[4] "He was four years of age when he had the attack of small-pox. The sight of his left eye was entirely lost and the eyeball of his right had turned white. Al-Hafiz us-Silafi relates: 'Abu Muhammad Abdallah told me that he visited him (Abu'l-Ala) once with his uncle and found him sitting on an old hair matting. He was very old, and the disease that attacked him in his boyhood had left its deep traces on his emaciated face. He bade me come near him and blessed me as he placed his hand on my head. I was a boy then, and I can picture him before me now. I looked into his eyes and remarked how the one was horribly protruding, and the other, buried in its socket, could barely be seen.'"--Ibn Khillikan. [5] "How long he retained any sort of vision is not certain. His frequent references in his writings to stars, flowers, and the forms of the Arabic letters imply that he could see a little at least some years after this calamity."--D. S. Margoliouth: The Letters of Abu'l-Ala. "He used to play chess and nard."--Safadi. [6] For an interesting account of Literary Society in Baghdad see Renan's "Islam and Science"; also the Biography to the Letters of Abu'l-Ala. Prof. Margoliouth, though not unfair in his judgment of the poet, is unnecessarily captious at times. He would seem partial to the suffrage of orthodox Mohammedans with regard to Abu'l-Ala's unorthodox religious views. But they have a reason, these ulama, for endeavoring to keep a genius like Abu'l-Ala within the pale of belief. Which reason, let us hope, has no claim on Prof. Margoliouth. And in his attempt to depreciate Abu'l-Ala as a disinterested and independent scholar and poet, he does not escape the inconsistency which often follows in the wake of cavil. Read this, for instance: "Like many of those who have failed to secure material prosperity, he found comfort in a system which flatters the vanity of those who have not succeeded by teaching that success is not worth attaining." And this, not on the same page perhaps, but close to it: "For though other roads towards obtaining the means of supporting himself at Baghdad have been open to him, that which he refused to follow (the profession of an encomiast, i. e. a sycophant, a toady) was the most certain." [7] Biography of Abu'l-Ala by Adh-Dhahabi. [8] "The Letters, which abound in quotations, enable us to gauge the power of his memory better than these wonder-loving narrators."--D. S. Margoliouth. [9] In one of his poems he speaks of three prisons, his body being the third. Here is Professor Nicholson's translation: Methink I am thrice-imprisoned--ask not me Of news that need no telling-- By loss of sight, confinement in my house, And this vile body for my spirit's dwelling. [10] Also his Commentary on the works of the poet Al-Mutanabbi.