Tales and Novels — Volume 02 eBook

by another:  he would not have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a Jew:  he would not have set a ship on fire; nor would he have caught the plague, and spread it through Grand Cairo:  he would not have run my sultana’s looking-glass through the body, instead of a robber:  he would not have believed that the fate of his life depended on certain verses on a china vase:  nor would he, at last, have broken this precious talisman, by washing it with hot water.  Henceforward, let Murad the Unlucky be named Murad the Imprudent:  let Saladin preserve the surname he merits, and be henceforth called Saladin the Prudent.”

So spake the sultan, who, unlike the generality of monarchs, could bear to find himself in the wrong; and could discover his vizier to be in the right, without cutting off his head.  History farther informs us that the sultan offered to make Saladin a pacha, and to commit to him the government of a province; but Saladin the Prudent declined this honour, saying he had no ambition, was perfectly happy in his present situation, and that, when this was the case, it would be folly to change, because no one can be more than happy.  What farther adventures befel Murad the Imprudent are not recorded; it is known only that he became a daily visitor to the Teriaky; and that he died a martyr to the immoderate use of opium. [Footnote:  Those among the Turks who give themselves up to an immoderate use of opium are easily to be distinguished by a sort of rickety complaint, which this poison produces in course of time.  Destined to live agreeably only when in a sort of drunkenness, these men present a curious spectacle, when they are assembled in a part of Constantinople called Teriaky or Tcharkissy, the market of opium-eaters.  It is there that, towards the evening, you may see the lovers of opium arrive by the different streets which terminate at the Solymania (the greatest mosque in Constantinople):  their pale and melancholy countenances would inspire only compassion, did not their stretched necks, their heads twisted to the right or left, their back-bones crooked, one shoulder up to their ears, and a number of other whimsical attitudes, which are the consequences of the disorder, present the most ludicrous and the most laughable picture.—­Vide De Tott’s Memoirs.]

THE MANUFACTURERS

CHAPTER I.

By patient persevering attention to business, Mr. John Darford succeeded in establishing a considerable cotton manufactory, by means of which he secured to himself in his old age what is called, or what he called, a competent fortune.  His ideas of a competent fortune were, indeed, rather unfashionable; for they included, as he confessed, only the comforts and conveniences, without any of the vanities of life.  He went farther still in his unfashionable singularities of opinion, for he was often heard to declare that he thought a busy manufacturer might be as happy as any idle gentleman.