Page 107 - Malay sketches

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

and the desert. All sportsmen know the contrary,
and a child has put a tiger to flight by suddenly
throwing a basket in the face of the beast. Had the
child run away, its death was probable, whereas it
saved the life of an old man already in the tiger's
and the child's action was not the
clutches, yet
result of courage but of fear.
This Malay woman, in whom the love of life was
and on whose nerves the horror and
strong, certainty
of what awaited her must have had a terrifying effect,
renounced with that re-
deliberately safety, higher
solve which, vanquishing fear, faces the unknown in
the described by the Persian who, writing
spirit
has found so an inter-
eight centuries ago, worthy
preter in the author of the lines
"
So when the Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river brink
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul,
Forth to your Lips to quaff
You shall not shrink."