A windy day in Cullercoats near Tynemouth in Northumberland, by American landscape artist and print-maker Winslow Homer (1836-1910). Homer spent 1881 to 1882 in Cullercoats, and on his return to the USA critics were agreed that his art had been significantly deepened and enriched by the experience.
A DISPUTE once arose between the Wind and the Sun which was the stronger of the two, and they agreed to put the point upon this issue: that whichever soonest made a traveller take off his cloak should be accounted the more powerful. The Wind began, and blew with all his might and main a blast, cold and fierce as a Thracian storm; but the stronger he blew the closer the traveller wrapped his cloak around him and the tighter he grasped it with his hands.
Then broke out the Sun: with his welcome beams he dispersed the vapour and the cold; the traveller felt the genial warmth, and as the sun shone brighter and brighter he sat down, overcome with the heat, and cast his cloak on the ground.
Thus the Sun was declared the conqueror, and it has ever been deemed that persuasion is better than force; and that the sunshine of a kind and gentle manner will sooner lay open a poor man’s heart than all the threatenings and force of blustering authority.
Précis
The wind and the sun once went head-to-head over which was the more powerful. First the wind tried to strip a traveller of his cloak, but he only clung to it more tightly. Then the sun took his turn, beaming so generously that the traveller laid his cloak aside willingly. Kindness, it seems, is stronger than force. (57 / 60 words)
