fortune."

"Young man," said Omar, "it is of little use to form plans of life. When I
took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having considered
the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude I said thus to
myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches over my head:
'Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty remaining.

" 'Ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and ten I will
pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore I shall be
honored; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will
solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed will store my mind with
images which I shall be busy through the rest of my life in combining and
comparing. I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual
riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more
be weary of myself.

" 'I will not, however, deviate too far from the beaten track of life; but
will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife as
beautiful as the houries, and wise as Zobeide; and with her I will live
twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdad, in every pleasure that wealth
can purchase, and fancy can invent.

" 'I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my days in obscurity and
contemplation; and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life
it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend on the smile
of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices of courts; I
will never pant for public honors, nor disturb my quiet with the affairs
of state.' Such was my scheme of life, which I impressed indelibly upon my
memory.

"The first part of my ensuing time was to be spent in search of knowledge,
and I know not how I was diverted from my design. I had no visible
impediments without, nor any ungovernable passion within. I regarded
knowledge as the highest honor, and the most engaging pleasure; yet day
stole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that seven
years of the first ten had vanished, and left nothing behind them.

"I now postponed my purpose of traveling; for why should I go abroad,
while so much remained to be learned at home? I immured myself for four
years, and studied the laws of the empire. The fame of my skill reached
the judges: I was found able to speak upon doubtful questions, and I was
commanded to stand at the footstool of the caliph. I was heard with
atten