Krilof and His Fables/The Nobleman and the Philosopher
The Nobleman and the Philosopher.
A Nobleman chatting with a Sage during an idle hour about one thing and the other, said,
"Tell me, you who thoroughly know the world, and read the hearts of people like a book, how is it that, whenever we lay the foundation of an assembly or a learned society, we scarcely have time to take a look around us, before the blockheads manage to worm themselves in among the first comers? Is it possible that absolutely no remedy exists against them?"
"I think not," replied the Sage. "The fate of learned societies is the same, between ourselves, as that of houses made of wood."
"How so?"
"Why, this way. I have just now finished building one for myself. Its proprietors have not yet moved into it, but the crickets have ever so long ago taken up their quarters in it."
