Page:Fables of Aesop.pdf/12

12 A sportive young Kid, intent upon pleasure, got mounted up on a high rock, from which he looked around on all sides with great self-conceit. While in this situation, he observed a Wolf passing below, which he began to load with all manner of reproaches. The Wolf, upon hearing these, looked up, and seeing from whom they came, answered the Kid in the following words:— 'Do not value yourself upon thinking that you mortify me; for I take this ill language as not coming from you, but from your place of safety'. It is cowardly to abuse a person because you are safe from reply

A little Boy, while at school, stole a book, and brought it to his mother, who gave him an apple for his pains. When he grew up he committed greater robberies, but was at last taken, tried, and condemned to death. When ascending the scaffold, he desired to see his mother, which request was granted; and while he seemed to be whispering something of importance, he bit off her ear. Then turning to the people who were shocked at his cruelty, he said, ‘She deserves all this, for if she had chid me in my infancy, I bad not come to this end.'It is exceedingly dangerous to overlook the first faults of a child