Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/172

On the Excellence of Contentment

is related that an athlete had been reduced to the greatest distress by adverse fortune. His throat being capacious, and his hands unable to fill it, he complained to his father and asked him for permission to travel, as he hoped to be able to gain a livelihood by the strength of his arm. Excellence and skill are lost unless exhibited, lignum aloes is placed on fire, and musk rubbed.

The father replied: “My son! Get rid of this vain idea, and place the feet of contentment under the skirt of safety, because great men have said that happiness does not consist in exertion, and that the remedy [against want] is in [the] moderation [of desires]. No one can grasp the skirt of luck by force; it is useless to put Vasmah on a bald man’s brow. If thou hast two hundred accomplishments for each hair of thy head, they will be of no use if fortune is unpropitious. What can an athlete do with adverse luck? The arm of luck is better than the arm of strength!”

The son rejoined: “Father! The advantages of travel are many, such as recreation of the mind entailing profit; seeing of wonderful, and hearing of strange things; recreation in cities, associating with friends, acquisition of dignity, rank, property, the power of discriminating among acquaintances, and gaining experience of the world, as the travellers in the Tariqat have said: ‘As long as thou walkest about the shop or the house, thou wilt never become a man, O raw fellow! Go and travel in the world, before that day when thou goest from the world.’”

The father replied : “My son ! The advantages of travel