Goldsmith’s Golden Heart
Goldsmith’s Golden Heart
Oliver Goldsmith was a great English essayist, a novelist, and a writer of dramas, too. He was very kind-hearted man. He loved children and was always ready to help the weak and the meek.
Oliver Goldsmith studied medicine in his youth, so that he might become a doctor, but later, he did not practice as a doctor. A poor woman, whose husband was ill, having heard how kind-hearted the poet was, went to him and said, “Sir, my husband is very sick. I am unable to get a doctor to attend on him, because I have no money to pay him. Can you once come and see him, Sir?”
Goldsmith went to the house with the old woman and found that the patient was very weak. He looked around and saw no fire, nor any sign of having taken meals for days and not even a piece of cloth to cover the old man’s body. After some conversation, he left the house saying, “Mother, I will send a few pills, which you must give to the patient.”
He went home and put ten guineas into a small box and put a label on the box, on which he wrote, “One has to be used to buy bread, milk, and coal. Be patient and be hopeful.”
A messenger was sent off with the box, which the sick man found to contain the remedy better than doctor’s drugs.
In a few weeks, the old man was able to visit the doctor and thank him for his timely help.
Questions :
- Who is Goldsmith?
- What was the patient suffering from?
- What was the medicine given by the doctor?
- What is the moral of the story?
[Source – Stories for Children – II, Published by – Sri Sathya Sai Books & Publications Trust, Prashanti Nilayam]