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to which they, like their compeers of the West, in all probability owed their ruin, i.e. the generous magnanimity and high-souled mansuetude, which led them to regard with heroic indifference the miserable plots of the enviers and calumniators, the assassins and intrigants, the “fishers in troubled water,” the Fezl ben Rebyas and Mohammed ibn Abi Leiths, the Cassii and Cascæ, the Gambettas and Rocheforts, the professional seditionists and Bulgarian-Atrocity-mongers of their time, and forbade them to crush, by severe but just and necessary measures of repression, which, timely employed, might probably have preserved them for the general benefit of humanity, the dastardly intrigues which resulted in their destruction.[1]
Uniformly gifted as were the four sons of Yehya, Jaafer appears to have surpassed his brothers in mental power and accomplishments, whilst in no way yielding to them in all the virtues and nobilities for which they were
- ↑ The following are a few of the sayings of the Barmecides, as culled from contemporary historians. “The joy of him who is promised a favour is not equal to mine in granting one.” “As for the man to whom I have done no good, I have still the choice before me [whether to favour him or no]; but him whom I have obliged, I am for ever engaged to serve.” “Spend, when fortune inclineth to thee,—for her bounty cannot then be exhausted,—and when she turneth away, for she will not abide with thee.” “The benefactor who remindeth of a service rendered alloyeth the value thereof, and he who forgetteth a favour received is guilty of ingratitude and neglect of duty.” “When a man’s conduct towards his brethren is changed on obtaining authority, we know that authority is greater than he” (i.e. that he is too small for his dignity). “Injustice is disgraceful; an unwholesome pasture-ground is that of injustice.”
