I was heard with
attention, I was consulted with confidence, and the love of praise
fastened on my heart.
I still wished to see distant countries, listened with rapture to the
relations of travellers, and resolved some time to ask my dismission,
that I might feast my soul with novelty; but my presence was always
necessary, and the stream of business hurried me along. Sometimes I was
afraid lest I should be charged with ingratitude; but I still proposed
to travel, and, therefore, would, not confine myself by marriage.
In my fiftieth year I began to suspect that the time of travelling was
past, and thought it best to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power,
and indulge myself in domestick pleasures. But at fifty no man easily
finds a woman beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide. I inquired
and rejected, consulted and deliberated, till the sixty-second year made
me ashamed of gazing upon girls. I had now nothing left but retirement,
and for retirement I never found a time, till disease forced me from
publick employment.
Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence. With an
insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of
improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I
have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of
connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable
resolutions of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the
walls of Bagdat.
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