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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FABLES FOR THE FRIVOLOUS *** Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. The scans for this book are from the Michigan State University Online Digital Collection http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/collection.cfm?CID=3




 FABLES FOR THE FRIVOLOUS

(With Apologies to La Fontaine)

 By GUY WETMORE CARRYL

With Illustrations by Peter Newell


1898



  FABLES FOR THE FRIVOLOUS


TO
MY FATHER

NOTE:
I have pleasure in acknowledging the courteous permission
the editors to reprint in this form such of the following fables
were originally published in Harper's periodicals, in Life,
and Munsey's Magazine.                                             
                                                                G. W. C.




CONTENTS

THE AMBITIOUS FOX AND THE UNAPPROACHABLE GRAPES

THE PERSEVERING TORTOISE AND THE PRETENTIOUS HARE

THE PATRICIAN PEACOCKS AND THE OVERWEENING JAY

THE ARROGANT FROG AND THE SUPERIOR BULL

THE DOMINEERING EAGLE AND THE INVENTIVE BRATLING

THE ICONOCLASTIC RUSTIC AND THE APROPOS ACORN

THE UNUSUAL GOOSE AND THE IMBECILIC WOODCUTTER

THE RUDE RAT AND THE UNOSTENTATIOUS OYSTER

THE URBAN RAT AND THE SUBURBAN RAT

THE IMPECUNIOUS CRICKET AND THE FRUGAL ANT

THE PAMPERED LAPDOG AND THE MISGUIDED ASS

THE VAINGLORIOUS OAK AND THE MODEST BULRUSH

THE INHUMAN WOLF AND THE LAMB SANS GENE

THE SYCOPHANTIC FOX AND THE GULLIBLE RAVEN

THE MICROSCOPIC TROUT AND THE MACHIAVELIAN FISHERMAN

THE CONFIDING PEASANT AND THE MALADROIT BEAR

THE PRECIPITATE COCK AND THE UNAPPRECIATED PEARL

THE ABBREVIATED FOX AND HIS SCEPTICAL COMRADES

THE HOSPITABLE CALEDONIAN AND THE THANKLESS VIPER

THE IMPETUOUS BREEZE AND THE DIPLOMATIC SUN




ILLUSTRATIONS

"THE FOX RETREATED OUT OF RANGE"

"HE STROVE TO GROW ROTUNDER"

"AN ACORN FELL ABRUPTLY"

"SAID SHE, 'GET UP, YOU BRUTE YOU!'"

"'J'ADMIRE,' SAID HE, 'TON BEAU PLUMAGE'"

"AND SO A WEIGHTY ROCK SHE AIMED"





THE AMBITIOUS FOX

AND

THE UNAPPROACHABLE GRAPES

  A farmer built around his crop
    A wall, and crowned his labors
  By placing glass upon the top
    To lacerate his neighbors,
       Provided they at any time
       Should feel disposed the wall to climb.

  He also drove some iron pegs
    Securely in the coping,
  To tear the bare, defenceless legs
    Of brats who, upward groping,
       Might steal, despite the risk of fall,
       The grapes that grew upon the wall.

  One day a fox, on thieving bent,
    A crafty and an old one,
  Most shrewdly tracked the pungent scent
    That eloquently told one
       That grapes were ripe and grapes were good
       And likewise in the neighborhood.

  He threw some stones of divers shapes
    The luscious fruit to jar off:
  It made him ill to see the grapes
    So near and yet so far off.
       His throws were strong, his aim was fine,
       But "Never touched me!" said the vine.

  The farmer shouted, "Drat the boys!"
    And, mounting on a ladder,
  He sought the cause of all the noise;
    No farmer could be madder,
      Which was not hard to understand
      Because the glass had cut his hand.

  His passion he could not restrain,
    But shouted out, "You're thievish!"
  The fox replied, with fine disdain,
    "Come, country, don't be peevish."
       (Now "country" is an epithet
       One can't forgive, nor yet forget.)

  The farmer rudely answered back
    With compliments unvarnished,
  And downward hurled the bric-à-brac
    With which the wall was garnished,
       In view of which demeanor strange,
       The fox retreated out of range.

  "I will not try the grapes to-day,"
    He said. "My appetite is
  Fastidious, and, anyway,
    I fear appendicitis."
       (The fox was one of the élite
      Who call it site instead of seet.)

  The moral is that if your host
    Throws glass around his entry
  You know it isn't done by most
    Who claim to be the gentry,
       While if he hits you in the head
       You may be sure he's underbred.






THE PERSEVERING TORTOISE

AND

THE PRETENTIOUS HARE
 
  Once a turtle, finding plenty
    In seclusion to bewitch,
  Lived a dolce far niente
    Kind of life within a ditch;
  Rivers had no charm for him,
    As he told his wife and daughter,
  "Though my friends are in the swim,
    Mud is thicker far than water."

  One fine day, as was his habit,
    He was dozing in the sun,
  When a young and flippant rabbit
    Happened by the ditch to run:
  "Come and race me," he exclaimed,
    "Fat inhabitant of puddles.
  Sluggard! You should be ashamed.
    Such a life the brain befuddles."

  This, of course, was banter merely,
    But it stirred the torpid blood
  Of the turtle, and severely
    Forth he issued from the mud.
  "Done!" he cried. The race began,
    But the hare resumed his banter,
  Seeing how his rival ran
    In a most unlovely canter.

  Shouting, "Terrapin, you're bested!
    You'd be wiser, dear old chap,
  If you sat you down and rested
    When you reach the second lap."
  Quoth the turtle, "I refuse.
    As for you, with all your talking,
  Sit on any lap you choose.
    I shall simply go on walking."

  Now this sporting proposition
    Was, upon its face, absurd;
  Yet the hare, with expedition,
    Took the tortoise at his word,
  Ran until the final lap,
    Then, supposing he'd outclassed him,
  Laid him down and took a nap
    And the patient turtle passed him!

  Plodding on, he shortly made the
    Line that marked the victor's goal;
  Paused, and found he'd won, and laid the
    Flattering unction to his soul.
  Then in fashion grandiose,
    Like an after-dinner speaker,
  Touched his flipper to his nose,
    And remarked, "Ahem! Eureka!"

  And THE MORAL (lest you miss one)
    Is: There's often time to spare,
  And that races are (like this one)
    Won not always by a hair.



THE PATRICIAN PEACOCKS

AND

THE OVERWEENING JAY

  Once a flock of stately peacocks
    Promenaded on a green,
  There were twenty-two or three cocks,
    Each as proud as seventeen,
  And a glance, however hasty,
    Showed their plumage to be tasty;
  Wheresoever one was placed, he
    Was a credit to the scene.

  Now their owner had a daughter
    Who, when people came to call,
  Used to say, "You'd reelly oughter
    See them peacocks on the mall."
  Now this wasn't to her credit,
    And her callers came to dread it,
  For the way the lady said it
    Wasn't recherché at all.

  But a jay that overheard it
    From his perch upon a fir
  Didn't take in how absurd it
    Was to every one but her;
  When they answered, "You don't tell us!"
    And to see the birds seemed zealous
  He became extremely jealous,
    Wishing, too, to make a stir.

  As the peacocks fed together
    He would join them at their lunch,
  Culling here and there a feather
    Till he'd gathered quite a bunch;
  Then this bird, of ways perfidious,
    Stuck them on him most fastidious
  Till he looked uncommon hideous,
    Like a Judy or a Punch.

  But the peacocks, when they saw him,
    One and all began to haul,
  And to harry and to claw him
    Till the creature couldn't crawl;
  While their owner's vulgar daughter,
    When her startled callers sought her,
  And to see the struggle brought her,
    Only said, "They're on the maul."

  It was really quite revolting
    When the tumult died away,
  One would think he had been moulting
    So dishevelled was the jay;
  He was more than merely slighted,
    He was more than disunited,
  He'd been simply dynamited
    In the fervor of the fray.

  And THE MORAL of the verses
    Is: That short men can't be tall.
  Nothing sillier or worse is
    Than a jay upon a mall.
  And the jay opiniative
    Who, because he's imitative,
  Thinks he's highly decorative
    Is the biggest jay of all.




THE ARROGANT FROG

AND

THE SUPERIOR BULL

  Once, on a time and in a place
   
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