Volume I Part 42 (1/2)
”The most essential? It is the perfu--a sensual pleasure”
”Then I do not know”
”Listen The principal pleasure derived froht of a so out of the bowl of your pipe,--but only froular intervals which reatest pleasure connected with the pipe, that you cannot find anywhere a blinda pipe in your rooht; you will soon lay the pipe down”
”It is all perfectly true; yet you ive the preference to several pleasures, in which my senses are interested, over those which afford enjoyo I was of the sa wisdoive activity to our senses, my dear son, disturb the repose of our soul--a proof that they do not deserve the name of real enjoyments”
”But if I feel theh to prove that they are truly so”
”Granted; but if you would take the trouble of analyzing them after you have tasted them, you would not find them unalloyed”
”It may be so, but why should I take a trouble which would only lessen my enjoyment”
”A time will come when you will feel pleasure in that very trouble”
”It strikes e to youth”
”You e”
”You surprise me Must I believe that your early life has been unhappy?”
”Far froood health, and the master of ood school in which I have acquired the knowledge of man, and learned the real road to happiness The happiest of men is not the hest standards of voluptuousness, which can be found, I say again, not in the pleasures which excite our senses, but in those which give greater repose to the soul”
”That is the voluptuousness which you consider unalloyed”
”Yes, and such is the sight of a vast prairie all covered with grass
The green colour, so strongly recommended by our divine prophet, strikes my eyes, and at the sahtful that I fancy myself nearer the Creator I enjoy the same peace, the same repose, when I am seated on the banks of a river, when I look upon the water so quiet, yet always , which flows constantly, yet never disappears froht, never loses any of its clearness in spite of its constant e of my own existence, and of the calm which I require forupon, the goal which I do not see, and which can only be found at the other end of the journey”
Thus did the Turk reason, and we passed four hours in this sort of conversation He had buried tives, and he had two sons and one daughter The eldest son, having received his patrimony, had established himself in the city of Salonica, where he was a wealthy lio, in the service of the Grand Turk and his fortune was in the hands of a trustee His daughter, Zele, was to inherit all his reiven her all the accomplishments which could minister to the happiness of the man whom heaven had destined for her husband We shall hear hter anon The mother of the three children was dead, and five years previous to the time of my visit, Yusuf had taken another wife, a native of Scio, young and very beautiful, but he told me himself that he was now too old, and could not hope to have any child by her Yet he was only sixty years of age Before I left, he made me promise to spend at least one day every ith him
At supper, I told the baili how pleasantly the day had passed
”We envy you,” they said, ”the prospect you have before you of spending agreeably three or four months in this country, while, in our quality of ministers, we must pine aith melancholy”
A few days afterwards, M de Bonneval took me with hirand scale, but there were a great uests, and the conversation was held ale--a circumstance which annoyed me and M de Bonneval also Ismail saw it, and he invitedme I accepted the invitation, and I went ten or twelve days afterwards
When we reach that period my readers must kindly accompany me to the breakfast For the present Imy second visit, displayed a character which inspired, reatest esteem and the warmest affection
We had dined alone as before, and, conversation happening to turn upon the fine arts, I gave my opinion upon one of the precepts in the Koran, by which the Mahos and statues He told ht in reht of the followers of Islam
”Recollect, ht the knowledge of the true God were all idolators Men are weak; if the disciples of the prophet had continued to see the saht have fallen back into their fore as an ie is a representation is what is worshi+pped”