no escape from the slanderous tongue of
man.--He was unable to put up with the virulence of their remarks, and
took his complaint to his ghostly father, saying, "I am much troubled by
the tongues of mankind." The holy man wept, and answered, "How can you
be sufficiently grateful for this blessing, that you are better than
they represent you?--How often wilt thou call aloud saying, The
malignant and envious are calumniating wretched me, that they rise up to
shed my blood, and that they sit down to devise me mischief. Be thou
good thyself, and let people speak evil of thee; it is better than to be
wicked, and that they should consider thee as good."--But, on the other
hand, behold me, of whose perfectness all entertain the best opinion,
while I am the mirror of imperfection.--Had I done what they have said,
I should have been a pious and moral man.--_Verily, I may conceal myself
from the sight of my neighbor, but God knows what is secret and what is
open_.--There is a shut door between me and mankind, that they may not
pry into my sins; but what, O Omniscience! can a closed door avail
against thee, who art equally informed of what is manifest or concealed?

XXIII

I lodged a complaint with one of our reverend Shaikhs, saying: "A
certain person has borne testimony against my character on the score of
lasciviousness." He answered, "Shame him by your continence.--Be thou
virtuously disposed, that the detractor may not have it in his power to
indulge his malignity. So long as the harp is in tune, how can it have
its ear pulled (or suffer correction by being put in tune) by the
minstrel?"

XXIV

They asked one of the Shaikhs of Sham, or Syria, saying: "What is the
condition of the Sufi sect?" He answered, "Formerly they were in this
world a fraternity dispersed in the flesh, but united in the spirit; but
now they are a body well clothed carnally, and ragged in divine
mystery." Whilst thy heart will be every moment wandering into a
different place, in thy recluse state thou canst not see purity; but
though thou possessest rank and wealth, lands and chattels, if thy heart
be fixed on God, thou art a hermit.

XXV

On one occasion we had marched, I recollect, all the night along with
the caravan, and halted towards morning on the skirts of the wilderness.
One mystically distracted, who accompanied us on that journey, set up a
loud lamentation at dawn, went a-wandering into the desert, and did not
take a moment's res