Thus you see, my youthful readers, how easily you are to be led astray by your passions, when you suffer them to prevail over reason. Learn early to give law to your passions, or your passions will in time give law to you, and govern you with a tyrannical power.
The Generous Punishment.
KALAN was one of the principal favourites of Mahmoud, of whom we have said so much in the preceding article. He had chosen him from among the number of his courtiers, to bestow on him those favours of which royalty was possessed, and which he merited. He was more beholden to nature than to art for his education, which would have been sufficient to make him happy, had it been his lot to live remote from the snares and artifices of a court.
An open and disinterested heart, instead of procuring him love and esteem, often carried him to the brink of ruin; for those with whom he mingled, were artful and treacherous hypocrites, a set of vermin that infest every court. Though he wished to hate no man, yet he could not love those who were every day privately seeking his destruction.
These ungenerous attempts were so often repeated, that Kalan, fearing he should acquire a habit of despising human beings, resolved to retire from the noise and bustle of a court. He was strengthened in this resolution by a review of his affairs, which were so much deranged by his unbounded charity and benevolence, that he found it impossible any longer to support such expences.
Kalan, before he retired to enjoy a peaceful and tranquil life, left the following lines engraven on his door: