Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/162

On the Excellence of Contentment

lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune, except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart, and beheld a man without feet, I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes, and recited: "A roast fowl is to the sight of a satiated man less valuable than a blade of fresh grass on the table; and to him who has no means nor power a burnt turnip is [as good as] a roast fowl."