell that lias been worth kjngs' ransoms.