freckles of the girl he had been seeing in his mind. The young
man, still in the habit of blurting out his first impression, said,
"Gosh, you've changed."
"No," said his new wife. "The only thing that's changed is that now
you can see. Oh, and you no longer have a bump on your nose."
"But where's your blonde hair?" the young man asked.
"My hair has always been this color," the girl said, fingering her
chestnut tresses.
"But you look so different," the young man said, still confused.
"When you looked at me before," the girl explained, "you saw only
your imagination. This is what I'm really like."
"I see," said the young man, as he embraced her and began to give
her a thousand kisses.
"I know," she said.
A Traditional Story
Once upon a time, several time zones from your house, there lived a
king who had tons of money, mansions and castles on too many lots,
plenty of art and cultural treasures, dozens of wives (some of whom
loved him), and so much power that the mere mention of his name
caused cardiac arrest among a considerable number of his subjects.
But--he was not happy. So he called his advisors to him to seek
their advice.
"My soul troubles me," he told his court. "I have seemingly a full
life, but I do not find happiness here. In the middle of an
amusement, or when I wake at night, or as I take a bite of rare and
delicious food, I feel an overcast sky in my heart. Help me to
dispel this cloud."
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he had more wealth,"
suggested his treasurer. So the king increased the taxes on his
people, hired traders to go to distant lands to buy and sell, told
his workers to redouble their efforts in his precious metals mines
and minted more coins than ever. It wasn't long before the king had
so many storehouses full of treasure that he couldn't even count them.
On many an occasion his majesty would be riding through a city and
see a huge building he didn't recognize, and upon inquiry, discover
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