Monthly Archives: September 2013
255.The Oaks and Sir Success
THE OAKS presented a complaint to Sir Success, saying,
“We bear for no purpose the burden of life, as of all the trees that grow we are the most continually in peril of the axe.”
Sir Success made answer:
“You have only to thank yourselves for the misfortunes to which you are exposed: for if you did not make such excellent pillars and posts, and prove yourselves so serviceable to the carpenters and the farmers, the axe would not so frequently be laid to your roots.”
❖ A sad side of shown and unguarded excellence is abuse stemming from it.
254.The Oak and the Woodcutter
THE WOODCUTTER cut down a mountain Oak and split it in pieces, making wedges of its own branches for dividing the trunk. The oak said with a sigh, “I don’t care about the blows of the axe aimed at my roots, but I do grieve at being torn in pieces by these wedges made from my own branches.”
❖ Misfortunes springing from ourselves can be among the hardest to bear.
253.The Oak and the Reeds
A VERY LARGE OAK was uprooted by the wind and thrown across a stream. It fell among some reeds, which it thus addressed:
“I wonder how you, who are so light and weak, are not entirely crushed by these strong winds.”
They replied,
“You fight and contend with the wind, and consequently you are destroyed; while we on the contrary bend before the least breath of air, and therefore remain unbroken, and escape.”
❖ Stoop to conquer.
252.The Nurse and the Wolf
“BE quiet now,” said an old Nurse to a child sitting on her lap. “If you make that noise again I will throw you to the Wolf.”
Now it chanced that a Wolf was passing close under the window as this was said. So he crouched down by the side of the house and waited. “I am in good luck today,” thought he. “It is sure to cry soon, and a daintier morsel I haven’t had for many a long day.” So he waited, and he waited, and he waited, till at last the child began to cry, and the Wolf came forward before the window, and looked up to the Nurse, wagging his tail. But all the Nurse did was to shut down the window and call for help, and the dogs of the house came rushing out. “Ah,” said the Wolf as he galloped away,
“ENEMIES’ PROMISES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN.”
