After-Orts #78
In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: a man was cast by a tempest onto an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost. Having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people. At first he knew not what course to take, but finally he resolved to give himself up to his good fortune. He received all the homage that they chose to render him, and suffered himself to be treated as a king.
But as he could not forget his real condition, he was conscious, at the same time that he was receiving this homage, that he was not the king whom this people had sought, and that this kingdom did not belong to him. Thus he had a double thought: the one by which he acted as king, the other by which he recognized his true state, and that it was accident alone that had placed him in his present condition.
-- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), in Discourses on the Condition of the Great
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a clerihew by G.K. Chesterton:
The Spanish people think Cervantes
Equal to half a dozen Dantes;
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.
many more here:
https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/tag/clerihew/
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from the news-from-all-over department:
Cyclist in California chased by angry zebra:
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/California-cyclist-chased-by-zebra-17233852.php
