pony for her love, whom some time after she discarded for a talented
hunter, and, one fine day, like many of her sex, she pitched her
affections upon a man--he too being a talented hunter. To their wedding
came all the countryside. And with the countryside came the donkey. He
carried a great bundle of firewood for the servants' hall, and as he
waited outside, gazing up at his old loves the stars, while his master
drank deeper and deeper within, he revolved many thoughts. But he is
only known to have made one remark--in the nature, one may think, of a
grim jest--

'"After all!" he was heard to say, "she has married a donkey--after
all!"

'No doubt it was feeble; but then our donkey was growing old and bitter,
and hope deferred had made him a cynic.'




ON LOVING ONE'S ENEMIES

Like all people who live apart from it, the Founder of the Christian
religion was possessed of a profound knowledge of the world. As,
according to the proverb, the woodlander sees nothing of the wood for
its trees, so those who live in the world know nothing of it. They know
its gaudy, glittering surface, its Crystal Palace fireworks, and the
paste-diamonds with which it bedecks itself; they know its music-halls
and its night clubs, its Piccadillys and its politics, its restaurants
and its salons; but of the bad--or good?--heart of it all they know
nothing. In more meanings than one, it takes a saint to catch a sinner;