See the European in conversation, even among his equals, he is not so solicitous to express such thoughts as rise in his mind, as to find some employment for his tongue. It is not to give utterance to what naturally occurs, but that conversation may be _kept up_, that all are anxious. Garrulities, and misconceptions are civilly uttered for arguments; and the abortions of fancy and caprice, hold the place of the sane offspring of judgment and reflection. Yet we laugh at them for using short and few phrases, (_phrases courtes et rares_, as Volney describes them,) when they have nothing to say! It is with them however neither ridiculous nor irksome to be silent. They go into company to be diverted, not to labour, and they esteem effort in conversation a vain toil. The raillery and repartee of the Occidentals is, among them, supplied (it must be allowed very inadequately) by the _Meddahs_, story-tellers, and professed jokers. Human life in the East is exposed to a variety of casualties. Pestilence, famine, tyranny, all conspire to diminish its security. It is natural to set a smaller value on any advantage, in proportion to the facility of privation. Hence the Orientals are not much disturbed at the thoughts of death, but resign life without a sigh. The mind is tortured when the blossoms of hope are suddenly torn from it; but their gradual decay is not incompatible with a kind of tranquillity. The European, more dissatisfied with the present, and only supported by the hope of what is to come, attached beyond measure to the advantages which his anxieties have been prolonged to acquire, has already, even at an early age, fixed to himself a period, short of which he thinks it _hard and unjust_ to be deprived of life. Concerning past events the fatalist is consoled by reflecting, that nothing he could have done would have altered the immutable order of things, and that his efforts before would have been as vain as his regret now is. This idea, indeed, is perhaps not destitute of ill effects, but it surely produces some good. If, by persuading them that the evils which they suffer are unavoidable, it prevent them from endeavouring to avoid them, it also prevents their repining at what must at all events be endured as the immutable law of the universe. The European attributing more power to volition, ascribes to his own want of judgment or energy the result of whatever terminates unfavourably. Thus a part of his life is occupied by self-accusation, which, however, ensures no amelioration for the future. In the East, if age be respected, it is respected, in part at least, from the decorous behaviour of the aged. In Europe, if it be rendered ridiculous, it is so too often, by a vain effort to perpetuate the character and manners of youth.