Many a man who never murmured at poverty complaineth loudly when he hath grown rich enough to be assessed for taxes.
When Adam was expelled for eating the apple he blamed “the woman.” She said naught, but years afterwards she invented pie; and the worst of these is apple-pie.
A conscientious publisher, who had printed an unauthorized edition of a great work (which modesty forbids mentioning here by name), was stricken with contrition some months afterwards, and wrote to the author saying: “Truly, kind Sir, I know that I have erred in publishing your invaluable work without leave, but, albeit there is no legal obligation on me to recognize your interests, in the absence of any rational copyright law, yet my soul tells me that you have a moral right which may not be denied. Wherefore I have directed that a statement of account of sales be sent to you herewith. As you will perceive that the venture unhappily hath resulted in a loss, your remittance of a moiety thereof will be received by me with a gratitude which will go far toward allaying the pangs of a remorse-torn sinner.”
The prudent pirate burieth not his treasure in a remote cave or sandbank, but bestoweth it in the safety deposit vaults, for the day when he may have to face a stern but not implacable jury.
The truly good man may love his enemies; but it taketh a hermit, dwelling alone on an inaccessible island, to love his neighbors.
When the great Caliph Omar—may his memory be forever blessed!—beheld the mountain of manuscripts heaped up in the Alexandrian Library, he asked, “Of what doth this Himalaya consist?” The Librarian, proudly waving his hand about, replied: “For the greater part, or say about ninety-five per centum, it consisteth of inestimable works of fiction based strictly upon the facts and so forth of History. They have all been selected from the best-selling nov—” But the Caliph, who had the gift of prophecy and could foresee even unto the present day, and perceived also that the folios were extremely dry, ordered that they be all fed to the furnaces of the baths, which had not been lighted for many moons because that the Egyptian tyrant, Kholrobba, had oppressed the people with a Fuel Trust. Allah is just, and the soul of Kholrobba suffered not from cold when it went home.
A conqueror’s hymn of thanksgiving for victory needeth no wings. It reacheth its destination by the force of gravity.
And the paradox of gratitude is this: that the author is thankful if he know that the reader is not, when he beholds the mystic word in a foreign tongue,—
“FINIS.”