Dabshelim, king of India, had so numerous a library, that a hundred
brachmans were scarcely sufficient to keep it in order; and it required
a thousand dromedaries to transport it from one place to another. As he
was not able to read all these books, he proposed to the brachmans to
make extracts from them of the best and most useful of their contents.
These learned personages set themselves so heartily to work, that in
less than twenty years they had compiled of all these extracts a little
encyclopædia of twelve thousand volumes, which thirty camels could carry
with ease. They had the honour to present it to the king. But, how great
was their amazement, on his giving them for answer, that it was
impossible for him to read thirty camel-loads of books. They therefore
reduced their extracts to fifteen, afterwards to ten, then to four, then
to two dromedaries, and at last there remained only so much as to load a
mule of ordinary stature.
Unfortunately, Dabshelim, during this process of melting down his
library, was grown old, and saw no probability of living to exhaust its
quintessence to the last volume. “Illustrious sultan,” said his vizir,
the sage Pilpay, “though I have but a very imperfect knowledge of your
royal library, yet I will undertake to deliver you a very brief and
satisfactory abstract of it. You shall read it through in one minute,
and yet you will find matter in it for reflecting upon throughout the
rest of your life.” Having said this, Pilpay took a palm leaf, and wrote
upon it with a golden style the four following sentences:--
1. The greater part of the sciences comprise but one single
word--_Perhaps_: and the whole history of mankind contains no more than
three--they are _born_, _suffer_, _die_.
2. Love nothing but what is good, and do all that thou lovest to do;
think nothing but what is true, and speak not all that thou thinkest.
3. O kings! tame your passions, govern yourselves; and it will be only
child’s play to you to govern the world.
4. O kings! O people! it can never be often enough repeated to you, what
the half-witted venture to doubt, that there is no happiness without
virtue, and no virtue without the fear of God.
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