TWO purple pansies opened their velvet-like leaves one summer morning, but on looking around them saw that they had not the garden-bed alone. On one side a clump of crimson poppies towered above their heads, and on the other some tall golden lilies were nodding in the breeze.

When the lowly pansies saw their lofty neighbors, the joy which at first they felt in their new being quickly waned. They looked up enviously, first at the poppies, and then at the lilies, saying to one another,

“Between these haughty flowers, there is nothing left us but to hang our heads in shame.”

Just then the gardener passing by, they cried,

“Take us from here, we pray you, and plant us in a bed of flowers yet lowlier than ourselves.”

“And why do you ask this change?” he said.

“Do you not see,” they replied, “how our gorgeous neighbors overshadow us, and by contrast how poor and mean we seem?”

“Then it is nothing but pride,” the gardener answered, “that prompts the request: you would be to others what these gorgeous neighbors are to you. Be satisfied rather to remain where you are. And know that it is not for the glory of the flower its place in the garden is chosen, yet its greatest beauty may be attained where it stands in fulfilling my design.”

A desire to be the greatest as well as a willingness to be least may lead us to choose our place in a lower sphere.