A hare one day was thinking (for what else is there to do inside a nest but think?) and soon became depressed and anxious at the thought of his anxiety and sadness.
“How miserable a fearful person is!” he mused. “His pleasures all are tainted: food’s potential poison; friends seem foes; and sleep’s impossible without one open eye.
“‘Correct yourself,’ well-meaning sages tell me. ‘Pull yourself together.’ But I can’t! Advice, besides, seems admonition to the timid—only something else to fear!”
And while his mind thus gnawed itself, his ears were pricked and eyes were peeled; at every sough and every stir he started—till at last, a shifting shadow scaring him, he darted home to den.
Along the way he passed a pond, and saw, amazed, a group of skittish frogs leap splashing out of sight.
“I’ve done to them what others do to me!” he cried. “To think that even I, alone, can put to rout a camp—a company—an army! I’m a mastermind of war!
“Rejoice, my fellow cowards; realize there’s greater cowards still to terrorize!”