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Probably the original rose of Omar was, so to speak, never a rose at all, but only petals toward the making of a rose; and per­haps FitzGerald did not so much bring Omar's rose to bloom again, as make it bloom for the first time. The petals came from Persia, but it was an English magician who charmed them into a living rose.

Well, out of that hoard of wine-stained rose-leaves, FitzGerald made his wonderful Rose of the Hundred and One Petals—purple rose incomparable for glory and perfume. He had chosen many of the richest petals, but he had left many behind,—and it is chiefly of these that I have made my little yellow rose.

I have persisted in this image because it is really an accurate des­cription of what I conceive to have been FitzGerald's method of dealing with his original, as it describes my own method of 13