The Best and Worst of Tongues
Xanthus, expecting some friends to dine with him, ordered his servant Æsop to provide the best things the market could supply. Course after course was served, each consisting of tongue. "Did I not order you," said Xanthus, in a violent passion, to buy the best victuals the market afforded?" "And have I not obeyed your orders?" said Æsop. "Is there anything better than a tongue? Is not the tongue the bond of civil society, the organ of truth and reason, and the instrument of our praise and adoration of the gods?" Xanthus ordered him to go again on the morrow, and buy the worst things he could find. Æsop went, and again he purchased tongues, which were served as before. "What! not tongues again!" exclaimed Xanthus. "Certainly," rejoined Æsop; "the tongue is surely the worst thing in the world. It is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor of lawsuits, and the source of division and wars; it is the organ of error, of lies, calumny, and blasphemies."—Sel.