_Milverton_. Well, I believe it would be much wiser to say, that we cannot lay down rules about the highest work; either when it is done, where it will be done, or how it can be made to be done. It is too immaterial for our measurement; for the highest part even of the mere business of the world is in dealing with ideas. It is very amusing to observe the misconceptions of men on these points. They call for what is outward—can understand that, can praise it. Fussiness and the forms of activity in all ages get great praise. Imagine an active, bustling little prætor under Augustus, how he probably pointed out Horace to his sons as a moony kind of man, whose ways were much to be avoided, and told them it was a weakness in Augustus to like such idle men about him instead of men of business. _Ellesmere_. Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant of Adam Smith’s day watching him. How little would the merchant have dreamt what a number of vessels were to be floated away by the ink in the Professor’s inkstand; and what crashing of axes, and clearing of forests in distant lands, the noise of his pen upon the paper portended. _Milverton_. It is not only the effect of the still-working man that the busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend the present labour. If Horace had told my prætor that “Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit et alsit,” “What, to write a few lines!” would his prætorship have cried out. “Why, I can live well and enjoy life; and I flatter myself no one in Rome does more business.” _Dunsford_. All of it only goes to show how little we know of each other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others’ efforts. _Milverton_. The trials that there must be every day without any incident that even the most minute household chronicler could set down: the labours without show or noise! _Ellesmere_. The deep things that there are which, with unthinking people, pass for shallow things, merely because they are clear as well as deep. My fable of the other day, for instance—which instead of producing any moral effect upon you two, only seemed to make you both inclined to giggle. _Milverton_. I am so glad you reminded me of that. I, too, fired with a noble emulation, have invented a fable since we last met which I want you to hear. I assure you I did not mean to laugh at yours: it was only that it came rather unexpectedly upon me. You are not exactly the person from whom one should expect fables. _Dunsford_. Now for the fable.