vine unity
alone he is resolved and firm.

CXVIII

It belongs to the king to displace extortioners, to the superintendent
of the police to guard against murderers, and to the cazi to decide in
quarrels and disputes. No two complainants ever referred to the cazi
content to abide by justice:--When thou knowest that in right the claim
is just, better pay with a grace than by distress and force. If a man is
refractory in discharging his revenue, the collector must necessarily
coerce him to pay it.

CXIX

Every man's teeth are blunted by acids excepting the cazi's, and they
require sweets:--That cazi, or judge, that can accept of five cucumbers
as a bribe, will confirm thee in a right to ten fields of melons.

* * * * *

CXXI

They asked a wise man, saying: "Of the many celebrated trees which the
Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or
free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there
in this?" He replied: "Each has its appropriate produce and appointed
season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and
during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the
cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the
azads, or religious independents. Fix not thy heart on what is
transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through
Bagdad after the race of Khalifs is extinct. If thy hand has plenty, be
liberal as the date-tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an
azad, or free man, like the cypress."

CXXII

Two orders of mankind died, and carried with them regret: such as had
and did not spend, and such as knew and did not practise:--None can see
that wretched mortal a miser who will not endeavor to point out his
faults; but were the generous man to have a hundred defects, his
liberality would cover all his blemishes.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE BOOK

The book of the "Gulistan, or Flower-Garden," was completed through the
assistance and grace of God. Throughout the whole of this work I have
not followed the custom of writers by inserting verses of poetry
borrowed from former authors:--"It is more decorous to wear our own
patched and old cloak than to ask in loan another man's garment."

Most of Sa'di's sayings have a dash of hilarity and an odor of gayety
about them, in consequence of which short-sighted critics extend the
tongue of animadver