Leading from the Middle

Caption: The stag in happier days. (Illustration BY ARTHUR RACKHAM 1912).
“A Stag had fallen sick. He had just strength enough to gather some food and find a quiet clearing in the woods, where he lay down to wait until his strength should return. The Animals heard about the Stag's illness and came to ask after his health. Of course, they were all hungry, and helped themselves freely to the Stag's food; and as you would expect, the Stag soon starved to death.”

“Good will is worth nothing unless it is accompanied by good acts.”
Or, as George Fyler Townsend has it: “Evil companions bring more hurt than profit.”

Professionally speaking, I recall how in bad times the many colleagues from good times became as scarce on the ground as the feed in the sick stag’s bailiwick. Some former “colleagues” helped themselves, literally and figuratively, and at the end, offered no hand up.

*Source: Aesop for Children (translator not identified). Illustrations by Milo Winter (1886-1956). Chicago: 
Rand McNally & Company, 1919. Available online at Project Gutenberg.

Leading from the Middle Library of the Week: University of Delaware, Morris Library, Newark, Delaware, USA.

@Copyright 2014 John Lubans

 

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