answered: "It were a pity to cast away the admonitions of wisdom upon
them!" From that iron which the rust has corroded thou canst not
eradicate the canker with a file. What purpose will it answer to preach
to the gloomy-minded infidel? A nail of iron cannot penetrate into a
piece of flint.

Perhaps the fault has been on our part (in not being charitable), as
they have said:--"On the day of thy prosperity remember the bankrupt and
needy, for by visiting the hearts of the poor with charity thou shalt
divert calamity. When the beggar solicits alms from thee, bestow it with
a good grace; otherwise the tyrant may come and take it by force."

* * * * *


XX

They asked Lucman, the fabulist, "From whom did you learn manners?" He
answered, "From the unmannerly, for I was careful to avoid whatever part
of their behavior seemed to me bad." They will not speak a word in joke
from which the wise cannot derive instruction; let them read a hundred
chapters of wisdom to a fool, and they will all seem but a jest to him.


XXI

They tell a story of an abid, who in the course of a night would eat ten
mans, or pounds, of food, and in his devotions repeat the whole Koran
before morning. A good and holy man heard this, and said, "Had he eaten
half a loaf of bread, and gone to sleep, he would have done a more