ABSTRACT
I HAVE often wondered what it is that leaves one with a feeling of sympathy for a place one has lived in, where one has not been spared the unavoidable troubles and worries, more than in other places which one remembers with indifference. In the case of Persia, my recollections are connected with many interesting experiences in so far as that country was the object of my studies. But, apart from this, if our memory recalls good friends whose company we have enjoyed, I think we like to look back upon those periods of our lives and on the places in which we knew them. Nowhere have I had so many good friends or known so many people worth knowing as in Persia. Had it not been for this great advantage, the eight years I had to stay at Teheran would have seemed tedious and difficult to bear. As it is, they were, on the whole, happy years, and the friendships I made or renewed during that time were lasting ones.
