Fables for the Frivolous

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Title: Fables for the Frivolous
Author: Guy Whitmore Carryl
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FABLES FOR

THE FRIVOLOUS ***
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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-a-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 elite
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