Connected with the mystery of his birth and with the events related in the wild tales with which he had fed his youthful imagination, was the image of a lovely princess whom he had clothed with all the attributes of beauty ascribed by Arab poetry to such damsels; waking or dreaming, she was constantly before his eyes: he had given her a name, and he loved this creature of his imagination with all the ardent fondness of a young and passionate heart.
If it be true that such visionary dreams of youth are necessarily followed by disappointment on awaking to the rude realities of life, it is also true that in some cases, as in his, they preserve those who are under their influence from the temptations to which that age is exposed. It is one of the evils of modern education in what we are pleased to call highly civilised countries to cultivate the understanding at the expense of the heart. The simplicity, the trusting confidence, the warm imagination, the love of all that is pure and high and holy, which are the proper attributes of youth, are sacrificed to what is termed a practical knowledge of the world, and the result is, that there is now many a young gentleman at Eton and Oxford who would listen with a sneer of contempt to a sentiment or a trait of character which would have drawn a tear of sympathy and admiration from the eye of a Burke or a Fox, a Pascal or a Newton.
To return from this digression. Hassan loved his imaginary princess; nevertheless, like a true lover, he put her in the deepest corner of his heart, and never spoke of her.
A short time afterwards Hassan was sent by the Hadji, in company with Mohammed Aga, to collect a debt of considerable amount due to him in Damanhour, a large village distant a day’s journey from the city.
This affair occupied some little time, and might not, perhaps, have been settled at all had not Mohammed Aga been provided with a handsome Cashmere shawl and a pretty Damascus handkerchief, in one corner of which a few gold pieces were secured by a silken cord. The former of these presents found its way to the Governor, and the latter to his chief scribe, after which the justice of the claim became as clear as day, and the debtor was ordered to pay up without delay.