and comprehensive teaching
of the father. Nor did he fail to notice, and in his mind to resent,
the ostracism and more than ostracism, to which his father was
subjected on account of the opinions to which the free workings of a
capacious mind forced him to incline. The effect on the boy's mind
was to inculcate the value of toleration for all beliefs, whilst the
pressure of circumstances stimulated him to unusual exertions in his
studies. At the age of fifteen he had read works on all branches of
those sciences that are based on reason and traditional testimony,
and before he was twenty had begun his career as a teacher.

{152} 'An incident,' writes the lamented Professor Blochmann, 'is
related to shew how extensive even at that time his reading was. A
manuscript of the rare work of Icfahani happened to fall into his
hands. Unfortunately, however, one half of each page, vertically
downwards from top to bottom, was rendered illegible, or was
altogether destroyed, by fire. Abulfazl, determined to restore so
rare a book, cut away the burnt portions, pasted new paper to each
page, and then commenced to restore the missing halves of each line,
in which attempt, after many thoughtful perusals, he succeeded. Some
time afterwards, a complete copy of the same work turned up, and on
comparison it was found that in many places there were indeed
different words, and in a few passages new proofs even had been
adduced: but on the whole the restored portion presented so many
points of extraordinary coincidence, that his friends were not a
little astonished at the thoroughness with which Abulfazl had worked
himself into the style and mode of thinking of a difficult author.'

A student by nature, Abulfazl for some time gave no favourable
response to the invitation sent to him by Akbar to attend the
imperial court. But the friendship which, in the manner already
described, had grown between his elder brother, Faizi, and the
Emperor, prepared the way for the intimacy which Akbar longed for,
and when, in the beginning of 1574, Abulfazl was presented as the
brother of Faizi, Akbar accorded to him a reception so favourable
that {153} he was induced to reconsider his resolve to lead a life
'of proud retirement.' He was then only twenty-three, but he had
exhausted the sources of knowledge available in his own country. To
use his own words: 'My mind had no rest, and my heart felt itself
drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Leba