Fable XVI A Gnat and a Bee
A Gnat, half starved with cold and hunger, went one frosty morning to a Bee-hive, to beg a charity; and offered to teach music in the Bee’s family, for her diet and lodging. The Bee very civilly desired to be excused: For, says she, I bring up all my children to my own trade, that they may be able to get their living by their industry; and I am sure I am right; for see what that music, which you would I teach my children, has brought you yourself to.
Morals
Industry ought to be diligently inculcated in the minds of children of all ranks and degrees; for who stands so sure as to say he is exempt from the vicissitudes of this uncertain life?
The wretch who works not for his daily bread,
Sighs and complains, but ought not to be fed.
Think, when you see stout beggars on their stand,
The lazy are the locusts of the land.
Reflection
The many unhappy persons whom we daily see singing up and down in order to divert other people, though with very heavy hearts of their own, should warn all those who have the education of children, how necessary it is to bring them up to industry and business, be their present prospects ever so hopeful; that so, upon any unexpected disaster, they might be able to turn their hands to a course which might procure them an honest livelihood.
The Gnat in the fable, we may further observe, is very like many inconsiderate persons in life. They gaily buz about in the summer of prosperity, and think of nothing but their present enjoyments: but when the winter of adversity comes, they poorly creep about, and supplicate the industrious inhabitants of every Bee-hive, charitably to relieve those wants which they have brought upon themselves; and often deservedly meet the repulse, and the sting, which the Bee gives to the Gnat in the fable. We have seen many a doted-on child, who has been brought up to singing, dancing, and all the gay delights of this world, and yet has been forced to shut up the last scene of a miserable life in want and beggary; which had been prevented, if they had been early taught the value of industry and independency, and the means, by the former, of attaining the latter.