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Horace Elisha Scudder

The Astrologer

An Astrologer was wont to go out every evening and gaze at the stars. Now it happened once that his walk took him outside of the town, and as he was looking up with all his eyes to the sky, he did not notice where he was going, and fell into a ditch. He was in a sorry plight at set up a cry, whereupon some one passing by heard his groans, and came up to him; when the stranger heard what had happened, he said to him: "Sir, you who are trying to make out things in the sky, don’t you see what is on the earth?"

One might apply this word to those who pretend to teach men extraordinary things, but are quite unable to attend to the most common affairs.