BEGIN WITH A SPARK A village blacksmith’s assistant once visited a large town and sought the local blacksmith. He observed that the workers there used a bellows to fan the flames in the forge. The bellows were much more efficient that the exhausting manual fanning which he did back in his master’s shop. He promptly bought a bellows, returned to his master with great enthusiasm, and informed him that there was no longer any need for them to exhaust themselves fanning the flames. He then set out to demonstrate the magic of the bellows, but alas regardless of how vigorously he pumped them, no flames appeared. "I don’t understand it," he exclaimed. "In town, I saw with my own eyes the huge flames produced by the bellows." "Did you first light a small fire?" asked the master smith. "No," the assistant replied. "I just pumped the bellows like they did in the city." "You fool!" the blacksmith said. "The bellows can only increase the size of the flame when you begin it with a spark. When you have no spark or fire, all the pumping of the bellows is of no use."
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 01:00:32 +0000
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