'--'Did not
you sit down when you came hither?' replies the genie. 'Did not you take
dates out of your portmanteau, and, as you ate them, did not you throw the
shells about on both sides?'--'I did all that you say,' answers the
merchant, 'I cannot deny it.'--'If it be so,' replied the genie, 'I tell
thee that thou hast killed my son; and the way was thus: when you threw the
nutshells about, my son was passing by, and you threw one of them into his
eye, which killed him, _therefore_ I must kill thee.'--'Ah! my good lord,
pardon me!' cried the merchant.--'No pardon,' answers the genie, 'no mercy!
Is it not just to kill him that has killed another?'--'I agree to it,' says
the merchant, 'but certainly I never killed your son, and if I have, it was
unknown to me, and I did it innocently; therefore I beg you to pardon me,
and suffer me to live.'--'No, no,' says the genie, persisting in his
resolution, 'I must kill thee, since thou hast killed my son;' and then
taking the merchant by the arm, threw him with his face upon the ground,
and lifted up his cimetar to cut off his head!"--The Merchant and the
Genie. First night.--Ed.]
* * * * *
Undine is a most exquisite work. It shows the general want of any sense for
the fine and the subtle in the public taste, that this romance made no deep
impression.
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