Look round thee,
said his father, once again. Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel
of the torrent dry and dusty; but following the rivulet from the well,
he traced it to a wide lake, which the supply, slow and constant, kept
always full. He waked, and determined to grow rich by silent profit and
persevering industry.
Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandise, and in twenty
years purchased lands, on which he raised a house, equal in
sumptuousness to that of the visier, to which he invited all the
ministers of pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had
imagined riches able to afford. Leisure soon made him weary of himself,
and he longed to be persuaded that he was great and happy. He was
courteous and liberal; he gave all that approached him hopes of pleasing
him, and all who should please him hopes of being rewarded. Every art of
praise was tried, and every source of adulatory fiction was exhausted.
Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himself
unable to believe them. His own heart told him its frailties, his own
understanding reproached him with his faults.
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