Four Fables
I.—The Stopped Clock
Once upon a time there was a discredited politician whose nostrums no longer took any one in. And being thrown out of office he wandered about, seeking, like many men before him, for comfort and consolation among his inferiors. These, however, failing him, he passed on to the lower animals, and from them to the inanimate, until he came one day to a clock which, the works having been removed, consisted only of a case, a face, and two hands.
“Ha,” said the politician, as he stood before it, “at last I have found something beyond question and argument more useless than myself. For you, my friend, are done. I, at any rate, still have life and movement. I can speak and act; I have a function still to perform in the world; whereas you are a mockery and a sham.”
“Kindly,” the clock replied, “refrain from associating me with yourself. I decline the comparison. Lifeless I may be, but not useless. For two separate moments every day I am absolutely right, and for some minutes approximately right; whereas you, sir, are, have been, and will be, consistently wrong.”
II.—Truth and Another
She came towards me rather dubiously, as though not sure of her reception.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Truth,” she said.
I apologized for not having realized it.
“Never mind,” she said wearily, “hardly anyone knows me. I’m always having to explain who I am, and lots of people don’t understand then.”
A little later I met her again.
“Well I shan’t make any mistake this time,” I said. “How are you, Miss Truth?”
“You are misinformed,” she replied coldly; “my name is Libel.”
“But you’re exactly like Truth,” I exclaimed—“exactly!”
“Hush!” she said.
III.—The Exemplar
Once upon a time there was a little boy who had a fit of naughtiness. He refused to obey his nurse and was, as she said afterwards, that obstreperous that her life for about half an hour was a burden. At last, just as she was in despair, a robin fluttered to the window-sill of the nursery and perched on it, peeping in.
“There,” said the nurse, “look at that dear little birdie come to see what all the trouble’s about. He’s never refused to have his face washed and made clean, I know. I’d be ashamed to cry and scream before a little pretty innocent like that, that I would.”
Now this robin, as it happened, was a poisonously wicked little bird. He was greedy and jealous and spiteful. He continually fought other and weaker birds and took away their food; he pecked sparrows and tyrannized over tits. He habitually ate too much; and quite early in life he had assisted his brothers and sisters in putting both their parents to death.
None the less the spectacle of his pretty red breast and bright eye shamed and soothed the little boy so that he became quite good again.
IV.—The Good Man and Cupid
There was once a good and worthy man, a minister of the gospel and an altruist of intense activity, who was grievously distressed by the unhappy marriages in his neighbourhood. He saw young men who ought (as he thought) to marry Jane and Eliza leading to the altar Violet and Ermyntrude; and young women fitted to be wise helpmates to John and Richard setting their caps at Reginald and Hughie; the result being the usual bickerings and dissatisfactions of the ill-matched.
The matter troubled him so seriously that he joined a toxophilite club and took lessons in archery until he could hit the gold at five hundred yards twenty times in succession; and having reached this state of proficiency he called on Dan Cupid and expressed to that mischievous and uncovered boy his disapproval of the happy-go-lucky way in which he pulled his bow-string and directed his arrows, almost without looking. He then offered himself to shoot in Cupid’s stead.
“There may be something in what you say,” Cupid replied; “at any rate you seem to be older and graver and possibly wiser than I, and you certainly wear more clothes. Take the bow and try.”
The good man did so, and the next day or so he was very busy conscientiously transfixing the hearts of his parishioners. Such was the accuracy of his aim that he made only one slip, and that was when, in his endeavours to unite by puncture the cardiac penumbras of pretty little Lizzie Porter and Mr. Godfrey Bloom, his eye faltered, and instead Mr. Godfrey Bloom was paired with the exceedingly unprepossessing Dorothea Atkins, who happened to be standing close by.
The good man did all that was possible to repair the mischief which he felt his lapse has caused; but it was in vain, and Miss Lizzie Porter never regained her chance.
“Well,” said Cupid, as he strolled into the good man’s garden a few years after, “how has your shooting turned out? Perfectly, I suppose.”
“No,” the good man replied with a sigh, “I am afraid not. As a matter of fact the only happy brace in the whole bag are Godfrey and Dorothea.”
“Quite so,” said the little fellow. “I expected it. I always felt those archery lessons were a mistake.”
“Then what is to be done?” asked the good man. “What is to be done if neither taking aim nor shooting at random avails?”
“Nothing,” said Cupid as he fitted an arrow to the string. “Nothing. One just goes on shooting and hopes for the best.”