Once upon a time around the garden was a hedge of hazelnut bushes, and beyond it were fields and meadows with cows and sheep. In the middle of the garden stood a flowering Rose Tree, and under it sat a Snail. It contained a lot: it contained itself.
"Wait until my time comes!" it said. "I shall accomplish something more than sending forth roses, bearing nuts or giving milk, as cows and sheep do."
I am expecting a great deal from you," said the Rose Tree. "But may I ask, when it's coming?" "I take my time," replied the Snail. "You are always in a such a hurry. You don't know how to raise people's interest by suspense".
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Good hearted, genuine, somewhat naive Rose Tree. It doesn't questioned Mr.Snail's creative abilities. In opposite, Rose " is expecting a great deal" from Snail who has GREAT ambitions. It is just wondering politely: "May I ask when it's coming? When it will, actually, appear?" Good question, isn't it? How often we are burning from desire to accomplish SOMETHING? Something special that indeed is much more than "cows and sheep do"? And what comes from the most of these ambitions? ...Let's continue to read the story.
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When the next year came, the Snail lay almost in the same spot, in the sunshine, under the Rose Tree.
The Rose Tree again was budding and sending forth roses - always fresh, always new.
The snail crawled half way out, stretched out its horns, and drew them back again.
"Everything looks the way it did last year! There has been no progress. The Rose Tree keeps on sending forth roses; it makes no further headway."
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Now, one year later, Snail still lay almost at the same spot, heavily criticizing what Rose Tree is doing. Why, why I am not surprised, dear Readers?
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And another year came.
"Now you are an old rose stock!" Snail said.
"It is so much clear and plain that you haven't done the slightest thing about your inner development, or you would have produced something else. No, you have not taken the trouble to consider anything. Have you ever given an account to yourself, why you bloomed, and how it is that your blooming comes about - why it is thus, and not otherwise?"
"No," answered the rosebush."I bloomed in gladness, because I could not do anything else. The sun shone and warmed me, and the air refreshed me. I drank the pure dew and the fresh rain, and I lived, I breathed. Out of the earth there arose power within me, from above there came down a strength: I perceived a new ever-increasing happiness, and consequently I was obliged to bloom over and over again; that was my life; I could not do otherwise".
"You have led a very easy and pleasant life", observed the snail.
"Certainly. Everything I have was handed to me!" said the rosebush. But even more was given to you! You are one of those deep thoughtful characters, one of those highly gifted spirits, which will cause the world to marvel."
"That has never crossed my mind at all", said the snail. "The world is of no concern to me! I have enough with myself and enough in myself".
"But shouldn't each one of us here on earth give the best we have to others, bring what we can? To be sure, I have only given roses - but you, you who have received so much, what have you given to the world? What are you giving to it?"
"What have I given? What I intend to give? I spit at it! It's worth nothing! It is of no concern to me! Continue to give your roses, if you like: you can't do anything better. Let the hazel bush bear nuts, and the cows and sheep give milk: they have their public; but I have mine within myself - I retire within myself, and there I remain. The world is nothing to me."
And the snail retired into his house, and closed up the entrance after him.
"That is very sad!" said the rosebush. "I cannot creep into myself, even if I wish it - I must always come out, come out in roses. They drop their petals that are blown away by the wind. And yet I saw how a rose was laid in the old lady's hymn-book, one of my roses was placed on the breast of the lovely young girl; and one was kissed by the lips of a child in a blissful joy. That did me good; it was a real blessing. This is my reminiscence, my life!"And the years went by. And the rosebush bloomed in innocence, while the snail lay and idled away its time in its house - the world did not concerned him. Suppose we begin the story again, and read it right through. It will never alter
