Author's Preface
AUTHOR'S Preface
I Am so conscious that my general equipment was insufficient to warrant my having undertaken an "introduction" to this treatise (in addition to the translation), that my utmost hope is this,--that what I have written may be regarded by lenient Orientalists as something to elicit--provoke, if you will--the necessary supplementing and formative criticism; or as useful materials to be built into some more authoritative and better informed work: and that they may from this point of view be inclined to pardon what otherwise might seem an unwarrantable piece of rashness and indiscretion.
A still greater presumption remains to be forgiven, but this time on the ground of the great human simplicities, when I venture to inscribe this work, in spite of everything, to the beloved memory of
Ignaz Gowziher
--that golden-hearted man--who in 1911 introduced me to the Mishkt; and to join with his
{p. viii}
name that of
Duncan Black Macdonald
who first introduced me to the Mishkt's author. Of these twain, the latter may perhaps forgive the lapses of a pupil because of the filial joy with which, I know well, he will see the two names joined together, howsoever or by whomsoever it was done. As for the former,... in Abraham's bosom all things are forgiven.
Cairo
July, 1923.
{p. ix}
I Am so conscious that my general equipment was insufficient to warrant my having undertaken an "introduction" to this treatise (in addition to the translation), that my utmost hope is this,--that what I have written may be regarded by lenient Orientalists as something to elicit--provoke, if you will--the necessary supplementing and formative criticism; or as useful materials to be built into some more authoritative and better informed work: and that they may from this point of view be inclined to pardon what otherwise might seem an unwarrantable piece of rashness and indiscretion.
A still greater presumption remains to be forgiven, but this time on the ground of the great human simplicities, when I venture to inscribe this work, in spite of everything, to the beloved memory of
Ignaz Gowziher
--that golden-hearted man--who in 1911 introduced me to the Mishkt; and to join with his
{p. viii}
name that of
Duncan Black Macdonald
who first introduced me to the Mishkt's author. Of these twain, the latter may perhaps forgive the lapses of a pupil because of the filial joy with which, I know well, he will see the two names joined together, howsoever or by whomsoever it was done. As for the former,... in Abraham's bosom all things are forgiven.
Cairo
July, 1923.
{p. ix}
