172 Haroun, the Lonely Man of Shiraz. [ Aue. 
ed a cheap sacrifice, a too moderate price for the purchase. Every 
kingdom in the world will send out ambassadors to do homage to mes, 
and the princes and nobles who will come in their trains, will consider 
themselves exceedingly honoured if I condescend to kick my slippers in 
disdain among them. After a hundred years of enjoyment of these poor 
honours, so unworthy of me, and which, indeed, will come infinitely 
short of my great deserts, tired of the feeble endeavours of the world 
to do me sufficient homage, I shall die—(must Idie? Is there any 
absolute necessity that I should? Yes, I suppose I must die, out of 
respect to so absurd a custom—an act of conformity which the little 
minds of the vulgar world are apt to insist upon from the great ones), 
and the remaining world will weep my death, and the thousand cities that 
are in it contend for the honour of my birth; but there I shall 
disappoint the avaricious of so high an honour, for I shall leave it as a 
strict injunction to the princes my sons, who will at their deaths impose 
it on the kings their sons, who, when they die, will enjoin the emperors 
their sons, who, resigning the insignificant crowns of this world to reign 
in paradise, will command the empresses, their wives, to impress upen 
the minds of the young emperors, their sons, the heavy responsibility of 
the duty which will devolve upon them, in confiding to the princes, 
their sons, the great secret which their sons’ grandsons are not too 
unguardedly to reveal to their sons, lest their sons’ sons should too 
precipitately disclose the sublime, the important fact, which only their 
last son’s son should publicly declare (the two thousand years of this 
mighty mystery being expired), that I was certainly born in the ever- 
renowned and then more than ever to be renowned city of Shiraz, when 
all the other famous cities of the earth will console themselves in their 
disappointment, as well as they can, with the murmuring maxim of 
Sadi the philosopher, ‘that whatever is was to be, though nothing is as 
it should be.” 
Here his delirious dream of greatness was interrupted, for at that 
moment he thought he heard (as he still lay on the ground encircling 
with both arms the waist of the jar) the seal lifted gently off by a hand 
which was not his, and looking up, he saw, to his consternation, a sturdy 
villain, whom he recognized as a well-known river-robber, standing over 
him with a dagger in one hand, whilst the other was thrust wrist-high 
among his gold and jewels. Haroun started, and for a moment looked 
fear-struck ; but recovering his courage, he roared out, “ What dost 
thou here, villain ?”—* What, callest thou me villain?” retorted the 
robber roughly ; “art not thou a greater villain, that hast more gold 
than thou canst carry, whilst I have not a beggarly piece of gold to give 
to a faquir for his blessing, when I ask it? But nothing is as it should 
be: one man has every thing, and another nothing. ‘I shall, however, 
strive to make a more equal partition of the good things of the world, 
and shall lighten thee of a part of thy share of too much.” And 
so.saying, he began snatching up the diamonds and gold, and thrusting 
them by handfuls into his pockets. Haroun, at this, leaped on his feet 
in disregard of his dagger, and dealing him a right-handed blow under 
the ear, being by nature strong, and by this outrage made stronger, he 
sent the grasping robber stunned and headlong into the river, where he 
sunk like a lump of lead to the bottom, Haroun looking on at his struggles, .., 
and not attempting to save him, though, being an expert swimmer ands) 
diver, he might, if he had felt so inclined ; but the maxim of Sadi, that. 
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