THE GREAT LESSON
A father sat in his
garden with his three children, and asked them this question:
'Suppose by a mere wish you could have anything your heart
desired. What would you choose? "
'Oh, I should wish to be beautiful' said his daughter.
'Everybody enjoys beauty and everybody would like me'.
'How foolish you are, ' said her brother, 'Do you remember
how beautiful was your friend, Lalita, before she got smallpox? Beauty is too
transient a thing. My wish would be to become rich. Money rules the world, and
with it I could purchase anything my heart wanted'.
The other brother then gave his opinion.
'I think you are foolish as our sister. Riches are as easily
lost as beauty. As for me, my wish would be for wisdom. No one can deprive me
of that.'
The father who had been listening silently, now stooped, and
with a stick described a number of zeros in the sand, then added;
'All the things you have mentioned- beauty, riches and
learning- are as nothing to a truly wise man. They are like so many zeros. But
put a number before the zeros. And you turn them into a great treasure. The
only thing that really matters is virtue, for virtue, alone makes a man
beautiful, rich and learned.
WHAT IS PERSONALITY
One conspicuous question in the modern journals is: How can
I develop personality?
Ursula Bloom gives this noteworthy advice to young people:
Please do not do as I did, at your age, and wise years copying other people.
Of old, to the same question asked by Greek youth, Socrates
replied: Know yourself! That was excellent advice; but it did not satisfy,
because it did not go far enough.
When Roman youth questioned Marcus Aurelius he said: Be yourself!
To the youth of our atomic age, the psychologist says: Develop yourself! That
is the answer to the question:
What is personality? Personality is the development of
oneself.
A merely striking beauty
Is not so hard to find;
A rate gem is wisdom
Far-reaching power of mind.
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