"
"Ha! look at me!" said a toadstool; "consider my superior privation,
and be content with your comparatively happy lot."
"I don't discern," replied the first, "how the contemplation of
unipedal misery tends to alleviate tripedal wretchedness."
"You don't, eh!" sneered the toadstool. "You mean, do you, to fly in
the face of all the moral and social philosophers?"
"Not unless some benefactor of his race shall impel me."
"H'm! I think Zambri the Parsee is the man for that kindly office, my
dear."
This final fable teaches that he is.
BRIEF SEASONS OF INTELLECTUAL DISSIPATION.
I.
FOOL.--I have a question for you.
PHILOSOPHER.--I have a number of them for myself. Do you happen to
have heard that a fool can ask more questions in a breath than a
philosopher can answer in a life?
F.--I happen to have heard that in such a case the one is as great a
fool as the other.
PH.--Then there is no distinction between folly and philosophy?
F.--Don't lay the flattering unction to your soul. The province of
folly is to ask unanswerable questions. It is the function of
philosophy to answer them.
PH.--Admirable fool!
F.--Am I? Pray tell me the meaning of "a fool."
PH.--Commonly he has none.
F.--I mean--
PH.--Then in this case he has one.
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