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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

279. THE PIECE OF DRIFTWOOD
Perry 177 (Chambry 258 *)

Some men were making their way along the beach and reached a lookout point. From there, they could see a piece of driftwood floating far off in the distance, and they thought that it must be an enormous ship. They waited for a long time, thinking that the ship would put in to shore nearby. As the driftwood was blown closer to shore by the wind, they kept on waiting, but they no longer thought it was a great ship as before; they were now expecting some kind of smaller boat. As it was carried in even closer, they saw that it was just a piece of driftwood. The men then said to one another, 'How foolish of us! We had high expectations for something that was actually nothing.'
The same is true of people. Often we are in awe of someone whom we have never even seen, but when we get to know him, we realize that he is really not important at all.

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.