Penny Dreadfuls, 1900 · page 21 of 142
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Content Analysis This is a running prose page (page xi) from an introduction or preface to a work about Omar Khayyam, titled "The Astronomer-Poet of Persia." The text discusses Omar's philosophical approach: rather than seeking metaphysical answers about Providence and the afterlife, he chose to satisfy the soul through sensory experience and acceptance of the world as it appears. The passage notes that Omar prioritized gratifying the senses over intellectual inquiry, though this failed to answer life's vital questions. It concludes by stating that Omar has never been popular in his own country and therefore his works were scantily transmitted to posterity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Oe THE ASTRONOMER-PORT OF PERSIA. xi Omar’s material, but turning it to a mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and the People they addressed; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief; as keen of Bodily Sense as of Intellectual ; and delighting in a cloudy composition of both, in | which they could float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and this World and the Next, on the wings of a poetical expression, that might serve indifferently for either. O Heart as well as of Head for this, Haying failed (however mistakenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, and any __World—but—This, he set about maki ; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous-or- perverse—pleasure-in exalting the gratification of Sense above that_of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight, although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in common with all men, was most vitally interested. For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as before said, has n and therefore has been but scantily transmitted COMICMoOOOKS.c®