The Five Boons Of Life
CHAPTER
I
In
the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:
"Here
are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, chose wisely; oh, choose
wisely! for only one of them is valuable."
The
gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth said, eagerly:
"There
is no need to consider"; and he chose Pleasure.
He
went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in.
But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty; and
each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said: "These years I have
wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose wisely.
CHAPTER II
The
fairy appeared, and said:
"Four
of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember-time is flying, and
only one of them is precious."
The
man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears that rose in
the fairy's eyes.
After
many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he communed
with himself, saying: "One by one they have gone away and left me; and now
she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has swept
over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold me I have
paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse him."
CHAPTER III
"Choose
again." It was the fairy speaking.
"The
years have taught you wisdom -- surely it must be so. Three gifts remain. Only
one of them has any worth -- remember it, and choose warily."
The
man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing, went her way.
Years
went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he sat solitary in
the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:
"My
name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it seemed well
with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then came envy; then
detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution. Then derision, which is
the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity, which is the funeral of
fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of renown! target for mud in its prime, for
contempt and compassion in its decay."
CHAPTER IV
"Chose
yet again." It was the fairy's voice.
"Two
gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but one that was
precious, and it is still here."
"Wealth
-- which is power! How blind I was!" said the man. "Now, at last,
life will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These mockers
and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me, and I will feed my hungry heart
with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the
spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds dear. I will buy, buy, buy!
deference, respect, esteem, worship -- every pinchbeck grace of life the market
of a trivial world can furnish forth. I have lost much time, and chosen badly
heretofore, but let that pass; I was ignorant then, and could but take for best
what seemed so."
Three
short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering in a mean
garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in rags; and he
was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:
"Curse
all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies! And miscalled, every one.
They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are
but temporary disguises for lasting realities -- Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty.
The fairy said true; in all her store there was but one gift which was
precious, only one that was not valueless. How poor and cheap and mean I know
those others now to be, compared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet
and kindly one, that steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that
persecute the body, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart.
Bring it! I am weary, I would rest."
CHAPTER V
The fairy came, bringing again four
of the gifts, but Death was wanting. She said:
"I
gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but trusted me,
asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose."
"Oh,
miserable me! What is left for me?"
"What
not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age."
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