The blessed Moses acknowledged the wisdom of the Creator of the
universe, and, confessing his own presumption, repeated this verse of
the Koran:--"_Were God to spread abroad his stores of subsistence to
servants, verily they would rebel all over the earth._" What happened, O
vain man! that thou didst precipitate thyself into destruction? Would
that the ant might not have the means of flying!--A mean person, when
he has got rank and wealth, will bring a storm of blows upon his head.
Was not this at last the adage of a philosopher, 'That ant is best
disposed of that has no wings.'--The father is a man of much sweetness
of disposition, but the son is full of heat and passions:--That Being,
God, who would not make thee rich, must have known thy good better than
thou couldst thyself know it.


XVII

I saw an Arab, who was standing amidst a circle of jewellers at Busrah,
and saying: "On one occasion I had missed my way in the desert, and
having no road-provision left, I had given myself up for lost, when all
at once I found a bag of pearls. Never shall I forget that relish and
delight, so long as I mistook them for parched wheat; nor that
bitterness and disappointment, when I discovered that they were real
pearls." In the mouth of the thirsty traveller, amidst parched deserts
and moving sands, pearl, or mother-of-pearl, were equally distasteful.
To a man without provision, and knocked up in the desert, a piece of
stone or of gold, in his scrip, is all one.


XVIII