Page [18]. “How could a person bred up in a desert, and by profession a robber, be fit for the society of a king?”—Sa`dī, the celebrated Persian poet, in his Gulistān, or Rose-Garden, says: “No one whose origin is bad ever catches the reflection of the good” (ch. i, tale 4); and again: “How can we make a good sword out of bad iron? A worthless person cannot by education become a person of worth;” and yet again: “Evil habits, which have taken root in one’s nature, will only be got rid of at the hour of death.” Firdausī, the Homer of Persia, in his scathing satire on the Sultan Mahmūd of Ghazni, has the following remarks on the same subject:
To exalt the head of the unworthy,
To look for anything of good from them,
Is to lose the thread which guideth your purpose,
And to nourish a serpent in your bosom.
The tree which is by nature bitter,
Though thou shouldst plant it in the Garden of Paradise,
And spread honey about its roots—yea the purest honey-comb,
And water it in its season from the Fountain of Eternity,
Would in the end betray its nature,