Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 1.5.3

1.5.3

I am obliged to have resource to some awkward addition of my own, and to bring the new subject about by some such words as these : It was in those days of trouble and anxiety that I was obliged to repair to Calcutta ; and to address the Governor upon my Djaghir. He said, he said, and he said, are the only words the Eastern Writers make use of, to repeat a dialogue, even a most animated one ; nor were the Greeks and Latins much behind them in that particular, the Poets especially, although to make us some amends probably, they never fail to inform us that their hero spoke with his mouth. No European reader now will bear such a repetition of the words ; he said, and I am obliged to enliven the dialogue by intermixing it with the following expressions, so common in an European conversation : He answered — his antagonist rejoined. No, said he, with a surprise : you ought, replied the other with a smile.