asks not, saying: Is this the flesh of the
prophet Salah's camel or Antichrist's ass? Many are the chaste who,
because of their poverty, have fallen into the sink of wickedness, and
given their fair reputations to the blast of infamy:--The virtue of
temperance remains not with a state of being famished; and bankrupt
circumstances will snatch the rein from the hand of abstemiousness."

The moment I had finished this speech, the dervish, my antagonist, let
the rein of forbearance drop from the hand of moderation; unsheathed the
sabre of his tongue; set the steed of eloquence at full speed over the
plain of arrogance; and, galloping up to me, said: "You have so
exaggerated in their praise, and amplified with such extravagance, that
we might fancy them an antidote to the poison of poverty and a key to
the store-house of Providence; yet they are a proud, self-conceited,
fastidious, and overbearing set, insatiate after wealth and property,
and ambitious of rank and dignity; who exchange not a word but to
express insolence, or deign a look but to show contempt. Men of science
they call beggars, and the indigent they reproach for their wretched
raggedness. Proud of the property they possess, and vain of the rank
they claim, they take the upper hand of all, and deem themselves
everybody's superior. Nor do they ever condescend to return any person's
salutation, unmindful of the maxim of the wise: That whoever is inferior
to others in humility, and is their superior in opulence, though in
appearance he be rich, yet in reality he is a beggar:--If a worthless
fellow, because of his wealth, treats a learned man with insolence,
reckon him an ass, although he be the ambergris ox."

I replied: "Do not calumniate the rich, for they are the lords of
munificence." He said: "You mistake them, for they are the slaves of
dinars and dirams, or their gold and silver coins. For example, what
profits it though they be the clouds of the spring, if they may not send
us rain; or the fountain of the sun, and shine upon no one; or though
they be mounted on the steed of capability, and advance not towards
anybody? They will not move a step for the sake of God, nor bestow their
charity without laying you under obligation and thanks. They hoard
their money with solicitude, watch it while they live with sordid
meanness, and leave it behind them with deadening regret, verifying the
saying of the wise: 'That the money of the miser is coming out of the
ear