Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/153

 and Victorian inelegance, and is carried as on a magical carpet straightway to the perfumed East.

There is another volume, "Don Quixote," published by Warne & Co. in 1866, with eight illustrations by him. There is the same touch of genius, the same masterly embellishment of the text, the same sympathetic reading. One can only marvel in no less abashed manner than did the incomparable Sancho Panza—there is only one Boyd Houghton, and when he is at his best there is none who can equal him.

The illuminations of the "Arabian Nights" with their wonderful delicacy, and the delightful dreaminess of their flowing lines, piles of gossamer draperies, intricate lace-work, fretted woodwork of Arabic geometric design, and subtle suggestions of Oriental colour, give full and detailed pictures of life "east of Suez," filled with the naturalism of Omar himself. It is difficult to realise that the man who drew these illustrations suffered from physical disabilities, which almost put into shade the infirmities of Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote gaily while the blood was literally pouring from his mouth.

From boyhood Arthur Boyd Houghton had lost the entire sight of one of his eyes. A man gifted with the highest artistic powers, deft with his pencil, relying upon his vision to correct his imagination to be deprived of half his powers, is grim tragedy. Nor is this all. As he grew older the sight of the remaining eye, due no doubt to the increased strain put upon it, grew weaker. It is awful to know that for many days at a time he was in such pain owing to inflammation affecting his one eye, that he was