again the wife mis-read his words, and she replied, “Of all rich men you are the most miserly. You would deny me everything of beauty and loveliness, while other women of my age walk the gardens of the city clothed in rich raiment.”
And she began to weep. And as her tears fell upon her breast she cried out again, “You always say, ‘Nay, nay’ to me when I desire a garment or a jewel.”
Then the husband was moved, and he stood up and took out of his purse a handful of gold and placed it before her, saying in a kindly voice, “Go down to the market place, my dear, and buy all that you will.”
From that day onward the deaf young wife, whenever she desired anything, would appear before her husband with a pearly tear in her eye, and he in silence would take out a handful of gold and place it in her lap.
Now, it changed that the young woman fell in love with a youth whose habit it was to make long journeys. And whenever he was away she would sit in her casement and weep.
When her husband found her thus weeping, he would say in his heart, “There must be some new caravan, and some silken garments and rare jewels in the Street.”
And he would take a handful of gold and place it before her.
THE QUEST
A thousand years ago two philosophers met on a slope of Lebanon, and one said to the other, “Where goest thou?”
And the other answered, “I am seeking after the fountain of youth which I know wells out among these hills. I have found writings which tell of that fountain flowering toward the sun. And you, what are you seeking?”
The first man answered, “I am seeking after the mystery of death.”
Then each of the two philosophers conceived that the other was lacking in his great science, and they began to wrangle, and to accuse each other of spiritual blindness.
Now while the two philosophers were loud upon the wind, a stranger, a man who was deemed a simpleton in his own village, passed by, and when he heard the two in hot dispute, he stood awhile and listened to their argument.
Then he came near to them and said, “My good men, it seems that you both really belong to the same school of philosophy, and that you are speaking of the same thing, only you speak in different words. One of you is seeks the fountain of youth, and the other seeks the mystery of death. Yet indeed they are but one, and as they dwell in you both.”
Then the stranger turned away saying, “Farewell sages.” And as he departed he laughed a patient laughter.
The two philosophers looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then they laughed also. And one of them said, “Well now, shall we not walk and seek together.”
THE SCEPTRE
Said a king to his wife, “Madame, you are not truly a queen. You are too vulgar and ungracious to be my mate.”
Said his wife, “Sir, you deem yourself king, but indeed you are only a poor soundling.”
Now these words angered the king, and he took his sceptre with his hand, and struck the queen upon her forehead with his golden sceptre.
At that moment the lord chamberlain entered, and he said, “Well, well, Majesty! That sceptre was fashioned by the greatest artist of the land. Alas! Some day you and the queen shall be forgotten, but this sceptre shall be kept, a thing of beauty from generation to generation. And now that you have drawn blood from her Majesty’s head, Sire, the sceptre shall be the more considered and remembered.”
THE PATH
There lived among the hills a woman and her son, and he was her first-born and her only child.
And the boy died of a fever whilst the physician stood by.
The mother was distraught with sorrow, and she cried to the physician and besought him saying, “Tell me, tell me, what was it that made quiet his striving and silent his song?”
And the physician said, “It was the fever.”
And the mother said, “What is the fever?”
And the physician answered, “I cannot explain it. It is a thing infinitely small that visits the body, and we cannot see it with the human eye.”
The physician left her. And she kept repeating to herself, “Something infinitely small. We cannot see it with our human eye.”
And at evening the priest came to console her. And she wept and she cried out saying, “Oh, why have I lost my son, my only son, my first-born?”
And the priest answered, “My child, it is the will of God.”
And the woman said, “What is God and where is God? I would see God that I may tear my bosom before Him, and pour the blood of my heart at His feet. Tell me where I shall find Him.”
And the priest said, “”God is infinitely vast. He is not to be seen with our human eye.”
Then the woman cried out, “The infinitely small has slain my son through the will of the infinitely great! Then what are we? What are we?”
At that moment the woman’s mother came into the room with the shroud for the dead boy, and she heard the words of the priest and also her daughter’s cry. And she laid down the shroud, and took her daughter’s hand in her own hand, and she said, “My daughter, we ourselves are the infinitely small and the infinitely great; and we are the path between the two.”
THE WHALE AND THE BUTTERFLY
Once on an evening a man and a woman found themselves together in a stagecoach. They had met before.
The man was a poet, and as he sat beside the woman he sought to amuse her with stories, some that were of his own weaving, and some that were not his own.
But even while he was speaking the lady went to sleep. Then suddenly the coach lurched, and she awoke, and she said, “I admire your interpretation of the story of Jonah and the whale.”
And the poet said, “But Madame, I have been telling you a story of mine own about a butterfly and a white rose, and how they behaved the one to the other!”
THE SHADOW
Upon a June day the grass said to the shadow of an elm tree, “You move to right and left over-often, and you disturb my peace.”
And the shadow answered and said, “Not I, not I. Look skyward. There is a tree that moves in the wind to the east and to the west, between the sun and the earth.”
And the grass looked up, and for the first time beheld the tree. And it said in its heart, “Why, behold, there is a larger grass than myself.”
And the grass was silent.
PEACE CONTAGIOUS
One branch in bloom said to his neighbouring branch, “This is a dull and empty day.” And the other branch answered, “It is indeed empty and dull.”
At that moment a sparrow alighted on one of the branches, and the another sparrow, nearby.
