58
Horace,—not quite a Socrates in self-denial—had
said with self-approbation :
" Virtute me involvo probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quaero."
! (I wrap myself in my virtue and seek honest penury
• . without a dower).
This short passage is sufficient to dispel the
notion that there was a sudden change of outlook
in Sir Nizamat Jung. The spiritual tendency
leading towards the higher ideals of life was slowly
evolving itself. Though he had been a great
reader through life, the motive of his reading was
not idle curiosity but a keen desire to gather some-
thing that should become part of his conscious self
and appear in his actions. '' From books,'' he used
to say, "I have received the best life-material —
refined^and purified for the soul's use/' But his
knowledge was neither ^bookish nor pedantic. He
had escaped the evil effects of class-room education.
Though jpious, at heart, he did not wish to be
thought conventionally pious. On some occasion
he was heard to say, " People call me pious be-
cause I have been to the Haj several times. They
only make me recall the Poet Urfi's stinging sar-
casm :
* Those who go to the Kaaba are the vendors of/
their journey/ r
. He delighted in such sayings of the ancient
wise men of Greece as the following :
'* If you wish to make Pythocles irich, do not add
to his money, but subtract from his desires.1'
"J^heerful poverty is a thing of beauty."/