Page:Short stories for little folks, or, Little tales calculated to excite juvenile minds to the love and practice of virtue.pdf/13

(13) conqueror becauſe you command great fleets and armies.

The Pert and the Ignorant are prone to Ridicule.

GENTLEMAN, of a grave deportment, was buſily engaged in blowing bubbles of ſoap and water, and was attentively obſerving them as they expanded and burſt in the ſunſhine. A pert youth fell into a fit of loud laughter at a ſight ſo ſtrange, and which ſhewed, as he thought, ſuch folly and inſanity.—Be aſhamed, young man, ſaid one who paſſed by, of your rudeneſs and ignorance. You now behold the greateſt Philoſopher of the age, Sir Iſaac Newton, inveſtigating the nature of light and colours by a ſeries of experiments, no leſs curious than uſeful, though you deem them childiſh and inſignificant.

Idleneſs and Irreſolution.

ORACE, a celebrated Roman Poet, relates that a country man, who wanted to paſs a river, ſlood loitering on the banks of it, in the fooliſh expectation that a current ſo rapid would ſoon diſcharge its waters. But the ſtream ſtill flowed, increaſed perhaps by freſh torrents from the