Now when four years were passed from the day of Ali Ghuli's birth, God visited the house of Hassan Ali Khan, and gave, to lighten it, a fair daughter most glorious in her beauty; not a child, but a shining star—not a star, but the light which is in the eye of the soul; her face was the lamp of beauty, her body a flower from beauty's garden.

And when her father saw her he sent for all his friends and then summoned the musicians, and he spread his table, and great was the merriment of the guests, and the wine flowed fast. And they said, “What is thy daughter's name?” And the father said, “Hadijeh.” And they said, “Who shall be her husband?” And the father said to his brother, “Hast thou not a son?” And all the guests shouted for joy, and said, “Surely she shall be the wonder of the world, and she shall marry her cousin, and shall bear him noble children.”

This is the thought of man; and even as his days, so is his thought, it passes away and is gone. Even as we are so is our will, and our children are even as we. Save God, none is master of his will; man's life is but a blank sheet on which God's finger writes.*