Read "The Seed of the Faith" by Edith Wharton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The bazaar was seething. It seemed impossible that two more people / should penetrate the throng of beggars, pilgrims, traders, slave-women, / water-sellers, hawkers of dates and sweetmeats, leather-gaitered country / people carrying bunches of hens head-downward, jugglers' touts from the / market-place, Jews in black caftans and greasy turbans, and scrofulous / children reaching up to the high counters to fill their jars and / baskets. But every now and then the Arab "Look out! " made the crowd / divide and flatten itself against the stalls, and a long line of donkeys / loaded with water-barrels or bundles of reeds, a string of musk-scented / camels swaying their necks like horizontal question marks, or a great / man perched on a pink-saddled mule and followed by slaves and clients, / swept through the narrow passage without other peril to the pedestrians / than that of a fresh exchange of vermin.
As the two young men drew back to make way for one of these processions, / Willard Bent lifted his head and looked at his friend with a smile. / "That's what Mr. Blandhorn says we ought to remember-it's one of his / favourite images."