Mr. Boulard collected books and he did so with passion. When he expired on the 6th of May in 1825 he left about six hundred thousand books. Their sale caused a sharp decline in the price of books. For a couple of years second-hand books only got half their normal prices in Paris. Mr. Boulard has been very ill a few years before his death. It was because of his wife forbidding him to buy more books. His condition quickly deteriorated, he had to stay in bed all the time and he was very depressed. One day Mrs. Boulard opened the window in the bedroom of the patient and a little later a voice was heard of a man who…

Dervish ‘Abdullah is sitting in meditation by the banks of the Ganges river. He reads it like a book that tells him of the river’s nature, its hidden depths, its movements… He observes a log floating in the stream, lines and circles in the water, as well as a certain colour of the sun reflected in the Ganges. The dervish watches the leaves: some are floating placidly along and make no effort to resist the current. They are taken towards the Ocean. Other leaves are throwing themselves wildly in the turmoil and get ultimately thrown against the banks and remain there, rotting in the sun. Dervish ‘Abdullah says: “The people with inward peace don’t resist the nature of the river….

Samuel Johnson, on a visit to friends, which took place in 1781, was to disappear for much of the day. The friends with whom he was staying, were reluctant to ask him where he had been, but, after a silence of several minutes, he explained that when he was a young man and still was living with his father at home, his father was on a certain day very ill. His father, unable to get out of bed, asked Samuel to go to Uttoxeter and look after his bookstall that he used on market days. However, “my pride prevented me,” said Johnson, and “I gave my father a refusal.” He further explained that he had today taken “a post chaise…

Some people some time ago left a book at our place. It is the book of someone unknown to me, but after some time I found out that both the writer as well as his book are well known in Moroccan Sufism. It concerns shaykh ad-Dabbâgh and his book is called Golden words (Kitâb al Ibrîz). The Shaykh lived at the end of the 17 th century and in the beginning of the 18 th century. I hope to translate some parts thereof as it may also interest you. It starts now: The esoterical science The esotertical science can be compared To 99 lines written in letters of gold And the exoterical science To the hundredth line written in ink….

There has been someone who manufactured combs and who had his workshop in the street wherein you could also find his guild. His name was ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (the slave of the Almighty) and he always could be seen in his jallaba, the long dress with the hood and wide sleeves, and a litham, a veil which covered his somewhat severe facial expressions. The material he used for his combs, he derived from the skull of oxes. He bought them from several butchers. He dried the skulls at a rented place, he removed the horns, opened them along their length and straightened them above a fire. The last act, of course, had to be done in a very careful way, as…