Informational.ca| Informational.ca | Privacy |
| Home - Collection of Stories - Famous Stories - Short Stories - Wales Poetry |
Famous StoriesThe Endless TaleIn the Far East there was a great king who had no work to d... The Brave Three Hundred All Greece was in danger. A mighty army, led by the great K... The Blind Men And The Elephant There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side ev... Whittington And His Cat The City There was once a little boy whose name was Rich... The White Ship King Henry, the Handsome Scholar, had one son, named Willia... Doctor Goldsmith There was once a kind man whose name was Oliver Gold-smith.... The Story Of Regulus On the other side of the sea from Rome there was once a gre... Sir Walter Raleigh There once lived in England a brave and noble man whose nam... He Never Smiled Again The bark that held the prince went down, The sweep... The Inchcape Rock In the North Sea there is a great rock called the Inch-cape... Antonio Canova A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy who... A Laconic Answer Many miles beyond Rome there was a famous country which we ... The Ungrateful Guest Among the soldiers of King Philip there was a poor man who ... Three Men Of Gotham There is a town in England called Go-tham, and many merry s... Sir Philip Sidney A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered wit... Damon And Pythias A young man whose name was Pyth'i-as had done something whi... Maximilian And The Goose Boy One summer day King Max-i-mil'ian of Ba-va'ri-a was walking... The Story Of Cincinnatus There was a man named Cin-cin-na'tus who lived on a little ... Picciola Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of... The Barmecide Feast There was once a rich old man who was called the Bar-me-cid... |
A LACONIC ANSWERMany miles beyond Rome there was a famous country which we call Greece. The people of Greece were not u-nit-ed like the Romans; but instead there were sev-er-al states, each of which had its own rulers. Some of the people in the southern part of the country were called Spar-tans, and they were noted for their simple habits and their brav-er-y. The name of their land was La-co'ni-a, and so they were sometimes called La-cons. One of the strange rules which the Spartans had, was that they should speak briefly, and never use more words than were needed. And so a short answer is often spoken of as being _la-con-ic_; that is, as being such an answer as a Lacon would be likely to give. There was in the northern part of Greece a land called Mac'e-don; and this land was at one time ruled over by a war-like king named Philip. Philip of Mac-e-don wanted to become the master of all Greece. So he raised a great army, and made war upon the other states, until nearly all of them were forced to call him their king. Then he sent a letter to the Spartans in La-co-ni-a, and said, "If I go down into your country, I will level your great city to the ground." In a few days, an answer was brought back to him. When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there. That word was "IF." It was as much as to say, "We are not afraid of you so long as the little word 'if' stands in your way." Next: THE UNGRATEFUL GUEST Previous: DAMON AND PYTHIAS
Viewed 474 |
||||||||||||||||||||
