In the public square of a certain great city four beautiful statues were once placed on exhibition. They were by four different artists, and each of these was eager to win honor from the people. All four of the statues shone in the sun like pure gold, and they were all indeed beautiful to look upon, so that the people could not tell which to choose.
But as they gazed, the sun chanced to shine out more brightly, and lo, one of the statues, which had many admirers, began to melt away in the sun’s rays, and it was at once discovered that the statue thought to be of pure gold was really molded in nothing but butter! Ah, what a cry of angry ridicule rose against the luckless artist!
Of the three statues that were left on view, there was one that had as many admirers as the butter statue, and they urged the claims of their favorite for a long time. Gradually, however, every one ceased to do honor to this statue, for it began to get stained and corroded in a shameful manner that was very mysterious, until some one discovered that the supposed golden statue was really made of nothing more precious than brass!
Of the two statues remaining it was hard to say which was the finer. Some were for one and some for the other, until, after some years, a bold fellow who dared to scrape off a bit from each statue, found that one of them was merely plated, while the other was pure gold.
Then it was that the people tore down from their place in the public square the brass and the plated statues, the butter statue having left nothing of itself to tear down. They permitted none of those cheats to occupy that place of honor, but the statue all of pure gold they kept in full view of strangers and foreigners all the time, and often pointing to it they told the story I have just told to you. And almost always when he got through telling the story the narrator would add a bit of a moral.
“Shams,” he would say, “do not pay in the long run. If you want people to give you real honor you must give them real worth. Be butter, or brass, or plated metal, and sooner or later men will discover the imposition. The only true and safe way, if you want men to honor you as they honor gold, is to be gold—pure gold—all the way through.” Do you understand the point of my little story, boys and girls?