The Lamp

Aesop

A Lamp, well filled with oil, burned with a clear and steady light, and began to swell with pride and boast that it shone more brightly than the sun himself. Just then a puff of wind came and blew it out.

Some one struck a match and lit it again, and said, “You just keep alight, and never mind the sun. Why, even the stars never need to be relit as you had to be just now.”

From Aesop’s Fables: a new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones, with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. 1912 edition. This work is in the public domain.