There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection.One day it came into his mind to make a staff.Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient,but into a perfect work time does not enter,he said to himself,It shall be perfect in all respects,though I should do nothing else in my life.He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood,being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material;and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick,his friends gradually deserted him,for they grew old in their works and died,but he grew not older by a moment.His singleness of purpose and resolution,and his elevated piety,endowed him,without his knowledge,with perennial youth.As he made no compromise with Time,Time kept out of his way,and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.Before he had found a stick in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin,and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick.Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end,and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand,and then resumed his work.By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star;and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones,Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times.But why do I stay to mention these things?When the finishing stroke was put to his work,it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma.He had made a new system in making a staff,a world with full and fair proportions;in which,though the old cities and dynasties had passed away,fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places.And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet,that,for him and his work,the former lapse of time had been an illusion,and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain.The material was pure,and his art was pure;how could the result be other than wonderful?
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth.This alone wears well.For the most part,we are not where we are,but in a false position.Through an infirmity of our natures,we suppose a case,and put ourselves into it,and hence are in two cases at the same time,and it is doubly difficult to get out.In sane moments we regard only the facts,the case that is.Say what you have to say,not what you ought.Any truth is better than make-believe.Tom Hyde,the tinker,standing on the gallows,was asked if he had anything to say.“Tell the tailors,”said he,“to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.”His companion's prayer is forgotten.
However mean your life is,meet it and live it;do not shun it and call it hard names.It is not so bad as you are.It looks poorest when you are richest.The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.Love your life,poor as it is.You may perhaps have some pleasant,thrilling,glorious hours,even in a poor-house.The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode;the snow melts before its door as early in the spring.I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there,and have as cheering thoughts,as in a palace.The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any.Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving.Most think that they are above being supported by the town;but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means,which should be more disreputable.Cultivate poverty like a garden herb,like sage.Do not trouble yourself much to get new things,whether clothes or friends.Turn the old;return to them.Things do not change;we change.Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.God will see that you do not want society.If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days,like a spider,the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.The philosopher said:“From an army of three divisions one can take away its general,and put it in disorder;from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought.”Do not seek so anxiously to be developed,to subject yourself to many influences to be played on;it is all dissipation.Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us,“and lo!creation widens to our view.”We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Crsus,our aims must still be the same,and our means essentially the same.Moreover,if you are restricted in your range by poverty,if you cannot buy books and newspapers,for instance,you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences;you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch.It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.You are defended from being a trifler.No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher.Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.
