In the time when Bassora was considered as the school of Asia, and
flourished by the reputation of its professors, and the confluence of its
students, among the students that listened round the chair of Albumazar
was Gelaleddin, a native of Taurus, in Persia, a young man, amiable in
his manners, and beautiful in his form, of boundless curiosity, incessant
diligence, and irresistible genius, of quick apprehension and tenacious
memory, accurate without narrowness, and eager for novelty without
inconstancy.
No sooner did Gelaleddin appear at Bassora, than his virtues and
abilities raised him to distinction. He passed from class to class rather
admired than envied by those whom the rapidity of his progress left
behind; he was consulted by his fellow-students as an oraculous guide,
and admitted as a competent auditor to the conference of the sages.
After a few years, having passed through all the exercises of probation,
Gelaleddin was invited to a professor’s seat, and intreated to increase
the splendour of Bassora. Gelaleddin affected to deliberate on the
proposal, with which, before he considered it, he resolved to comply;
and next morning retired to a garden planted for the recreation of the
students, and entering a solitary walk, began to meditate upon his future
life.
“If I am thus eminent,” said he, “in the regions of literature, I shall
be yet more conspicuous in any other place: If I should now devote myself
to study and retirement, I must pass my life in silence, unacquainted
with the delights of wealth, the influence of power, the pomp of
greatness, and the charms of elegance, with all that man envies and
desires, with all that keeps the world in motion, by the hope of gaining
or the fear of losing it. I will, therefore, depart to Tauris, where
the Persian monarch resides in all the splendour of absolute dominion:
my reputation will fly before me, my arrival will be congratulated by
my kinsmen and friends; I shall see the eyes of those who predicted my
greatness sparkling with exultation, and the faces of those that once
despised me clouded with envy, or counterfeiting kindness by artificial
smiles. I will show my wisdom by my discourse, and my moderation by my
silence; I will instruct the modest with easy gentleness, and repress
the ostentatious by seasonable superciliousness. My apartments will be
crowded by the inquisite and the vain, by those that honour and those
that rival me; my name will soon reach the court; I shall stand before
the throne of the emperor; the judges of the law will confess my wisdom,
and the nobles will contend to heap gifts upon me. If I shall find
that my merit, like that of others, excites malignity, or feel myself
tottering on the seat of elevation, I may at last retire to academical
obscurity, and become, in my lowest state, a professor of Bassora.”
Having thus settled his determination, he declared to his friends his
design of visiting Tauris, and saw with more pleasure than he ventured to
express, the regret with which he was dismissed. He could not bear to
delay the honours to which he was destined, and therefore hastened away,
and in a short time entered the capital of Persia. He was immediately
immersed in the crowd, and passed unobserved to his father’s house. He
entered, and was received, though not unkindly, yet without any excess
of fondness, or exclamations of rapture. His father had, in his absence,
suffered many losses, and Gelaleddin was considered as an additional
burthen to a fallen family.
When he recovered from his surprise, he began to display his
acquisitions, and practised all the arts of narration and disquisition;
but the poor have no leisure to be pleased with eloquence; they heard
his arguments without reflection, and his pleasantries without a smile.
He then applied himself singly to his brothers and sisters, but found
them all chained down by invariable attention to their own fortunes,
and insensible of any other excellence than that which could bring some
remedy for indigence.
It was now known in the neighbourhood that Gelaleddin was returned, and
he sat for some days in expectation that the learned would visit him for
consultation, or the great for entertainment. But who would be pleased
or instructed in the mansions of poverty? He then frequented places of
public resort, and endeavoured to attract notice by the copiousness of
his talk. The sprightly were silenced, and went away to censure in some
other place his arrogance and his pedantry; and the dull listened quietly
for a while, and then wondered why any man should take pains to obtain so
much knowledge which would never do him good.
He next solicited the viziers for employment, not doubting but his
service would be eagerly accepted. He was told by one, that there was no
vacancy in his office; by another, that his merit was above any patronage
but that of the emperor; by a third, that he would not forget him; and
by the chief vizier, that he did not think, literature of any great use
in public business. He was sometimes admitted to their tables, where he
exerted his wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed, that where,
by endeavour or accident, he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom
invited a second time.
He now returned to Bassora, wearied and disgusted, but confident of
resuming his former rank, and revelling again in satiety of praise. But
he who had been neglected at Tauris, was not much regarded at Bassora; he
was considered as a fugitive, who returned only because he could live in
no other place; his companions found that they had formerly over-rated
his abilities, and he lived long without notice or esteem.