A certain Cham of Tartary going a progress with his nobles, was met by a Dervise, who cried with a loud voice, _whoever will give me a hundred pieces of gold, I will give him a piece of advice_. The Cham ordered him the sum: upon which the Dervise said, _begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end_.
The courtiers upon hearing this plain sentence, smiled, and said with a sneer, “The dervise is well paid for his maxim.” But the king was so well satisfied with the answer, that he ordered it to be written in golden letters in several places of his palace, and engraved on all his plate. Not long after, the king’s surgeon was bribed to kill him with a poisoned lancet at the time he let him blood. One day, when the king’s arm was bound, and the fatal lancet in the surgeon’s hand, he read on the bason, _begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end_. He immediately started, and let the lancet fall out of his hand. The king observed his confusion, and enquired the reason: the surgeon fell prostrate, confessed the whole affair, and was pardoned, and the conspirators died. The Cham, turning to his courtiers who heard the advice with contempt, told them, “that counsel could not be too much valued, which had saved a king’s life.”
Omar, the hermit of the mountain Aubukabis, which rises on the east of Mecca, and overlooks the city, found one evening a man sitting pensive and alone, within a few paces of his cell. Omar regarded him with attention, and perceived that his looks were wild and haggard, and that his body was feeble and emaciated: the man also seemed to gaze stedfastly on Omar; but such was the abstraction of his mind, that his eye did not immediately take cognizance of its object. In the moment of recollection he started as from a dream, he covered his face in confusion, and bowed himself to the ground.—“Son of affliction,” said Omar, “who art thou, and what is thy distress?” “My name,” replied the stranger, “is Hassan, and I am a native of this city: the Angel of adversity has laid his hand upon me; and the wretch whom thine eye compassionates, thou canst not deliver.” “To deliver thee,” said Omar, “belongs to Him only, from whom we should receive with humility both good and evil; yet hide not thy life from me; for the burthen which I cannot remove, I may at least enable thee to sustain.” Hassan fixed his eyes upon the ground, and remained some time silent; then fetching a deep sigh, he looked up at the hermit, and thus complied with his request.