Krilof and His Fables/The Razors

As I was travelling, one day, I fell in with an acquaintance, and we spent the night in the same bed-room. As soon as I awake next morning, what do I hear? My friend is evidently in trouble. The night before, we had both gone to bed merry and free from care; but now my friend is entirely changed: he groans, he sighs, he mutters words of com plaining.

"What is the matter, my friend?" I cry. "You're not ill, I hope."

"Oh, no," he replies; "but I'm shaving."

"What! is that all?" I exclaim; and thereupon I get up ​and look at him. The strange fellow is making faces at himself in the looking-glass, with tears in his eyes, and looking as agonized all the time as if he were expecting to be flayed alive. When I had at last discovered the cause of such sufferings, I say to him, "It's no wonder, and it's entirely your own fault that you are so much hurt. Just look at those things of yours. They are more like carving-knives than razors: as to shaving with them, that is impossible. All you can do is to scrape yourself painfully with them."

"I must allow, brother," he replies, "that the razors are excessively blunt; how can I help knowing that? I'm not such a fool as all that. But I never use sharp ones, for fear of cutting myself."

"But I venture to assure you, my friend, that you will cut yourself much sooner with a blunt razor. With a sharp one you will shave yourself twice as safely; only you must know how to use it properly."

Are there not many, though they would be ashamed to own it, who are afraid of clever people, and are more ready to have fools about them?