'I can stay here no longer; and to tell my distress to another is out of the question--altogether out of the question!--
'Say the sages, nine things name not: Age, domestic joys and woes, Counsel, sickness, shame, alms, penance; neither Poverty disclose. Better for the proud of spirit, death, than life with losses told; Fire consents to be extinguished, but submits not to be cold.'
'Verily he was wise, methought also, who wrote--
'As Age doth banish beauty, As moonlight dies in gloom, As Slavery's menial duty Is Honor's certain tomb; As Hari's name and Hara's Spoken, charm sin away, So Poverty can surely A hundred virtues slay.'
'And as to sustaining myself on another man's bread, that,' I mused, 'would be but a second door of death. Say not the books the same?--
'Half-known knowledge, present pleasure purchased with a future woe, And to taste the salt of service--greater griefs no man can know.'
'All existence is not equal, and all living is not life; Sick men live; and he who, banished, pines for children, home, and wife; And the craven-hearted eater of another's leavings lives, And the wretched captive waiting for the word of doom survives; But they bear an anguished body, and they draw a deadly breath, And life cometh to them only on the happy day of death.'
Yet, after all these reflections, I was covetous enough to make one more attempt on Chudakarna's meal, and got a blow from the split cane for my pains. 'Just so,' I said to myself, 'the soul and organs of the discontented want keeping in subjection. I must be done with discontent:--
'Golden gift, serene Contentment! have thou that, and all is had; Thrust thy slipper on, and think thee that the earth is leather-clad.'
'All is known, digested, tested; nothing new is left to learn When the soul, serene, reliant, Hope's delusive dreams can spurn.'
'And the sorry task of seeking favor is numbered in the miseries of life--
'Hast thou never watched, a-waiting till the great man's door unbarred? Didst thou never linger parting, saying many a last sad word? Spak'st thou never word of folly, one light thing thou wouldst recall? Rare and noble hath thy life been! fair thy fortune did befall!'
'No!' exclaimed I, 'I will do none of these; but, by retiring into the quiet and untrodden forest, I will show my discernment of real good and ill. The holy Books counsel it--