Monthly Archives: September 2013
231.The Man Who Promised the Impossible
A POOR man was very ill, and not expected to live. As the doctors were about to give up hope for him, he appealed to the Lords, promising to offer up to them a hundred oxen or less – and more gifts too – if only he recovered.
The man’s wife, who was at his side, asked him:
“And where are you going to get the money to pay for all that?”
The man told her:
“Do you think I might get better so that the Lords can call me to account?”
❖ Men readily make promises which in reality they have no intention of keeping.
230.The Man Bitten by a Dog
A MAN who had been bitten by a dog went about in quest of someone who might heal him. A friend, meeting him and learning what he wanted, said,
“If you would be cured, take a piece of bread, and dip it in the blood from your wound, and go and give it to the dog that bit you.”
The man who had been bitten laughed at this advice and said,
“Why? If I should do so, it would be as if I should beg every dog in the town to bite me.”
❖ Benefits bestowed on the evil-disposed increase their means of injuring you.
229.The Man and the Wood
A MAN came into a forest and asked the trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The trees agreed to his request and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted a new handle to his axe from it, than he began to use it and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest.
An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighbouring cedar,
“The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages.”
❖ Do not give your enemy the means of destroying you.
❖ Show enough concern in the seemingly innocent little things.
❖ Give some people an inch and they will take a mile.
❖ Nourishing of others needs to be seen in a wide perspective.
228.The Man and the Mountain-Dweller
A MAN and a mountain-dweller once drank together in token of a bond of alliance being formed between them. One very cold wintry day, as they talked, the man put his fingers to his mouth and blew on them. When the mountain-dweller asked the reason for this, he told him that he did it to warm his hands because they were so cold. Later on in the day they sat down to eat, and the food prepared was quite scalding. The man raised one of the dishes a little towards his mouth and blew in it.
When the mountain-dweller again asked the reason, he said that he did it to cool the meat, which was too hot.
“I can no longer consider you as a friend,” said the mountain-dweller, “a fellow who with the same breath blows hot and cold.”
