Krilof and His Fables/The Stone and the Worm
The Stone and the Worm.
"What a fuss every one is making! How wanting in manners!" observed, with respect to a shower, a Stone which lay in a field. "Have the kindness to look. Every one is delighted with it. They have longed for it as if it were the best of guests; but what is it that it has done? It has come for a couple of hours or so—no more. But they should make a few inquiries about me. Why I have lain here for centuries. Modest and unassuming, I lie quietly where I am thrown. And yet I have never heard from a single person so much as a 'Thank you!' It is not without reason that the world gets reviled. I cannot see a grain of justice anywhere in it."
"Hold your tongue!" exclaimed a Worm. "This shower, brief as it has been, has abundantly watered the fields, which were being rendered sterile by the drought, and has revived the hopes of the farmer. But you contribute nothing to the ground but a useless weight."
Thus many a man will boast of having served the state for forty years; but as for being useful, he has never been a bit more so than the Stone.