gist's chest,
silent, but full of virtues; while the blockhead resembles the warrior's
drum, noisy, but an empty prattler. A wise man in the company of those
who are ignorant has been compared by the sages to a beautiful girl in
the company of blind men, and to the Kuran in the house of an
infidel."--The old proverb that "an evil bird has an evil egg" finds
expression by Saadi thus: "No one whose origin is bad ever catches the
reflection of the good." Again, he says: "How can we make a good sword
out of bad iron? A worthless person cannot by education become a person
of any worth." And yet again: "Evil habits which have taken root in
one's nature will only be got rid of at the hour of death."

[20] Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was if
it is not praised?--_Marcus Aurelius_.

If glass be used to decorate a crown,
While gems are taken to bedeck a foot,
'Tis not that any fault lies in the gem,
But in the want of knowledge of the setter.

--_Panchatantra_, a famous Indian book of Fables.

Firdausi, the Homer of Persia (eleventh century), has the following
remarks in his scathing satire on the sultan Mahmud, of Ghazni
(Atkinson's rendering):

Alas! from vice can goodness ever spring?
Is mercy hoped for in a tyrant king?
Can water wash the Ethiopian white?
Can we remove the darkness from the night?
The tree to which a bitter fruit is given
Would still be bitter in the bowers of heaven;
And a bad heart keeps on its vicious course,
Or, if it changes, changes for the worse;
Whilst streams of milk where Eden's flow'rets blow
Acquire more honied sweetness as they flow.

The striking words of the Great Teacher, "How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" find an interesting analogue
in this passage by Saadi: "There is a saying of the Prophet, 'To the
poor death is a state of rest.' The ass that carries the lightest burden
travels easiest. In like manner, the good man who bears the burden of
poverty will enter the gate of death lightly loaded, while he who lives
in affluence, with ease and comfort, will, doubtless, on that very
account find death very terrible. And in any view, the captive who is
released from confinement is happier than the noble who is taken
prisoner."

A singular anecdote is told of another celebrated Persian poet, which
may serve as a kind of commentary on this last-cited passa