Fables for the Frivolous

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Project Gutenberg's Fables for the Frivolous, by Guy Whitmore Carryl
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Title: Fables for the Frivolous
Author: Guy Whitmore Carryl
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6438]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on December 14, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE 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?=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-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 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,