Or even if the good Bishop had taken a simpler line and told the
boys some old story, like the story of Polycrates of Samos, I
should have been more comfortable. Polycrates was the tyrant with
whom everything went well that he set his hand to, so that to avoid
the punishment of undue prosperity he threw his great signet-ring
into the sea; but when he was served a day or two later with a
slice of fish at his banquet, there was the ring sticking in its
ribs. The Bishop might have said that this should teach us not to
try and seize all the good things we could, and that the reason of
it was not, as the old Greeks thought, that the gods envied the
prosperity of mortals, but that our prosperity was often dashed
very wisely and tenderly from our lips, because one of the worst
foes that a man can have, one of the most blinding and bewildering
of faults, is the sense of self-sufficiency and security. That
would not have spoilt the pleasure of those brisk boys, but would
have given them something wholesome to take away and think about,
like the prophet's roll that was sweet in the mouth and bitter in
the belly.
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