endure the want of food, while the other,
being accustomed to abstinence, had survived.

Of Nushirvan the Just (whom the Greeks called Chosroe), of the Sassanian
dynasty of Persian kings--sixth century--Saadi relates that on one
occasion, while at his hunting-seat, he was having some game dressed,
and ordered a servant to procure some salt from a neighbouring village,
at the same time charging him strictly to pay the full price for it,
otherwise the exaction might become a custom. His courtiers were
surprised at this order, and asked the king what possible harm could
ensue from such a trifle. The good king replied: "Oppression was brought
into the world from small beginnings, which every new comer increased,
until it has reached the present degree of enormity." Upon this Saadi
remarks: "If the monarch were to eat a single apple from the garden of a
peasant, the servant would pull up the tree by the roots; and if the
king order five eggs to be taken by force, his soldiers will spit a
thousand fowls. The iniquitous tyrant remaineth not, but the curses of
mankind rest on him for ever."

Only those who have experienced danger can rightly appreciate the
advantages of safety, and according as a man has become acquainted with
adversity does he recognise the value of prosperity--a sentiment which
Saadi illustrates by the story of a boy who was in a vessel at sea for
the first time, in which were also the king and his officers of state.
The lad was in great fear of being drowned, and made a loud outcry, in
spite of every effort of those around him to soothe him into
tranquility. As his lamentations annoyed the king, a sage who was of the
company offered to quiet the terrified youth, with his majesty's
permission, which being granted, he caused the boy to be plunged several
times in the sea and then drawn up into the ship, after which the youth
retired to a corner and remained perfectly quiet. The king inquired why
the lad had been subjected to such roughness, to which the sage replied:
"At first he had never experienced the danger of being drowned, neither
had he known the safety of a ship."

One of our English moralists has remarked that the man who chiefly
prides himself on his ancestry is like a potato-plant, whose best
qualities are under ground. Saadi tells us of an old Arab who said to
his son: "O my child, in the day of resurrection they will ask you what
you have done in the world, and not from whom you are descended."