284.The Seller of Images
A CERTAIN MAN made a wooden image of Mercury and offered it for sale. When no one appeared willing to buy it, in order to attract buyers, he cried out that he had the statue to sell of a benefactor who bestowed wealth and helped to heap up riches. One of the bystanders said to him,
“My good fellow, why do you sell him, being such a one as you describe, when you may yourself enjoy the good things he has to give?”
“Why,” he replied,
“I am in need of immediate help, and he is wont to give his good gifts very slowly.”
❖ Rationalisations may become costly as time goes by.
283.The Seaside Travellers
SOME TRAVELERS, journeying along the seashore, climbed to the summit of a tall cliff, and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbour, but as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could at the most be a small boat, and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks, and one of them said to his companions, “We have waited for no purpose, for after all there is nothing to see but a load of wood.”
❖ Our mere anticipations of life should not run wild and outrun its realities.
282.The Seagull and the Kite
A SEAGULL having bolted down too large a fish, burst its deep gullet-bag and lay down on the shore to die. A kite saw him and exclaimed:
“You richly deserve your fate; for a bird of the air has no business to seek its food from the sea.”
❖ Every man should be content to mind his own business.
281.The Rose and the Amaranth
AN AMARANTH planted in a garden near a rose-tree, thus addressed it:
“What a lovely flower is the rose, a favourite with men and women. I envy you your beauty and your perfume.”
The rose replied,
“I indeed, dear Amaranth, flourish but for a brief season! If no cruel hand pluck me from my stem, yet I must perish by an early doom. But you are immortal and never fade, but bloom for ever in renewed youth.”
❖ Don’t think too well of others and their conditions.
❖ One is to rise above superficial appearances and immediate issues.
