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THE PANCHATANTRA

The grateful, righteous soul who does
Each moment what he can,
Who regulates a sturdy life
Upon an active plan.

Or, put it this way:

The brave, wise, hopeful, and persistent,
From tricks, freaks, meanness equidistant—
If such there be,
And Fortune flee,
The joke on Fortune falls, insistent.

While, on the other hand:

If man be fatalist and slacker,
Irresolute and sang-froid lacker,
Him Fortune—as a bouncing miss
Her aged lover—hates to kiss.

Abysmal learning does not aid
To virtue those who are afraid:
As men with lamps no sooner find
Lost objects, if those men are blind.

The prince becomes a beggar;
By weak are slayers slain;
The beggar ceases begging;
When fate revolves again.

"Nor must you, in view of the aphorism,

Since teeth and nails and men and hair,
If out of place, are ugly there

draw the coward's conclusion:

Let no man leave his native place.

"For to the competent there is no distinction between native and foreign land. You must have heard the saying: