Friendship is to love, what an engraving is to a painting.
TACITURNITY.——AN APOLOGUE.
Translated from the French of Abbé Blanchet.
At Amadan was a celebrated academy, the first statute of which ran thus:
The Academicians are to think much, write little, and, if possible, speak less.
This was called the Silent Academy, nor was there a sage in Persia who was not ambitious of being admitted a member. Zeb, a famous sage, and author of an excellent little book, intitled The Gag, heard, in the distant province where he lived, there was a vacancy in the silent academy. Immediately he departed for Amadan, and, arriving, presented himself at the door of the hall where the academicians were assembled, and sent in the following billet to the president:
Zeb, a lover of silence, humbly asks the vacant place.
The billet arrived too late; the vacancy was already supplied. The academicians were almost in despair; they had received, somewhat against their inclination, a courtier, who had some wit, and whose light and trifling eloquence had become the admiration of all his court-acquaintance; and this learned body was now reduced to the necessity of refusing the sage Zeb, the scourge of bablers, the perfection of wisdom.
The president, whose duty it was to announce this disagreeable news to the sage, scarcely could resolve, nor knew in what manner best, to perform his office. After a moment’s reflection he ordered a flagon to be filled with water, and so full that another drop would have made the water run over. He then desired them to introduce the candidate.