father had always
kept him.

With this intent, Abou Hassan formed a society with youths of his
own age and condition, who thought of nothing but how to make
their time pass agreeably. Every day he gave them splendid
entertainments, at which the most delicate viands were served up,
and the most exquisite wines flowed in profusion, while concerts
of the best vocal and instrumental music by performers of both
sexes heightened their pleasures, and this young band of
debauchees with the glasses in their hands, joined their songs
with the music. These feasts were accompanied by ballets, for
which the best dancers of both sexes were engaged. These
entertainments, renewed every day, were so expensive to Abou
Hassan, that he could not support the extravagance above a year:
and the great sum which he had appropriated to this prodigality
and the year ended together. As soon as he discontinued keeping
this table, his friends forsook him; whenever they saw him they
avoided him, and if by chance he met any of them, and went to
stop them, they always excused themselves on some presence or
other.

Abou Hassan was more affected by this behaviour of his friends,
who had forsaken him so basely and ungratefully, after all the
protestations they had made him, of inviolable attachment, than
by the loss of all the money he had so foolishly squandered. He
went melancholy and thoughtful, his countenance expressive of
deep vexation, into his mother's apartment, and sat down on the
end of a sofa at a distance from her. "What is the matter with
you, son?" said his mother, seeing him thus depressed. "Why are
you so altered, so dejected, and so different from yourself? You
could not certainly be more concerned, if you had lost all you
had. I know you have lived very extravagantly, and believe all
your money is spent; you have still, however, a good estate; and
the reason that I did not so much oppose your irregular way of
living was, that I knew the wise precaution you had taken to
preserve half your property. I do not, therefore, see why you
should plunge yourself into this deep melancholy."

At these words Abou Hassan melted into tears; and in the midst of
his sighs exclaimed, "Ah! mother, I see at last how insupportable
poverty must be; I am sensible that it deprives us of joy, as the
setting of the sun does of light. As poverty makes us forget all
the commendations passed upon us before our fall, it makes us
endeavour to conceal ourselve