Aesop's Fables: Townsend (1867)
123. The Seaside Travelers (Perry 177)
SOME TRAVELERS, journeying along the seashore, climbed to the summit
of a tall cliff, and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they
thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the
harbor, but as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore
by the wind, they found that it could at the most be a small boat, and
not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it
was only a large faggot of sticks, and one of them said to his companions,
'We have waited for no purpose, for after all there is nothing to see
but a load of wood.'
Our mere anticipations of life outrun its realities.
George Fyler Townsend's translation of the fables, first published in 1867, is
in the public domain and can be found at many websites, including Project
Gutenberg.
Illustrations come from: Aesop's Fables, by George Fyler Townsend, with
illustrations by Harrison Weir, 1867, at Google
Books. |