114.  The Azure Apollo.

If Payne’s translation had been met by the wind, Burton anticipated that his own, with its blunt faithfulness to the original and its erotic notes, would be met by whirlwind.  Considering the temper of the public[FN#386] at the time he thought it not improbable that an action would be brought against him, and in fancy he perceived himself standing at bay with the Authorised Version of the Bible in one hand as a shield, and Urquhart’s Rabelais in the other as a missile.

But though a man of amazing courage, Burton was not one to jeopardise himself unnecessarily.  He was quite willing to take any reasonable precautions.  So he discussed the matter with his friend F. F. Arbuthnot, who had recently returned from India, married,[FN#387] and settled at a charming place, Upper House Court, near Guildford.  Mr. Arbuthnot, who, as we have seen, had for years given his whole soul to Eastern literature, had already published a group of Hindu stories[FN#388] and was projecting manuals of Persian[FN#389] and Arabic[FN#390] literature and a series of translations of famous Eastern works, some of which were purely erotic.  He now suggested that this series and Burton’s Arabian Nights should be published nominally by a society to which might be given the appropriate name, “The Kama Shastra”—­that is the cupid-gospel—­Society, Kama being the Hindu god of love.  This deity is generally represented as a beautiful youth riding on an emerald-plumaged lorry or parrot.  In his hand he holds a bow of flowers and five arrows—­the five senses; and dancing girls attend him.  His favourite resort is the country round Agra, where Krishna[FN#391] the azure Hindu Apollo,

   “Tunes harps immortal, and to strains divine
    Dances by moonlight with the Gopia nine."[FN#392]

The books were to be translated by Rehatsek and a Hindu pundit named Bhagvanlal Indraji, Burton and Arbuthnot were to revise and annotate, and Arbuthnot was to find the money.  Burton fell in with the idea, as did certain other members of Arbuthnot’s circle, who had always been keenly interested in Orientalism, and so was formed the famous Kama Shastra Society.  That none of the particulars relating to the history of the Society has before been made public, is explained by the fact that Burton and Arbuthnot, conversant with the temper of the public, took pains to shroud their proceedings in mystery.  It cannot, however, be too strongly insisted upon that Arbuthnot’s standpoint, like Burton’s, was solely for the student.  “He wished,” he said, “to remove the scales from the eyes of Englishmen who are interested in Oriental literature.”  These erotic books in one form or another are in the hands of 200,000,000 of Orientals.  Surely, argued Arbuthnot, a few genuine English students—­a few, grave, bald-headed, spectacled, happily married old gentlemen—­may read them without injury.[FN#393] The modern student seeks his treasure everywhere, and