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SADAKICHI HARTMANN
MY RUBAIYAT
THIRD REVISED EDITION SAN FRANCISCO 1916
To Dunbar Wright, a traveler among Men, who "in his own way courts the sun and fashions Arcadia of passing winds and flying clouds."
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE:
William Marion Reedy, St. Louis Mirror:
I will drop the mask and tell you the secret of my verses. You say they impress you as being uneven and unfinished. I heartily agree with you. As I have stated in my announcement to the public, a poem of the scope and range of "My Rubaiyat" is never complete. No doubt, it will undergo many changes within the next ten years. I say ten years deliberately. You see, I possess the arrogance of conviction. I believe it will survive, simply because it strikes a popular chord, and attempts, no matter how vaguely, to reproduce a broken melody that hums in every mind. Somebody else may venture forth on similar paths and succeed to please even the fastidious in rhyme. "My Rubaiyat" may be put on the back shelves. Well, we will see. I look at my work with objective eyes. It is a mere youngster now. It will grow and nobody will watch its growth with keener appreciation than I myself. The number of verses will not increase, but I sincerely hope that they will gain in clarity and strength as well as in musical and pictorial wealth of expression.
My ambition was to write a simple poem which would appeal to all; to chambermaids as well as cognoscenti, ordinary business men as well as solitary artistic souls. Who will decide whether I have succeeded or failed? Only the public at large. The poem, no doubt, is too didactic for fragile aesthetics who glorify naught but evanescent words, but it is surely no shortcoming to try to express thought. Even exponents of the modern schools attempt this--occasionally. The way of expression is a different matter. It is open to criticism. But excuses that a critic knows nothing about a certain subject, and yet at the same time deliberate pricks at this very thorn in the flesh of his ignorance are sad to contemplate. Rhyme is surely out of date. And the supposed lack of rhythm is merely imaginary. Would you enjoy Japanese or Chinese music? Very likely not and yet they contain as fine a rhythm and as musical a quality as any modern composition. Only they are vaguer, subtle, different.
And on this difference hinges all logical and evasive argument. The practical philosophy contained in "My Rubaiyat," of course, can be attacked for being non-moral or non-religious, but the technique of the poem can be discussed only from one viewpoint.
Sincerely yours,
SADAKICHI HARTMANN.
MY RUBAIYAT
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