, "O, that the fairy would once
more change me into a man!"

He had scarcely uttered these words when he found himself transformed
according to his wish, and the fairy butterfly once more in his place.

"Adakar," said she, in her whispering, silvery voice, "thou hast first
played the butterfly as a man, and now as an insect. In both
situations thou didst pursue the same course. As a man thou livedst
only for the present moment, regardless of the consequences of
reveling in perpetual sweets, without looking to the period when the
frosts of age would chill thy imagination, and the ice of winter
freeze up thy capacity for those enjoyments of sense which constituted
thy sole happiness, if happiness it may be called. As a butterfly thou
didst sport through the spring-time and summer without for a moment
thinking of providing food and refuge against the wintry barrenness
and wintry cold. Thou hast learned that the beings which live in air,
sport among gardens, groves, and flowers, and traverse the climes of
the earth at will, are not necessarily happier than man, since they
live in perpetual fear. Be wiser in future. Be content with thy lot,
assured that the only way to be happy in this and every other state of
existence, is to use the blessings bestowed on us by a beneficent
Providence with sober moderation, and share them among others with a
chastened liberality. Thou hast been a benefactor to me, and I have
repaid the obligation by enabling thee thus to learn wisdom from
bitter experience. The lesson has been dearly bought, but is fully
worth the price. Go, and be thankful that thou wast created a man
instead of a butterfly."

The fairy disappeared, and Adakar took his way toward Damascus, where
his appearance caused great surprise, most especially to a hump-backed
cousin, who had taken possession of his estate, after having convinced
the bashaw of Damascus, by twelve purses of gold, that he was
certainly dead. Adakar was obliged to appeal to the bashaw for the
restoration of his property, but failed to establish his identity. He
could only account for his absence by relating his transformation into
a butterfly, of which the bashaw, being blinded to the truth by the
glitter of gold, would not believe one word. He decreed the estate to
the cousin, and consoled the other for his loss by inflicting the
bastinado. Adakar passed several years as a water-carrier, until the
benevolent fairy, finding that he had completed the c