THE TALE OF THE CONENTED MAN.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9415, 8 April 1909, Page 2

THE TALE OF THE CONENTED MAN.

In an article on bis visit to one of the famous writers of Damascus, in Harper’s for January, Norman Daffc4n re late s a n amns iu % e t ory -as told ■ ■ him by the great raau himself., “There is no contentment in possession, ’’ Ahmed Effeudi said. “Have you not learned it?” he asked, speaking gravely. VThen,” ,he added, “permit me, by favour, to tell you the story of the only contented man. It is yet early—not far beyond noon, I think —and. there is some pleasant instruction in the tale. There was once a Sultan,” he began, “who fell ill, and was greatly distressed by his ailment, which sadly interfered with certain plans he had made for the conquest of his enemy. - ‘A physician to care me,’ he cried, ‘that I may proceed upon my business!’ The Court physician, failing to cure liim overnight, was decapi* tated the nest morning. ‘Another!’ cried the Sultan., ‘and if he-fails, as this one, he shall suffer the same fate.’ The second physician, signally failing to ease the Sultan’s pain before dawn, lost I'his head before noon. A third, with remarkable temerity, presented himself, and vanished from the sphere of his on deavour. And so it went on, day by day, until the kingdom was depleted of physicians, save only one, who was summoned to the Sultan’s presence. ‘Your Majesty is in evil case,’said he. ‘Within my experience I have met with but one other so grievously situated, and he was a donkey-driver. To be cured of your affliction,’ the physician unhesitatingly prescribed, ‘your Majesty must sleep in the shirt of a contented man.’ Pleased with this curious advice, the like of which no other physician had offered, the -Sultan •commanded seven contented men to be fetched before him, thinking to, choose a shirt to his ££Bnt look high and low, as his Ministers did, no contented man was to he found in the kingdom; whereupon the impatient Saltan commanded the search to he carried yet more distantly, even to the desert and mountains beyond his domain. After three months, daring which the Snltausuffered excruciating pain, a fortunate emissary chanced upon an object fof tbe search, a contented man, who inhabited a wretched cave in the mountains, and wj*s®the most destitute of all the creatures of that neighbourhood, a hermit, ill-nour-ished, ill-clad and meanly housed. J “'‘lt is fcrne.’ said the hermit, ‘I am a contented man. I possess all that I want. I lack nothing of my need or desire.’ “Upon this admission they baled him Into the presence of the Sultan. “ ‘dome,’ cried the Sultan, weary -of bis pain, ‘off with your shirt!’ “But it was unhappily true,” Ahmed Effendi concluded, laughing, “that the contented man had no shirt!” ’