|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 12
This merry soul had a neighbour who was exactly the reverse. He sang
little and slept less; for he was a financier, and made of money, as
they say. Whenever it happened that after a sleepless night he would
doze off in the early morning, the cobbler, who was always up betimes,
would wake him up again with his joyful songs. "Ha!" thought the man of
wealth, "what a misfortune it is that one cannot buy sleep in the open
market as one buys food and drink!" Then an idea came to him. He
invited the cobbler to his house, where he asked him some questions.
"Tell me, Master Gregory, what do you suppose your earnings amount to in
a year?"
"In a year," laughed the cobbler, "that's more than I know. I never keep
accounts that way, nor even keep one day from another. So long as I can
make both ends meet, that's good enough for me!"
"Really!" replied the financier. "But what can you earn in one day?"
"Oh, sometimes more and sometimes less. The mischief of it is that there
are so many f�te days and high-days and fast-days crowded into the year,
on which, as the priest tells us, it is wicked to work at all; and worse
still he keeps on finding some new saint or other to give weight to his
sermons. If it were not for that, cobbling would be a fine paying game."
At this the wealthy man laughed. "Look here, my friend, to-day I'll lift
you to the seats of the mighty! Here is a hundred pounds. Guard them and
use them with care."
When the cobbler held the bag of money in his hand he imagined that it
must be as much as would be coined in a hundred years.
Returning home he buried the cash in his cellar. Alas! he buried his joy
with it, for there were no more songs. From the moment he came into
possession of this wealth, the love of which is the root of all evil,
his voice left him, and not only his voice, but his sleep also. And in
place of these came anxiety, suspicion, and alarms; guests which abode
with him constantly. All day he kept his eye on the cellar door. Did a
cat make a noise in the night, then for a certainty that cat was after
his money.
At last, in despair, the wretched cobbler ran to the financier whom he
now no longer kept awake. "Oh, give me back my joy in life, my songs, my
sleep; and take your hundred pounds again."
XVI
THE POWER OF FABLE
(BOOK VIII.--No. 4)
In the old, vain, and fickle city of Athens, an orator,[2] seeing how
the light-hearted citizens were blind to certain dangers which
threatened the state, presented himself before the tribune, and there
sought, by the very tyranny of his forceful eloquence, to move the heart
of the republic towards a sense of the common welfare.
But the people neither heard nor heeded. Then the orator had recourse to
more urgent arguments and stronger metaphors, potent enough to touch
hearts of stone. He spoke in thunders that might have raised the dead;
but his words were carried away on the wind. The beast of many heads[3]
did not deign to hear the launching of these thunderbolts. It was
engrossed in something quite different. A fight between two urchins was
what the crowd found so engaging; not the orator's warnings.
What then did the speaker do? He tried another plan. "Ceres," he began,
"made a voyage one day with an eel and a swallow. After a time the
three travellers were stopped by a river. This the eel got over by
swimming and the swallow by flying----"
"Well! what about Ceres? What did she do?" cried the crowd with one
voice.
"She did what she did!" retorted the speaker in anger. "But first she
raged against you. What! Does it take a child's story to open your ears,
you who should be eager for any news of the peril that menaces; you, the
only state in Greece that takes no heed? You ask what Ceres did. Why do
you not ask what Philip[4] does?"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|