A father had heard that children were sent beyond the sea to study, and that those who had been abroad are invariably preferred to those who had never been there, and that such people are respected as being possessed of wisdom. Seeing this, he decided to send his son also beyond the sea, for he was rich and did not wish to fall behind the others. His son learned something, but, being stupid, returned more stupid yet. He had fallen into the hands of scholastic prevaricators who more than once have deprived people of their senses by giving explanations of inexplicable things; they taught him no whit, and sent him home a fool for ever. Formerly he used to utter simply stupid things, but now he gave them a scientific turn. Formerly fools only could not understand him, but now even wise men could not grasp him: his home, the city, the whole world, was tired of his chattering. Once, raving in a metaphysical meditation over an old proposition to find the first cause of all things,--while he was soaring in the clouds in thought,--he walked off the road and fell into a ditch. His father, who happened to be with him, hastened to bring a rope, in order to save the precious wisdom of his house. In the meantime his wise offspring sat in the ditch and meditated: “What can be the cause of my fall? The cause of my stumbling,” the wiseacre concluded, “is an earthquake. And the precipitous tendency towards the ditch may have been produced by an aërial pressure, and a coactive interrelation of the seven planets and the earth and ditch.”... His father arrived with the rope: “Here,” he said, “is a rope for you! Take hold of it, and I will pull you out. Hold on to it and do not let it slip!” “No, don’t pull yet: tell me first what kind of a thing is a rope?” His father was not a learned man, but he had his wits about him, so, leaving his foolish question alone, he said: “A rope is a thing with which to pull people out of ditches into which they have fallen.” “Why have they not invented a machine for that? A rope is too simple a thing.” “’T would take time for that,” his father replied, “whereas your salvation is now at hand.” “Time? What kind of a thing is time?” “Time is a thing that I am not going to waste with a fool. Stay there,” his father said, “until I shall return!” How would it be if all the other verbose talkers were collected and put in the ditch to serve him as companions? Well, it would take a much larger ditch for that. Yákov Borísovich Knyazhnín. (1742-1791.)