Prince Zaleski

Excerpt: ... back in time than the Edmundsbury Monks. But they did not make the stone, nor did they dig it from the depths of the earth in Suffolk-they got it from some one, and it is not difficult to say with certainty from whom. The stone, then, might have been engraved by that someone, or by the someone from whom he received it, and so on back into the dimnesses of time. And consider the character of the engraving-it consists of a mythological animal, and some words, of which the letters Has only are distinguishable. But the animal, at least, is pure Persian. The Persians, you know, were not only quite worthy competitors with the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and later on the Greeks, for excellence in the glyptic art, but this fact is remarkable, that in much the same way that the figure of the scarabaeus on an intaglio or cameo is a pretty infallible indication of an Egyptian hand, so is that of a priest or a grotesque animal a sure indication of a Persian. We may say, then, from that evidence alone-though there is more-that this gem was certainly Persian. And having reached that point, the mystery of Has vanishes: for we at once jump at the conclusion that that too is Persian. But Persian, you say, written in English characters? Yes, and it was precisely this fact that made its meaning one of what the baronet childishly calls the lost secrets of the world: for every successive inquirer, believing it part of an English phrase, was thus hopelessly led astray in his investigation. Has is, in fact, part of the word Hasn-us-Sabah, and the mere circumstance that some of it has been obliterated, while the figure of the mystic animal remains intact, shows that it was executed by one of a nation less skilled in the art of graving in precious stones than the Persians,-by a rude, mediaeval Englishman, in short,-the modern revival of the art owing its origin, of course, to the...