"My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily
master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than
the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken
accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that
was spoken.
"While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as
it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field
for wonder and delight.
"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of
Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not
Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen
this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in
imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a
cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at
present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners,
governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I
heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental
activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early
Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty
empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery
of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of
its original inhabitants.
"These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings.
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