"Andrew On Prostitutes" 
by Gibran Khalil Gibran 

THE STATUE

Once there lived a man among the hills who possessed a statue wrought by an ancient
master. It lay at his door face downward and he was not mindful of it. One day there
passed by his house a man from the city, a man of knowledge, and seeing the statue he
inquired of the owner if he would sell it. The owner laughed and said, "And pray who
would want to buy that dull and dirty stone?" 

The man from the city said, "I will give you this piece of silver for it." And the other man
was astonished and delighted. The statue was removed to the city, upon the back of and
elephant. And after many moons the man from the hills visited the city, and as he
walked the streets he saw a crowd before a shop, and a man with a loud voice was
crying, "Come ye in and behold the most beautiful, the most wonderful statue in all the
world. Only two silver pices to look upon this most marvelous work of a master." 

Thereupon the man from the hills paid two silver pieces and entered the shop to see the
statue that he himself had sold for one spice of silver.