ying: "What a sensible youth is my son!"
and the boy was complaining and crying: "What a tedious old dotard is my
father!" Many years are passing over thy head, during which thou didst
not visit thy father's tomb. What pious oblation didst thou make to the
manes of a parent that thou shouldst expect so much from thy son?

IV

Urged one day by the pride of youthful vanity, I had made a forced
march, and in the evening found myself exhausted at the bottom of an
acclivity. A feeble old man, who had deliberately followed the pace of
the caravan, came up to me and said: "How come you to lie down here? Get
up, this is no fit place for rest." I replied: "How can I proceed, who
have not a foot to stand on?" He said: "Have you not heard what the
prudent have remarked? 'Going on, and halting, is better than running
ahead and breaking down!' Ye who wish to reach the end of your journey,
hurry not on; practise my advice, and learn deliberation. The Arab horse
makes a few stretches at full speed, and is broken down; while the
camel, at its deliberate pace, travels on night and day, and gets to the
end of his journey."

V

An active, merry, cheerful, and sweet-spoken youth was for a length of
time in the circle of my society, whose heart had never known sorrow,
nor his lip ceased from being on a smile. An age had passed, during
which we had not chanced to meet. When I next saw him he had taken to
himself a wife, and got a family; and the root of his enjoyment was torn
up, and the rose of his mirth blasted. I asked him: "How is this?" He
replied: "Since I became a father of children, I ceased to play the
child:--Now thou art old, relinquish childishness, and leave it to the
young to indulge in play and merriment. Expect not the sprightliness of
youth from the aged; for the stream that ran by can never return. Now
that the corn is ripe for the sickle, it rears not its head as when
green and shooting. The season of youth has slipt through my hands;
alas! when I think on those heart-exhilarating days! The lion has lost
the sturdy grasp of his paw: I must now put up, like a lynx, with a bit
of cheese. An old woman had stained her gray locks black. I said to her:
O, my antiquated dame! thy hair I admit thou canst turn dark by art, but
thou never canst make thy crooked back straight."

VI

One day, in the perverseness of youth, I spoke with asperity to my
mother. Vexed at heart, she sat down in a corner, and with tears in her