 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. Was man,
indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and
base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at
another, as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and
virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to
be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest
degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless
worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder
his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard
details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust
and loathing.
    Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I
listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange
system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of
property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty; of rank, descent, and noble
blood.
    The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions
most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were, high and unsullied descent united
with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages; but,
without either, he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond
and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And
what was I? Of my
