tomb;
As Hari's name and Hara's
Spoken, charm sin away,
So Poverty can surely
A hundred virtues slay.'

'And as to sustaining myself on another man's bread, that,' I mused,
'would be but a second door of death. Say not the books the same?--

'Half-known knowledge, present pleasure purchased with a future woe,
And to taste the salt of service--greater griefs no man can know.'

'And herein, also--

'All existence is not equal, and all living is not life;
Sick men live; and he who, banished, pines for children, home, and
wife;
And the craven-hearted eater of another's leavings lives,
And the wretched captive waiting for the word of doom survives;
But they bear an anguished body, and they draw a deadly breath,
And life cometh to them only on the happy day of death.'

Yet, after all these reflections, I was covetous enough to make one
more attempt on Chudakarna's meal, and got a blow from the split cane
for my pains. 'Just so,' I said to myself, 'the soul and organs of the
discontented want keeping in subjection. I must be done with
discontent:--

'Golden gift, serene Contentment! have thou that, and all is had; Thrust
thy slipper on, and think thee that the earth is leather-clad.'

'All is known, digested, tested; nothing new is left to learn When the
soul, serene, reliant, Hope's delusive dreams can spurn.'

'And the sorry task of seeking favor is numbered in the miseries of
life--

'Hast thou never watched, a-waiting till the great man's door unbarred?
Didst thou never linger parting, saying many a last sad word? Spak'st
thou never word of folly, one light thing thou wouldst recall? Rare and
noble hath thy life been! fair thy fortune did befall!'

'No!' exclaimed I, 'I will do none of these; but, by retiring into the
quiet and untrodden forest, I will show my discernment of real good and
ill. The holy Books counsel it--

'True Religion!--'tis not blindly prating what the priest may prate, But
to love, as God hath loved them, all things, be they small or great; And
true bliss is when a sane mind doth a healthy body fill; And true
knowledge is the knowing what is good and what is ill.'

"So came I to the forest, where, by good fortune and this good friend, I
met much kindness; and by the same good fortune have encountered you,
Sir, whose friendliness is as Heaven to me. Ah! Sir Tortoise,

'Poisonous though the tree of life be, two fair bl