Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

V.

An elephant meeting a mouse, reproached him for not taking a proper interest in growth.

'It is all very well,' retorted the mouse, 'for people who haven't the capacity for anything better. Let them grow if they like; but I prefer toasted cheese.'

The stupid elephant, not being able to make very much sense of this remark, essayed, after the manner of persons worsted at repartee, to set his foot upon his clever conqueror. In point of fact, he did set his foot upon him, and there wasn't any more mouse.

The lesson imparted by this fable is open, palpable: mice and elephants look at things each after the manner of his kind; and when an elephant decides to occupy the standpoint of a mouse, it is unhealthy for the latter.

VI.

A wolf was slaking his thirst at a stream, when a lamb left the side of his shepherd, came down the creek to the wolf, passed round him with considerable ostentation, and began drinking below.

'I beg you to observe,' said the lamb, 'that water does not commonly run uphill; and my sipping here cannot possibly defile the current where you are, even supposing my nose were no cleaner than yours, which it is. So you have not the flimsiest pretext for slaying me.'

'I am not aware, sir,' replied the wolf, 'that I require a pretext for loving chops; it never occurred to me that one was necessary.'

And he dined upon that lambkin with much apparent satisfaction.

This fable ought to convince any one that of two stories very similar one needs not necessarily be a plagiarism.

VII.

An old gentleman sat down, one day, upon an acorn, and finding it a very comfortable seat, went soundly to sleep. The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly, that when the sleeper awoke he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak, sixty feet from the ground.

'Ah!' said he, 'I am fond of having an extended view of any landscape which happens to please my fancy; but this one does not seem to possess that merit. I think I will go home.'

It is easier to say go home than to go.

'Well, well!' he resumed, 'if I cannot compel circumstances to my will, I can at least adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain. 'Life'-as a certain eminent philosopher in England wilt say, whenever there shall be an England to say it in-'is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences.' I have, fortunately, a few years of this before me yet; and I suppose I can permit my surroundings to alter me into anything I choose.'

And he did; but what a choice!

I should say that the lesson hereby imparted is one of contentment combined with science. 

VIII.

 A caterpillar had crawled painfully to the top of a hop-pole, and not finding anything there to interest him, began to think of descending.

'Now,' soliloquized he, 'if I only had a pair of wings, I should be able to manage it very nicely.'

So saying, he turned himself about to go down, but the heat of his previous exertion, and that of the sun, had by this time matured him into a butterfly.

'Just my luck!' he growled, 'I never wish for anything without getting it. I did not expect this when I came out this morning, and have nothing prepared. But I suppose I shall have to stand it.'

So he spread his pinions and made for the first open flower he saw. But a spider happened to be spending the summer in that vegetable, and it was not long before Mr. Butterfly was wishing himself back atop of that pole, a simple caterpillar.

He had at last the pleasure of being denied a desire.

Hæc fabula docet that it is not a good plan to call at houses without first ascertaining who is at home there.

IX.

It is related of a certain Tartar priest that, being about to sacrifice a pig, he observed tears in the victim's eyes.

'Now, I'd like to know what is the matter with you?' he asked.

'Sir,' replied the pig, 'if your penetration were equal to that of the knife you hold, you would know without inquiring; but I don't mind telling you. I weep because I know I shall be badly roasted.'

'Ah,' returned the priest, meditatively, having first killed the pig, 'we are all pretty much alike: it is the bad roasting that frightens us. Mere death has no terrors.'

From this narrative learn that even priests sometimes get hold of only half a truth.

X.

A dog being very much annoyed by bees, ran, quite accidentally, into an empty barrel lying on the ground, and looking out at the bung-hole, addressed his tormenters thus:

'Had you been temperate, stinging me only one at a time, you might have got a good deal of fun out of me. As it is, you have driven me into a secure retreat; for I can snap you up as fast as you come in through the bung- hole. Learn from this the folly of intemperate zeal.'

When he had concluded, he awaited a reply. There wasn't any reply; for the bees had never gone near the bung-hole; they went in the same way as he did, and made it very warm for him.

The lesson of this fable is that one cannot stick to his pure reason while quarrelling with bees.

XI.

A fox and a duck having quarrelled about the ownership of a frog, agreed to refer the dispute to a lion. After