468 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



labors of Eben Francis Thompson,^ the founder of the Club, — 

 to earn the respect and gratitude of scholars and men of letters, 

 by making possible a right estimate of Omar as mathematician 

 and teacher and poet, and by setting in a true light the relations of 

 FitzGerald's consummate poetry to its Persian original. 



In his "Quatrains from the Greek," Walter Leaf speaks of "the 

 pathos of human life, its vanity and vexation, its brevity and un- 

 certainty, with the background of ' the veil through which we can- 

 not see' and the recurrent refrain, 'Let us eat and drink, for to- 

 morrow we die.'" He adds that "the genius of FitzGerald has 

 given us . . . what is, for our own day, a classical form for this 

 poignant theme." 



FitzGerald himself, in his once despised first edition (page xiii), 

 says of Omar's poetry. "Any way, the Result is sad enough: sad- 

 dest perhaps when most ostentatiously merry: any way, fitter 

 to move Sorrow than Anger toward the old Tentmaker, who, after 

 vainly endeavouring to unshackle his Steps from Destiny, and to 

 catch some authentic Glimpse of Tomorrow, fell back upon Today 

 as the only Ground he got to stand upon." FitzGerald's presen- 

 tation of what seemed to him the essential features of Omar's 

 philosophy of life has attained (as witness the editions and trans- 

 lations — for number, they pass belief) a popularity in which some 

 would see a sign of the decadence of the age. Rather, let us look 

 at Omar, — as that man ^ would have us do of whose loving labors 

 and of whose gladness in gladdening others these books are the 

 fruit, — let us look at Omar as one who would teach us the lessons 

 of courage and hope and contentment and self-reliance, as one 

 whose lessons, superimposed upon "the will to believe," shall 

 teach us to make the most of the present through love of home 

 and of country and of God. 



At the close of the Session, the company took luncheon at 

 Young's Hotel, and spent the afternoon visiting places of historic 

 interest in the environs of Boston, such as Lexington and Concord. 

 In the evening, it met again, informally, in Cambridge, at the 

 house of Professor James R. Jewett of Harvard University. 



1 In his "Quatrains of Omar," collected and translated, and in his "Fitz- 

 Gerald's Omar," with a Persian text and close prose translation. 



2 Burrage, in "Twenty Years," page 101. 



