THE STORY OF THE GOLDFISH
THE STORY OF THE GOLDFISH
M
MANY thousand years ago two goldfish lived in the fountain of an Indian princess. The marble court was a mass of color with its great pots of marigolds bathed in sunshine. Lord and Lady Goldfish had everything they could wish for. Their carved alabaster basin-home was known far and wide in birdland, for nowhere could one get such a gloriously cool bath in the early dawn as in the courtyard with its pavement of many-colored marbles. But, with all this, His Lordship had discontent and envy in his heart. He envied the birds their flight throughthe air. He envied the Princess her green jade bracelets, that reflected the sun, the sky, and the water, and so spent his hours in a state of unrest. But his little wife lived her life happily content, performing all her duties and fulfilling her destiny as ordained, and at the end passing on to a higher stage, working that out, then passing on to higher and still higher stages, until at last she became a human soul in the form of a happy little child.
One day the child was taken very ill, and this brought sadness to many hearts. Her illness was long and painful and made her too weak for play, so for hours she lay watching a pretty goldfish swimming in his bowl. During the long, dreary days and nights His Lordship (for it was none other) toldher of his presence, and repented of his discontent and envy, for it kept him always in the same stage. He never improved or advanced, but each reincarnation came back to learn the same lesson.
One long night, as the little child lay wakeful, full of pain and suffering, she remembered him. Away back in her mind she saw the Indian garden and the slender, dusky Princess in her dainty robes and tinkling silver anklets, the happy birds, the marigolds, and the china-blue sky. Her heart was filled with pity for His Lordship, and during the still of the night her beautiful white soul imparted to him a knowledge of the folly of his ways, and pointed out the path of progress to happiness. When morning came, it brought peace to thepain-racked body, for the soul had flown to a higher and better world. And as the morning sun flooded the room with its golden light, a kindly ray fell on His Lordship floating on the surface of the water, his pretty tail and fins all limp. He too had passed on, making his first upward advance in the long chain of lives toward the perfect soul that was awaiting him.