Amelia was lamenting a rip in her clothes were. A Spider described how its web was swept away and rebuilt. Who spent their time better?
Don’t just sit around complaining; do something.
JBR Collection
The muslin torn, from tears of grief
In vain Amelia sought relief;
In sighs and plaints she passed the day,
The tattered frock neglected lay:
While busied at the weaving trade,
A Spider heard the sighing maid,
And kindly stopping, in a trice,
Thus offered (gratis) her advice:–
“Turn, little girl, behold in me
A stimulus to industry;
Compare your woes, my dear, with mine,
Then tell me who should most repine;
This morning, ere you’d left your room,
The chambermaid’s relentless broom
In one sad moment that destroyed
To build which thousands were employed.
The shock was great, but as my life
I saved in the relentless strife,
I knew lamenting was in vain,
So patient went to work again;
By constant work a day or more,
My little mansion did restore.
And if each tear which you have shed
Had been a needleful of thread,
If every sigh of sad despair
Had been a stitch of proper care;
Closed would have been the luckless rent,
Nor thus the day have been misspent.
[Note: The Northcote fable is the same poem as in the JBR Collection above. Only the illustrations associated with the fable in the Northcote book are displayed here.]
Northcote (Aurelia And The Spider)
