“Tell me,” said Caleb, “thou to whose voice nations have listened, and whose wisdom is known to the extremities of Asia, tell me, how I may resemble Omar the prudent?  The arts by which thou hast gained power and preserved it, are to thee no longer necessary or useful; impart to me the secret of thy conduct, and teach me the plan upon which thy wisdom has built thy fortune.”

“Young man,” said Omar, “it is of little use to form plans of life.  When I took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude I said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches over my head:  ’Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty remaining.

" ’Ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore I shall be honored; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will solicit my friendship.  Twenty years thus passed will store my mind with images which I shall be busy through the rest of my life in combining and comparing.  I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself.

" ’I will not, however, deviate too far from the beaten track of life; but will try what can be found in female delicacy.  I will marry a wife as beautiful as the houries, and wise as Zobeide; and with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdad, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and fancy can invent.

" ’I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my days in obscurity and contemplation; and lie silently down on the bed of death.  Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend on the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices of courts; I will never pant for public honors, nor disturb my quiet with the affairs of state.’  Such was my scheme of life, which I impressed indelibly upon my memory.

“The first part of my ensuing time was to be spent in search of knowledge, and I know not how I was diverted from my design.  I had no visible impediments without, nor any ungovernable passion within.  I regarded knowledge as the highest honor, and the most engaging pleasure; yet day stole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that seven years of the first ten had vanished, and left nothing behind them.

“I now postponed my purpose of traveling; for why should I go abroad, while so much remained to be learned at home?  I immured myself for four years, and studied the laws of the empire.  The fame of my skill reached the judges:  I was found able to speak upon doubtful questions, and I was commanded to stand at the footstool of the caliph.  I was heard with attention; I was consulted with confidence, and the love of praise fastened on my heart.

“I still wished to see distant countries; listened with rapture to the relations of travelers, and resolved some time to ask my dismission, that I might feast my soul with novelty; but my presence was always necessary, and the stream of business hurried me along.  Sometimes, I was afraid lest I should be charged with ingratitude; but I still proposed to travel, and therefore would not confine myself by marriage.