<…> In this work [Ten' ptitsy, 1907] Bunin includes several quotations from a Persian source about Saadi, whose Gulistant the Russian poet generally carried with him on his travels. Bunin, for whom the Persian poet was not only a master craftsman ('the most delightful of writers….') but also a model traveller, cites with approval: 'He devoted thirty years of his life to the acquisition of knowledge, thirty to wanderings, and thirty to reflection, contemplation and creative work…'

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And later still in 'Vody mnogiye' he characterised his life as a ' quivering and joyful communion with the eternal and the temporal, things near and far, all ages and all lands, with the life of everything which has been and everything which now exists on this so beloved Earth… ' <…>

D. J. Richards. Comprehending the Beauty of the World