Here, for example, is a poem by a book-lover--or manuscript-lover, to be more exact--written by Ibn Faris Ar-Razi, the philologer, who died before the Norman Conquest, which a later Occidental can cheerfully accept and could not much improve upon: _They asked me how I was. I answered: "Well, some things succeed and some fail; when my heart is filled with cares I say: 'One day perhaps they may be dispelled.' A cat is my companion; books, the friends of my heart; and a lamp, my beloved consort."_ That is modern enough! Something of this kind, which is an earlier version of Omar Khayyam's famous recipe for earthly bliss, has often been attempted since by our own poets; but nothing better. Favourite books, a lighted lamp, a faithful cat, and the library were paradise enow. It is odd, by the way, that Omar Khayyam himself, although his dates qualify him, is not found in this work. But to make tents, even with leanings towards astronomy, was no high road to Ibn Khallikan's sympathies. Had Omar explained the _Koran_ or had views on the suffixes of words, all would have been well. While on the subject of sufficient paradises let me quote some verses by Ibn Sukkara Al-Hashimi, a famous Baghdad poet of the tenth century: _The winter set in, and I provided myself with seven things necessary when the rain prevents us from pursuing our usual occupations. These things are: A shelter, a purse, a stove, a cup of wine preceded by a bit of meat, a tender maid, and a cloak._ Ibn Khallikan does not let it stop there, but fishes up from his memory a derivative, by Ibn Al-Taawizi, running thus: _When seven things are collected together in the drinking-room, it is not reasonable to stay away. These are: Roast meat, a melon, honey, a young girl, wax-lights, a singer to delight us, and wine._ So much for the modernity and sense of comfort of the Persian author, as he flourished in Baghdad all those years ago. But there was then still more in publishing than yet meets the eye. The books of the juriconsult, Al-Mawardi, for example, reached posterity almost by chance. While he lived he did not publish any of his works but put them all up together in safety. On the approach of death, however, he said to a person who possessed his confidence: "The books in such a place were composed by me, but I abstained from publishing them, because I suspected, although my intention in writing them was to work in God's service, that that feeling, instead of being pure, was sullied by baser motives. Therefore, when you perceive me on the point of death and falling into agony, take my hand in yours, and if I press it, you will know thereby that none of these works has been accepted [by God] from me. In this case, you must take them all and throw them by night into the Tigris. But if I open my hand and close it not, that is the sign of their having been accepted, and that my hope in the admission of my intention as sincere and pure, has been fulfilled."