Hindu Literature | Page 9

to get my dinner, and, in fact, crept about so wretchedly,
that when Chudakarna saw me he fell to quoting--
'Very feeble folk are poor folk; money lost takes wit away:-- All their
doings fail like runnels, wasting through the summer day.'
"Yes!" I thought, "he is right, and so are the sayings--
'Wealth is friends, home, father, brother--title to respect and fame; Yea,
and wealth is held for wisdom--that it should be so is shame,' 'Home is
empty to the childless; hearts to them who friends deplore:-- Earth unto
the idle-minded; and the three worlds to the poor.'
'I can stay here no longer; and to tell my distress to another is out of the
question--altogether out of the question!--

'Say the sages, nine things name not: Age, domestic joys and woes,
Counsel, sickness, shame, alms, penance; neither Poverty disclose.
Better for the proud of spirit, death, than life with losses told; Fire
consents to be extinguished, but submits not to be cold.'
'Verily he was wise, methought also, who wrote--
'As Age doth banish beauty, As moonlight dies in gloom, As Slavery's
menial duty Is Honor's certain 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 blossoms grow thereon:
One, the company of good men; and sweet songs of Poet's, one.'
"King!" said Slow-toes, "your error was getting too much, without
giving. Give, says the sage--
'Give, and it shall swell thy getting; give, and thou shalt safer keep:
Pierce the tank-wall; or it yieldeth, when the water waxes deep.'
And he is very hard upon money-grubbing: as thus--
'When the miser hides his treasure in the earth, he doeth well; For he
opens up a passage that his soul may sink to hell,'
And thus--
'He whose coins are kept for counting, not to barter nor to give, Breathe
he like a blacksmith's bellows, yet in truth he doth not live.'

It hath been well written, indeed,
'Gifts, bestowed with words of kindness, making giving doubly dear:--
Wisdom, deep, complete, benignant, of all arrogancy clear; Valor,
never yet forgetful of sweet Mercy's pleading prayer; Wealth, and scorn
of wealth to spend it--oh! but these be virtues rare!'
"Frugal one may be," continued Slow-toes; "but not a niggard like the
Jackal--
'The Jackal-knave, that starved his spirit so, And died of saving, by a
broken bow.'
"Did he, indeed,"