Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/377

343 a series of vicissitudes and wealth is but a loan; let us, then, follow the models offered by our predecessors and leave a good example to those who come after.” The Khalif elEl [sic] Mamoun is reported to have said, “Yehya ben Khalid and his sons had none [to equal them] in ability, in culture, in liberality and in bravery: it was well said by a poet, ‘The sons of Yehya are four in number, like the elements: when put to the test, they will be found the elements of beneficence.’ Quoth the poet Merwan ibn Abi Hefseh, ‘The power of doing good is in the hands of princes; but the noble Barmecides did good and harmed not.’ ‘Their hands,’ says Mohammed ibn Munadhir, ‘were created for nought but deeds of beneficence and their feet for the boards of the pulpit;’ and quoth El Atawi, ‘The generous Barmecides learned beneficence and taught it to the human race; when they planted, they watered, and they never let the edifice they founded fall into ruin; when they conferred favours on mankind, they clothed their bounties in a raiment that endured for ever.’” The romantic generosity of the Barmecides it would, indeed, be difficult to exaggerate. Incredible as the instances of their liberality given in the Thousand and One Nights may appear, they are but one or two of hundreds of similar and well-authenticated anecdotes of the munificence of this truly princely house, and it is hardly too much to say that the history of the world