‘DONKEY AND ITS SHADOW’ STORY!( Post No. 2442)

Compiled  by London swaminathan

Date: 30 December 2015

Post No. 2442

Time uploaded in London :– 9-28 AM

( Thanks for the Pictures  ) 

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

Speech Anecdotes

An Athenian crowd demonstrated impatience at a public assembly one day and hissed the orator Demosthenes (384- 322 BCE, Greece), refusing to hear him. He said that he had a short story to tell them and began,

“A certain youth hired an ass, in the summer time, to go from his home to Megara. At noon, when the sun was very hot, both who he hired the ass and the owner of the animal were desirous of sitting at the shade in the shade of the ass, and fell to thrusting one another away. The owner insisted that he had hired out only the ass and not the shadow. The other insisted as he had hired the ass, all that belonged to the ass was his.

Turning away, Demosthenes made as though to depart, but the mob, which had been piqued by the story, would not allow him to leave and insisted that he continue. He then turned upon them and demanded, “How is that you insist upon hearing the story of the shadow of the ass, and will not give an ear to the matters of great moment?” He was permitted to deliver the speech for which he had come. And the fine point of the ass and his shadow remains unsettled to this day.

Xxx

Mark Twain lost!

Chauncey Depew once played a trick on Mark Twain (1835—1910, American author, humourist)  on an occasion when they were both to speak at a banquet. Twain spoke first for 20 minutes and was received with great enthusiasm. When Depew’s turn came, immediately afterwards, he said, “Mr Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen, before this dinner, Mark Twain and I made an agreement to trade speeches. He has just delivered mine and I am grateful for the reception you have accorded it. I regret that I have lost his speech and cannot remember a thing he had to say.”

He sat down with much applause.

—-SUBHAM—-