The Talking Beasts | Page 3

nothing persists so strongly and lives so long as a fable or folk tale.
They migrate like the birds and make their way into every corner of the
world where there are lips to speak and ears to hear. The reasons are,

perhaps, because they are generally brief; because they are simple;
because they are trenchant and witty; because they are fresh and
captivating and have a bite to them like the tang of salt water; because
they are strong and vital, and what is thoroughly alive in the beginning
always lives longest.
And, now we come to La Fontaine the French fabulist, who in 1668
published the first six books of his fables. "Bonhomme La Fontaine," as
he was called, chose his subjects from Aesop and Phaedrus and Horace,
and, in the later volumes, from such Oriental sources as may have been
within his reach. He rendered the old tales in easy-flowing verse, full of
elegance and charm, and he composed many original ones besides. La
Bruyere says of him: "Unique in his way of writing, always original
whether he invents or translates, he surpasses his models and is himself
a model difficult to imitate. . . . He instructs while he sports, persuades
men to virtue by means of beasts, and exalts trifling subjects to the
sublime."
Voltaire asserts: "I believe that of all authors La Fontaine is the most
universally read. He is for all minds and all ages."
Later, by a hundred years, than La Fontaine, comes Krilof, the Russian
fable-maker, who was born in 1768. After failing in many kinds of
literary work the young poet became intimate with a certain Prince
Sergius Galitsin; lived in his house at Moscow, and accompanied him
to his country place in Lithuania, where he taught the children of his
host and devised entertainments for the elders. He used often to spend
hours in the bazaars and streets and among the common people, and it
was in this way probably that he became so familiar with the peasant
life of the country. When he came back from his wanderings on the
banks of the Volga he used to mount to the village belfry, where he
could write undisturbed by the gnats and flies, and the children found
him there one day fast asleep among the bells. A failure at forty, with
the publication of his first fables in verse he became famous, and for
many years he was the most popular writer in Russia. He died in 1844
at the age of seventy-six, his funeral attended by such crowds that the
great church of St. Isaac could not hold those who wished to attend the

service. Soon after, a public subscription was raised among all the
children of Russia, who erected a monument in the Summer Garden at
Moscow.
There the old man sits in bronze, as he used to sit at his window, clad in
his beloved dressing gown, an open book in his hand.
Around the monument (says his biographer) a number of children are
always at play, and the poet seems to smile benignly on them from his
bronze easy chair. Perhaps the Grecian children of long ago played
about Aesop's statue in Athens, for Lysippus the celebrated sculptor
designed and erected a monument in his memory.
Read Krilof's "Education of a Lion" and "The Lion and the
Mosquitoes" while his life is fresh in your mind. Then turn to "What
Employment our Lord Gave to Insects" and "How Sense was
Distributed," in the quaint African fables. Glance at "The Long-tailed
Spectacled Monkey" and "The Tune that Made the Tiger Drowsy," so
full of the very atmosphere of India. Then re-read some old favourite of
Aesop and imagine you are hearing his voice, or that of some Greek
story-teller of his day, ringing down through more than two thousand
years of time.
There is a deal of preaching in all these fables,--that cannot be
denied,--but it is concealed as well as possible. It is so disagreeable for
people to listen while their faults and follies, their foibles and failings,
are enumerated, that the fable-maker told his truths in story form and
thereby increased his audience. Preaching from the mouths of animals
is not nearly so trying as when it comes from the pulpit, or from the lips
of your own family and friends!
Whether or not our Grecian and Indian, African and Russian
fable-makers have not saddled the animals with a few more faults than
they possess--just to bolster up our pride in human nature--I sometimes
wonder; but the result has been beneficial. The human rascals and
rogues see themselves clearly reflected in the doings of the jackals,
foxes, and wolves and may get some little distaste for lying, deceit and
trickery.

We make few fables now-a-days. We might