Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CXXXVI
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Fab. CXXXVI.
A Mole and her Dam.
MOther (says a Mole to her Damm) Here's a Strange Smell Methinks. And then she was at it again, There's a Mulberry-Tree I perceive. And so a Third Time, What a Clattering of Hammers do I hear. Daughter says the Old One, You have now quite Betray'd your self; for I thought You had Wanted only One Sense, and now I find you want Three; for you can neither Hear nor Smell any more then you can See.
The MORAL.
Men Labour under Many Imperfections that No Body would take Notice of, if they themselves were not Over-sollicitous to Conceal them.
REFLEXION.
Boasters are Naturally Falsifyers, and the People of All Others that put their Shams the Worst together. Their Imperfections would not be Half so much taken Notice of, if their Own Vanity did not make Proclamation of them; As a Blind Lady that I knew, was never Well, but when she was Discoursing of Colours. 'Tis a Strange Thing, the Impudence of some Women! Was a Word often in the Mouth of a Precise Dame, who her self was as Common as the King’s High Way. I knew Another that was never without Lemmon Pill in her Mouth, to Correct an Unsa-voury Vapour of her Own, and yet would be Perpetually Inveighing against Foul Breaths. Now This way of Covering Defects, Scandals or Inconvenicnces, is the Only Way of Exposing them.