7
THE FOX AND THE GRAPES.
A Fox, having travelled a long way one sultry day in summer, at last arrived at a beautiful vineyard, and being exceedingly tired and hungry, he resolved to rest himself for a short time, and try to get something to satisfy his appetite. On casting his eyes around the place, he perceived, at a short distance, a vine heavily laden with ripe Grapes; but nailed up to a trellis so high that he leaped till he could leap no longer, without getting at them. ‘Let who will take them!’ says he,‘they are but green and sour, so I’ll let them alone.’
MORAL.
We call that bad which we most desire, if we cannot attain to it.
THE MOUNTAINS IN LABOUR.
A report was spread over the country far and wide, that the Mountains were in labour, and it was asserted that they had been heard to give utterance to several dreadful groans. Those credulous people who had hard of it, came flocking around the place in great astonishment, in order to see what extraordinary birth would be produced by the Mountains. After they had waited for a considerable length of time in anxious expectation, and the patience of the multitude was nearly exhausted, out crept a little Mouse.
MORAL.
Do not rely upon a man's professions whom you have never tried.
