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 A NEW LIFE

Mersina,

May twelfth. Grandmother dear:

I think it was old Thales (I 'm nearer the Greek philosophers out here than I ever was at college) who held that the earth was noth- ing but certain elements in a state of constant change. Everything is changing all the time. And the inhabitants of the earth have the same chance and luck as the earth, and follow the same law. It is well expressed from the stand- point of the moment of time in which one is placed by the favorite Turkish proverb: "This also shall pass !" Typically Turkish, that prov- erb: for the Turk never interprets any event, never tackles the solution of any problem, ex- [172]

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