He had made this subject a
study of years, though his actual translation of it only took him
eighteen months. The theme of _The Scented Garden_ is one which is
familiar to every student of Oriental literature. Burton, who was
nothing if not thorough in all he undertook, did not ignore this. In
fact, one may say that from his early manhood he had been working at
it, as he commenced his inquiries soon after his arrival in India.
Lady Burton, it will be seen, says he "dissected a passion from every
point of view, as a doctor may dissect a body, showing its source, its
origin, its evil, and its good, and its proper uses, as designed by
Providence and Nature"; that is, Burton pursued his inquiries on this
subject in the same spirit as that which has animated Kraft-Ebbing and
Moll, and other men of science. But from what I have read in _The
Arabian Nights_ and elsewhere, it seems to me that Burton's researches
in this direction were rather of an ethnological and historical character
than a medical or scientific one. His researches had this peculiarity,
that whereas most of the writers on this subject speak from hearsay,
Burton's information was obtained at first hand, by dint of personal
inquiries. Thus it came about that he was misunderstood. For a man,
especially a young soldier whose work is not generally supposed to
lie in the direction of scientific and ethnological investigation,
to undertake such inquiries was to lay himself open to unpleasant
imputations.
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