t one. How
is it that I cannot entertain the capricious creature? I must try her
elsewhere. I have already been told that the people of this place are
exceedingly ambitious. Evidently there is no room for me here. So,
adieu! gentleman of the court, and follow to the bitter end this
will-o'-the-wisp! They tell me that Dame Fortune has temples in Surat.
Very well! We will go there."

He embarked at once. What hearts of bronze have humankind! The man who
first attempted this awful route and defied its terrors must have had a
heart of adamant. Often did our traveller turn his eyes towards his
little home as first pirates, then contrary winds, then calms, then
rocks--all agents of death--in turn assailed him. Strange it is that men
should take such pains to meet death, since it will come only too
quickly to them in their homes!

Our adventurer arrived in India. There they told him that Japan was the
place where Fortune dispensed her favours. He hurried there. The sea
wearied of carrying him about. In the end all the profit his long
voyages brought him was the lesson which he learnt from savages, and
that was: "Stop in your own country and let Nature instruct you." Japan,
India, or anywhere else; no one place was better than another as a
hunting ground for Fortune; so the conclusion was forced upon him that
he had been wiser had he stayed in his own village. At last he renounced
all these ungrateful wanderings and returned to his own country; and as
he caught sight of his homestead from afar he wept for joy, and cried:
"Happy is the man who, staying in his home, finds constant occupation in
adjusting his desires to his surroundings. To him the court, the sea,
and the land of Fortune are but hearsay. Thou, fickle Dame, flaunting
before our eyes dignities and wealth, dost cause us to follow after
these allurements to the ends of the earth, only to find them empty
shams. Henceforth I wander no more, for here at home a hundred times
more success shall I find."

Having registered this vow against Fortune the wanderer came to the door
of his friend, and lo! there sat Fortune, waiting on the threshold,
whilst his friend slumbered within.

XIII

AN ANIMAL IN THE MOON

(BOOK VII.--No. 18)

Whilst one philosopher tells us that men are constantly the dupes of
their own senses, another will swear that the senses never deceive. Both
are right. Philosophy truly affirms that the senses will deceive so long
as men are conte