"Your Majesties, there is only one fault to find with the book written by these people about their country, and that is that they know it too well to describe it well."
Therefore one of the kings said, "How can that be truth? For what we are close to we must see more clearly than others who view it from afar."
So the sensible chamberlain took a certain little object and held it close to the eyes of one of the kings, and cried, "What is this?"
And the king, blinking and scowling, said after a bit:
"It is a volcano!"
The chamberlain answered, "Wrong; it is an inkstand," and showing it proved that he spoke truth.
Then he held another thing close before the eyes of another king and cried again, "What is this?"
And this king, puzzled, said, "I think it is a little piece of cloth."
"Wrong," said the sensible chamberlain. "It is the statue of the Winged Victory."
And this happened not once but many times until at length the kings understood. And they made a law that no one should stand too close to the thing he wished to see clearly. And they added their judgment that only the visitors to a country could see it as it is.