This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 Excerpt: ...his gratitude for the gift he had received. It was a most exceptional thing for him to make, for any occasion, more than a bare skeleton of the address or sermon he was about to deliver, so the high value he set upon the presentation is manifest from the fact that he was moved to compose this most charming prose-poem of thanksgiving for it:--"It was a law of Abdul the Merciful that no man should be compelled to speak when overwhelmed by kindness. Doth a man sing when his mouth is full of the sherbet of Shiraz, or a prince dance when he wears on his head the crown of Ali with its hundredweight of jewels? Or, as Job saith, "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder?" As he that marrieth a virgin is excused from war, so he that receiveth a great...