See [Provocation, Silence Under].
SELF-REVELATION
Some time ago one of the magistrates at Clerkenwell hit on a new idea in dealing with a prisoner, who came before him on a charge of being drunk and incapable. The man’s face was terribly bruised, either from tumbling about while drunk, or fighting. The case having been proved, the magistrate inquired of the chief jailer for a looking-glass. One having been produced, the jailer was ordered to take the prisoner and show him his face in the glass, and then to liberate him; the magistrate remarking that if that exhibition was not a warning to him, he did not know what would be. The prisoner was accordingly shown the reflection of his disfigured face, and discharged.
There was sound philosophy in the novel method of the magistrate, it was good and true as far as it went; but it may well be doubted if the generous device effected any very considerable reformation in the prisoner.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
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SELF-SACRIFICE
Dr. Finsen, who discovered the “light cure” for the disease of lupus, was greatly tempted to keep his secret to himself and thus become a very rich man. He lay awake all one night, perturbed as to whether he would make public his discovery. When morning came, Dr. Finsen had “chosen the better part,” and had decided to enrich the world with his cure. Only $1,500 a year was paid him by the Government of Denmark, and gradually the awful disease from which he himself was a sufferer made it impossible for him to work more than an hour a day and to eat hardly anything. Literally, Dr. Finsen laid down his life for the army of fellow sufferers. Queen Alexandra, proud of her fellow countryman, introduced the cure which bears his name to the greatest hospital in the world, and Finsen’s discovery has alleviated the torture of countless invalids. (Text.)
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Equally famous with the man in the moon and the woman in the moon is the hare in the moon, says Garrett P. Serviss in his “Astronomy with the Naked Eye.” The original is a Buddhist legend. The god Sakkria, disguised as a Brahman, pretended to be starving and went to the animals for help. The monkey got him a bunch of mangoes; the coot picked up a fisherman’s neglected string for him; the fox stole him a pot of milk. At last the god approached the hare. “I have nothing but grass,” said the hare, “and you can’t eat that.” “But your flesh is good,” suggested the pretended Brahman. The hare assented. “Then,” said the Brahman, “I’ll kindle a fire at the foot of this rock, and you jump off into it. That’ll save me the trouble of killing you.” The hare assented again, but as he leaped from the rock the god caught him in his arms and then drew his figure in the moon as a perpetual reminder of the excellence of self-sacrifice. (Text.)