"When I heard this I was alarmed, and with many solicitations asked
him to forgive my fault, and to take whatsoever he wished.
He would
not accept my gifts at all, and went away saying, 'If you were now
to offer me your whole kingdom I would not receive it from you.' "
This studied indifference about a matter of more than a thousand
pounds, though perhaps not often exercised upon so large a scale, is
just that which these wandering fanatics display towards every offering
they receive, and in every action of their useless lives. Whatever
may be said against them, however, their profession of poverty and
suffering is no mockery, as was that of the well-fed "monks of old,"
whose reasonings were something similar on religious points.
The Fukeer soliloquizes: "The condition of our being born is, that
our griefs are many and our pleasures few, because this world is the
root of misery. What happiness, therefore, has man? If any man should
climb to the top of a tree, or sit down on the summit of a hill, or
remain concealed in water, yet death does not allow him to escape. At
the most, man's age is a hundred years, half of which passes away in
night, half of the other half is expended in childhood and old age;
the remainder is spent in altercation, separation from those we love,
and affliction, and the soul is restless as a wave of the sea.
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