L'Estrange: An Eagle and a Tortoise.

A Tortoise was thinking with himself how irksome a sort of a Life it was, to spend all his Days in a Hole, with a House upon his Head, when so many other Creatures had the Liberty to divert themselves in the free, fresh Air, and to ramble about at Pleasure. So that the Humour took him one Day, and he must needs get an Eagle to teach him to fly. The Eagle would fain have put him off, and told him, 'twas a Thing against Nature and common Sense; but (according to a Freak of the wilful Part of the World) the more the One was against it, the more the Other was for it: And when the Eagle saw that the Tortoise would not be said Nay, she took him up a matter of a Steeple-high into the Air, and there turn'd him loose to shift for himself. That is to say, she dropt him down, Squab, upon a Rock, that dash'd him to Pieces.

Nothing can be either safe, or easy, that's unnatural.

Source: L'Estrange 220.

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