"--The old proverb that "an evil bird has an evil egg" finds
expression by Saadi thus: "No one whose origin is bad ever catches the
reflection of the good." Again, he says: "How can we make a good sword
out of bad iron? A worthless person cannot by education become a person
of any worth." And yet again: "Evil habits which have taken root in
one's nature will only be got rid of at the hour of death."
[20] Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was if
it is not praised?--_Marcus Aurelius_.
If glass be used to decorate a crown,
While gems are taken to bedeck a foot,
'Tis not that any fault lies in the gem,
But in the want of knowledge of the setter.
--_Panchatantra_, a famous Indian book of Fables.
Firdausi, the Homer of Persia (eleventh century), has the following
remarks in his scathing satire on the sultan Mahmud, of Ghazni
(Atkinson's rendering):
Alas! from vice can goodness ever spring?
Is mercy hoped for in a tyrant king?
Can water wash the Ethiopian white?
Can we remove the darkness from the night?
The tree to which a bitter fruit is given
Would still be bitter in the bowers of heaven;
And a bad heart keeps on its vicious course,
Or, if it changes, changes for the worse;
Whilst streams of milk where Eden's flow'rets blow
Acquire more honied sweetness as they flow.
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