When the oliphaunt came to town, four blind people went to meet it, hoping it would impart understanding and their lives would be changed forever after. But because wisdom is limited to what one knows, and what one knows is often only what one thinks, they decided to meet afterward, share their experiences, and grow.
The first blind man by chance had approached the oliphaunt from the front. He had felt its large ears, like the wings of a bat; run fingers over its leathery face; and mourned the great deformity that had put a tail in its face. But he marveled at how gently the oliphaunt wrapped him in its arm, and at the cool water it could rain on him; and he knew he had met a noble beast.
"I can think of nothing uglier than it, but there is no mistaking its great and gentle heart," he said. "We should always set aside our misfortunes and treat those around us kindly."
The second blind man was surprised, because he had found the oliphaunt by a leg and concluded there had been four of them.
"They were broad, like trees; and they worked together, to hold aloft some burden that would have been too much for any one of them alone," he said. "And so it should be with us, always together."
The third was unimpressed. He had walked up behind the oliphaunt.
"It was like a rope. When I pulled it, it lashed me in the face so i fell to the ground and it dumped a pile
of excrement on me," he said. "It seems to me the lesson is to teach people a lesson when they bother you so they don't do it again.
And the fourth? She had walked under the oliphaunt, perceiving its presence but nothing of its shape. It seemed to her that there was nothing to the oliphaunt at all, and that was all the wisdom it had to offer as well.
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