Short Studies on Great Subjects

J >> James Anthony Froude >> Short Studies on Great Subjects

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'Children, indeed!' said the Dog, 'when I have got men and women.
Children are well enough for foxes and wild creatures; refined dogs know
better; and, for doing--can't I stand on my toes? can't I dance? at
least, couldn't I before I was so fat?'

'Ah! I see everybody likes what he was bred to,' sighed the Cat. 'I was
bred to do nothing, and I must like that. Train the cat as the cat
should go, and the cat will be happy and ask no questions. Never seek
for impossibilities, Dog. That is the secret.'

'And you have spent a day in the woods to learn that,' said he. 'I could
have taught you that. Why, Cat, one day when you were sitting scratching
your nose before the fire, I thought you looked so pretty that I should
have liked to marry you; but I knew I couldn't, so I didn't make myself
miserable.'

The Cat looked at him with her odd green eyes. 'I never wished to marry
you, Dog; I shouldn't have presumed. But it was wise of you not to fret
about it. But, listen to me, Dog--listen. I met many creatures in the
wood, all sorts of creatures, beasts and birds. They were all happy;
they didn't find it a bore. They went about their work, and did it, and
enjoyed it, and yet none of them had the same story to tell. Some did
one thing, some another; and, except the Fox, each had got a sort of
notion of doing its duty. The Fox was a rogue; he said he was; but yet
he was not unhappy. His conscience never troubled him. Your work is
standing on your toes, and you are happy. I have none, and that is why I
am unhappy. When I came to think about it, I found every creature out in
the wood had to get its own living. I tried to get mine, but I didn't
like it, because I wasn't used to it; and as for knowing, the Fox, who
didn't care to know anything except how to cheat greater fools than
himself, was the cleverest fellow I came across. Oh! the Owl, Dog--you
should have heard the Owl. But I came to this, that it was no use trying
to know, and the only way to be jolly was to go about one's own business
like a decent Cat. Cats' business seems to be killing rabbits and
such-like; and it is not the pleasantest possible; so the sooner one is
bred to it the better. As for me, that have been bred to do nothing,
why, as I said before, I must try to like that; but I consider myself an
unfortunate Cat.'

'So don't I consider myself an unfortunate Dog,' said her companion.

'Very likely you do not,' said the Cat.

By this time their breakfast was come in. The Cat ate hers, the Dog did
penance for his; and if one might judge by the purring on the
hearth-rug, the Cat, if not the happiest of the two, at least was not
exceedingly miserable.

FABLES.

I.--THE LIONS AND THE OXEN.

Once upon a time a number of cattle came out of the desert to settle in
the broad meadows by a river. They were poor and wretched, and they
found it a pleasant exchange; except for a number of lions, who lived in
the mountains near, and who claimed a right, in consideration of
permitting the cattle to remain, to eat as many as they wanted among
them. The cattle submitted, partly because they were too weak to help
it, partly because the lions said it was the will of Jupiter; and the
cattle believed them. And so they went on for many ages, till at last,
from better feeding, the cattle grew larger and stronger, and multiplied
into great numbers; and at the same time, from other causes, the lions
had much diminished: they were fewer, smaller, and meaner-looking than
they had been; and except in their own opinion of themselves, and in
their appetites, which were more enormous than ever, there was nothing
of the old lion left in them.

One day a large ox was quietly grazing, when one of these lions came up,
and desired the ox to lie down, for he wanted to eat him. The ox raised
his head, and gravely protested; the lion growled; the ox was mild, yet
firm. The lion insisted upon his legal right, and they agreed to refer
the matter to Minos.

When they came into court, the lion accused the ox of having broken the
laws of the beasts. The lion was king, and the others were bound to
obey. Prescriptive usage was clearly on the lion's side. Minos called on
the ox for his defence.

The Ox said that, without consent of his own being asked, he had been
born into the meadow. He did not consider himself much of a beast, but,
such as he was, he was very happy, and gave Jupiter thanks. Now, if the
lion could show that the existence of lions was of more importance than
that of oxen in the eyes of Jupiter, he had nothing more to say; he was
ready to sacrifice himself. But this lion had already eaten a thousand
oxen. Lions' appetites were so insatiable that he was forced to ask
whether they were really worth what was done for them,--whether the life
of one lion was so noble that the lives of thousands of oxen were not
equal to it? He was ready to own that lions had always eaten oxen, but
lions when they first came to the meadow were a different sort of
creature, and they themselves, too (and the ox looked complacently at
himself), had improved since that time. Judging by appearances, though
they might be fallacious, he himself was quite as good a beast as the
lion. If the lions would lead lives more noble than oxen could live,
once more he would not complain. As it was, he submitted that the cost
was too great.

Then the Lion put on a grand face and tried to roar; but when he opened
his mouth he disclosed a jaw so drearily furnished that Minos laughed,
and told the ox it was his own fault if he let himself be eaten by such
a beast as that. If he persisted in declining, he did not think the lion
would force him.

II.--THE FARMER AND THE FOX.

A farmer, whose poultry-yard had suffered severely from the foxes,
succeeded at last in catching one in a trap. 'Ah, you rascal!' said he,
as he saw him struggling, 'I'll teach you to steal my fat geese!--you
shall hang on the tree yonder, and your brothers shall see what comes of
thieving!' The farmer was twisting a halter to do what he threatened,
when the fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before,
thought there could be no harm in trying whether it might not do him one
more good turn.

'You will hang me,' he said, 'to frighten my brother foxes. On the word
of a fox they won't care a rabbit-skin for it; they'll come and look at
me; but you may depend upon it, they will dine at your expense before
they go home again!'

'Then I shall hang you for yourself, as a rogue and a rascal,' said the
farmer.

'I am only what Nature, or whatever you call the thing, chose to make
me,' the Fox answered. 'I didn't make myself.'

'You stole my geese,' said the man.

'Why did Nature make me like geese, then?' said the Fox. 'Live and let
live; give me my share, and I won't touch yours; but you keep them all
to yourself.'

'I don't understand your fine talk,' answered the Farmer; 'but I know
that you are a thief, and that you deserve to be hanged.'

His head is too thick to let me catch him so, thought the Fox; I wonder
if his heart is any softer! 'You are taking away the life of a
fellow-creature,' he said; 'that's a responsibility--it is a curious
thing that life, and who knows what comes after it? You say I am a
rogue--I say I am not; but at any rate I ought not to be hanged--for if
I am not, I don't deserve it; and if I am, you should give me time to
repent!' I have him now, thought the Fox; let him get out if he can.

'Why, what would you have me do with you?' said the man.

'My notion is that you should let me go, and give me a lamb, or goose or
two, every month, and then I could live without stealing; but perhaps
you know better than me, and I am a rogue; my education may have been
neglected; you should shut me up, and take care of me, and teach me. Who
knows but in the end I may turn into a dog?'

'Very pretty,' said the Farmer; 'we have dogs enough, and more, too,
than we can take care of, without you. No, no, Master Fox, I have caught
you, and you shall swing, whatever is the logic of it. There will be one
rogue less in the world, anyhow.'

'It is mere hate and unchristian vengeance,' said the Fox.

'No, friend,' the Farmer answered, 'I don't hate you, and I don't want
to revenge myself on you; but you and I can't get on together, and I
think I am of more importance than you. If nettles and thistles grow in
my cabbage-garden, I don't try to persuade them to grow into cabbages. I
just dig them up. I don't hate them; but I feel somehow that they
mustn't hinder me with my cabbages, and that I must put them away; and
so, my poor friend, I am sorry for you, but I am afraid you must
swing.'

PARABLE OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE.

It was after one of those heavy convulsions which have divided era from
era, and left mankind to start again from the beginning, that a number
of brave men gathered together to raise anew from the ground a fresh
green home for themselves. The rest of the surviving race were
sheltering themselves amidst the old ruins, or in the caves on the
mountains, feeding on husks and shells; but these men with clear heads
and brave hearts ploughed and harrowed the earth, and planted seeds, and
watered them, and watched them; and the seeds grew and shot up with the
spring, but one was larger and fairer than the rest, and the other
plants seemed to know it, for they crawled along till they reached the
large one; and they gathered round it, and clung to it, and grew into
it; and soon they became one great stem, with branching roots feeding it
as from many fountains. Then the men got great heart in them when they
saw that, and they laboured more bravely, digging about it in the hot
sun, till at last it became great and mighty, and its roots went down
into the heart of the earth, and its branches stretched over all the
plain.

Then many others of mankind, when they saw the tree was beautiful, came
down and gathered under it, and those who had raised it received them
with open arms, and they all sat under its shade together, and gathered
its fruits, and made their homes there, rejoicing in its loveliness. And
ages passed away, and all that generation passed away, and still the
tree grew stronger and fairer, and their children's children watched it
age after age, as it lived on and flowered and seeded. And they said in
their hearts, the tree is immortal--it will never die. They took no care
of the seed; the scent of the flowers and the taste of the sweet fruit
was all they thought of: and the winds of heaven, and the wild birds,
and the beasts of the field caught the stray fruits and seed-dust, and
bore the seed away, and scattered it in far-off soils.

And by-and-by, at a great great age, the tree at last began to cease to
grow, and then to faint and droop: its leaves were not so thick, its
flowers were not so fragrant; and from time to time the night winds,
which before had passed away, and had been never heard, came moaning and
sighing among the branches. And the men for a while doubted and
denied--they thought it was the accident of the seasons; and then a
branch fell, and they said it was a storm, and such a storm as came but
once in a thousand years. At last there could be no doubt that the
leaves were thin and sere and scanty--that the sun shone through
them--that the fruit was tasteless. But the generation was gone away
which had known the tree in its beauty, and so men said it was always
so--its fruits were never better--its foliage never was thicker.

So things went on, and from time to time strangers would come among
them, and would say, Why are you sitting here under the old tree? there
are young trees grown of the seed of this tree, far away, more beautiful
than it ever was; see, we have brought you leaves and flowers to show
you. But the men would not listen. They were angry, and some they drove
away, and some they killed, and poured their blood round the roots of
the tree, saying, They have spoken evil of our tree; let them feed it
now with their blood. At last some of their own wiser ones brought out
specimens of the old fruits, which had been laid up to be preserved, and
compared them with the present bearing, and they saw that the tree was
not as it had been; and such of them as were good men reproached
themselves, and said it was their own fault. They had not watered it;
they had forgotten to manure it. So, like their first fathers, they
laboured with might and main, and for a while it seemed as if they might
succeed, and for a few years branches, which were almost dead when the
spring came round, put out some young green shoots again. But it was
only for a few years; there was not enough of living energy in the tree.
Half the labour which was wasted on it would have raised another nobler
one far away. So the men grew soon weary, and looked for a shorter way:
and some gathered up the leaves and shoots which the strangers had
brought, and grafted them on, if perhaps they might grow; but they could
not grow on a dying stock, and they, too, soon drooped and became as the
rest. And others said, Come, let us tie the preserved fruits on again;
perhaps they will join again to the stem, and give it back its life. But
there were not enough, for only a few had been preserved; so they took
painted paper and wax and clay, and cut sham leaves and fruits of the
old pattern, which for a time looked bright and gay, and the world, who
did not know what had been done, said--See, the tree is immortal: it is
green again. Then some believed, but many saw that it was a sham, and
liking better to bear the sky and sun, without any shade at all, than to
live in a lie, and call painted paper leaves and flowers, they passed
out in search of other homes. But the larger number stayed behind; they
had lived so long in falsehood that they had forgotten there was any
such thing as truth at all; the tree had done very well for them--it
would do very well for their children. And if their children, as they
grew up, did now and then happen to open their eyes and see how it
really was, they learned from their fathers to hold their tongues about
it. If the little ones and the weak ones believed, it answered all
purposes, and change was inconvenient. They might smile to themselves at
the folly which they countenanced, but they were discreet, and they
would not expose it. This is the state of the tree, and of the men who
are under it at this present time:--they say it still does very well.
Perhaps it does--but, stem and boughs and paper leaves, it is dry for
the burning, and if the lightning touches it, those who sit beneath will
suffer.

COMPENSATION.

One day an Antelope was lying with her fawn at the foot of the flowering
Mimosa. The weather was intensely sultry, and a Dove, who had sought
shelter from the heat among the leaves, was cooing above her head.

'Happy bird!' said the Antelope. 'Happy bird! to whom the air is given
for an inheritance, and whose flight is swifter than the wind. At your
will you alight upon the ground, at your will you sweep into the sky,
and fly races with the driving clouds; while I, poor I, am bound a
prisoner to this miserable earth, and wear out my pitiable life crawling
to and fro upon its surface.'

Then the Dove answered, 'It is sweet to sail along the sky, to fly from
land to land, and coo among the valleys; but, Antelope, when I have sate
above amidst the branches and watched your little one close its tiny
lips upon your breast, and feed its life on yours, I have felt that I
could strip off my wings, lay down my plumage, and remain all my life
upon the ground only once to know such blessed enjoyment.'

The breeze sighed among the boughs of the Mimosa, and a voice came
trembling out of the rustling leaves: 'If the Antelope mourns her
destiny, what should the Mimosa do? The Antelope is the swiftest among
the animals. It rises in the morning; the ground flies under its
feet--in the evening it is a hundred miles away. The Mimosa is feeding
its old age on the same soil which quickened its seed cell into
activity. The seasons roll by me and leave me in the old place. The
winds sway among my branches, as if they longed to bear me away with
them, but they pass on and leave me behind. The wild birds come and go.
The flocks move by me in the evening on their way to the pleasant
waters. I can never move. My cradle must be my grave.'

Then from below, at the root of the tree, came a voice which neither
bird, nor Antelope, nor tree had ever heard, as a Rock Crystal from its
prison in the limestone followed on the words of the Mimosa.

'Are ye all unhappy?' it said. 'If ye are, then what am I? Ye all have
life. You! O Mimosa, you! whose fair flowers year by year come again to
you, ever young, and fresh, and beautiful--you who can drink the rain
with your leaves, who can wanton with the summer breeze, and open your
breast to give a home to the wild birds, look at me and be ashamed. I
only am truly wretched.'

'Alas!' said the Mimosa, 'we have life, which you have not, it is true.
We have also what you have not, its shadow--death. My beautiful
children, which year by year I bring out into being, expand in their
loveliness only to die. Where they are gone I too shall soon follow,
while you will flash in the light of the last sun which rises upon the
earth.'

LONDON

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.

NEW-STREET SQUARE

Transcriber's Notes:

Page 67: popositions: typo for propositions. Corrected.

Page 118: seventeeth: typo for seventeenth. Corrected.

Page 198: assults: typo for assaults. Corrected.

Page 279: reely: typo for freely. Corrected.

Page 300: appal: alternate spelling for appall.

Page 301: doggrel: alternate spelling for doggerel.

Page 316: throughly: alternate spelling for thoroughly.

Page 322: ougly: alternate spelling for ugly.

Page 329: rommaging: alternate spelling for rummaging.

Page 330: carged: In 'a huge high-carged' [May mean high-charged as with
many weapons, or cargo, as heavy freight?]

Page 330: enterchanged: alternate spelling for interchanged.

Page 408: befal: alternate spelling for befall.

Page 440: wanton: probably means to frolic or move freely in this
context.

Page various: sate: alternate, archaic spelling for sat.

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