night, and the other so robust and intemperate that he ate three meals a
day. It happened that they were taken up at the gate of a city on
suspicion of being spies, and both together put into a place, the
entrance of which was built up with mud. After a fortnight it was
discovered that they were innocent, when, on breaking open the door,
they found the strong man dead, and the weak one alive and well. They
were astonished at this circumstance. A wise man said, "The contrary of
this had been strange, for this one was a voracious eater, and not
having strength to support a want of food, perished; and that other was
abstemious, and being patient, according to his habitual practice,
survived it.--When a person is habitually temperate, and a hardship
shall cross him, he will get over it with ease; but if he has pampered
his body and lived in luxury, and shall get into straitened
circumstances, he must perish."


VIII

A certain philosopher admonished his son against eating to an excess,
because repletion made a man sick. The boy answered, "O father, hunger
will kill. Have you not heard what the wits have remarked, To die of a
surfeit were better than to bear with a craving appetite?" The father
said, "Study moderation, for the Most High God has told us in the
Koran:--'_Eat ye and drink ye, but not to an excess_:'--eat not so
voraciously that the food shall be regorged from thy mouth, nor so
abstemiously that from depletion life shall desert thee:--though food be
the means of preserving breath in the body. Yet, if taken to excess, it
will prove noxious. If conserve of roses be frequently indulged in it
will cause a surfeit, whereas a crust of bread, eaten after a long
interval, will relish like conserve of roses."