Those for whom I have made it now know why this my English version is often timid and wavering, nay sometimes even wordy and hazy. * * * * * The end of the next year’s session will in all likelihood bring with it the cessation of my connection with the Khedivial School of Law. More than this: I am getting well on in life, so that this translation will most likely be the last serious work that I shall ever perform in the service of Young Egypt. Such reflections awaken in my inmost soul all sorts of feelings and thoughts about the shortness and fleetingness of this earthly life, the happiness of childhood and youth, the darkness of the grave, and the utter despair that will surely engulf the soul at the last hours, unless--mark my words--unless the strong arm of our Heavenly Father lay hold upon this soul that is now within me, and take it off and up, to be joined unto the millions of souls of all, all those who have gone before, whither too shall follow so many, many other millions; in a word, unless GOD have mercy upon me, even as He has had mercy upon my forefathers and mothers since many generations. This hope in His mercy and grace is my ever-strengthening prop and stay, the older and feebler I get. Nor will any of those for whom I write these lines ever find a stronger or a better. And the time will very soon come when each and every one of them, however long may be his life here below, will surely need it, to save him from sinking into the black nothingness of doubt, indifference, and despair. EDWARD ABBOTT van DYCK. VERONA, _August, 1906_. Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen: Ein werdender wird immer dankbar sein.[2] [Lustige Person, in Goethe’s Faust] FOOTNOTES: [1] _Note added by transcriber_: From the translation of Dante's _Il Convito_ (The Banquet) by Elizabeth Sayer Price (in Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12867): And the Human Soul possessing the nobility of the highest power, which is Reason, participates in the Divine Nature, after the manner of an eternal Intelligence: for the Soul is ennobled and denuded of matter by that Sovereign Power in proportion as the Divine Light of Truth shines into it, as into an Angel; and Man is therefore called by the Philosophers the Divine Animal. [2] _Note added by the transcriber_: From the translation of Goethe's _Faust_ by Bayard Taylor (in Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14591): A mind once formed, is never suited after; One yet in growth will ever grateful be. [Funny Person, in Goethe’s Faust] INTRODUCTION In the Name of GOD, the Merciful, the Compassionate: May GOD bless our Lord Muhammad and his Kinsfolk, and give them peace. O my God facilitate [this undertaking]; and make [it] end in good, O Thou Bounteous Being!