LETTER LXXIX.

Dear grandson, why is your officer absent from perform­ing state affairs? He should not be given a post in the state, because he does not serve the state and the army. You should not act like your officer. Send him to me or keep him as your servant. This (not performing the state affairs though being state servants) is the habit of Firūz Jang and Nasrat Jang*. This light of my sight (i. e., grand­son Bahádūr) should not follow such men. (Quatrain) “The time of permanency (i. e., of the world) passes away like the wind in the desert. Misery and happiness, beauty and ugliness, pass away (i. e., time does not stop for any one). Everything in the world perishes. The oppressor thought that he oppressed us (i. e., others); but the burden of oppression remained on his own neck and passed away from ours (i. e., the oppressor thinks that the oppressed are suffering under his oppression; but really the oppressed are free from the burden of oppression after a time, while the oppressor is never free from it in his life, because he will be punished for oppression in the next world)”.