Cobwebs from an Empty Skull Page 4

"What have you to say, sir," demanded the king, "in defence of your inexcusable conduct in pillaging the nests of our loyal subjects wherever you can find them?"

  "May it please your Majesty," replied the prisoner, with a reverential gesture, repeated at intervals, and each time at a less distance from the royal person, "I will not wound your Majesty's sensibilities by pleading a love of eggs; I will humbly confess my course of crime, warn your Majesty of its probable continuance, and beg your Majesty's gracious permission to inquire-What is your Majesty going to do about it?"

  The king and his ministers were very much struck with this respectful speech, with the ingenuity of the final inquiry, and with the bear's paw. It was the paw, however, which made the most lasting impression.

  Always give ear to the flattery of your powerful inferiors: it will cheer you in your decline.

  LXII.

  A philosopher looking up from the pages of the Zend-Avesta, upon which he had been centring his soul, beheld a pig violently assailing a cauldron of cold slops.

  "Heaven bless us!" said the sage; "for unalloyed delight give me a good honest article of Sensuality. So soon as my 'Essay upon the Correlation of Mind-forces' shall have brought me fame and fortune, I hope to abjure the higher faculties, devoting the remainder of my life to the cultivation of the propensities."

  "Allah be praised!" soliloquized the pig, "there is nothing so godlike as Intellect, and nothing so ecstatic as intellectual pursuits. I must hasten to perform this gross material function, that I may retire to my wallow and resign my soul to philosophical meditation."

  This tale has one moral if you are a philosopher, and another if you are a pig.

  LXIII.

  "Awful dark-isn't it?" said an owl, one night, looking in upon the roosting hens in a poultry-house; "don't see how I am to find my way back to my hollow tree."

  "There is no necessity," replied the cock; "you can roost there, alongside the door, and go home in the morning."

  "Thanks!" said the owl, chuckling at the fool's simplicity; and, having plenty of time to indulge his facetious humour, he gravely installed himself upon the perch indicated, and shutting his eyes, counterfeited a profound slumber. He was aroused soon after by a sharp constriction of the throat.

  "I omitted to tell you," said the cock, "that the seat you happen by the merest chance to occupy is a contested one, and has been fruitful of hens to this vexatious weasel. I don't know how often I have been partially widowed by the sneaking villain."

  For obvious reasons there was no audible reply.

  This narrative is intended to teach the folly-the worse than sin!-of trumping your partner's ace.

  LXIV.

  A fat cow who saw herself detected by an approaching horse while perpetrating stiff and ungainly gambols in the spring sunshine, suddenly assumed a severe gravity of gait, and a sedate solemnity of expression that would have been creditable to a Brahmin.

  "Fine morning!" said the horse, who, fired by her example, was curvetting lithely and tossing his head.

  "That rather uninteresting fact," replied the cow, attending strictly to her business as a ruminant, "does not impress me as justifying your execution of all manner of unseemly contortions, as a preliminary to accosting an entire stranger."

  "Well, n-no," stammered the horse; "I-I suppose not. Fact is I-I-no offence, I hope."

  And the unhappy charger walked soberly away, dazed by the preternatural effrontery of that placid cow.

  When overcome by the dignity of any one you chance to meet, try to have this fable about you.

  LXV.

  "What have you there on your back?" said a zebra, jeeringly, to a "ship of the desert" in ballast.

  "Only a bale of gridirons," was the meek reply.

  "And what, pray, may you design doing with them?" was the incredulous rejoinder.

  "What am I to do with gridirons?" repeated the camel, contemptuously. "Nice question for you, who have evidently just come off one!"

  People who wish to throw stones should not live in glass houses; but there ought to be a few in their vicinity.

  LXVI.

  A cat, waking out of a sound sleep, saw a mouse sitting just out of reach, observing her. Perceiving that at the slightest movement of hers the mouse would recollect an engagement, she put on a look of extreme amiability, and said:

  "Oh! it's you, is it? Do you know, I thought at first you were a frightful great rat; and I am so afraid of rats! I feel so much relieved-you don't know! Of course you have heard that I am a great friend to the dear little mice?"

  "Yes," was the answer, "I have heard that you love us indifferently well, and my mission here was to bless you while you slept. But as you will wish to go and get your breakfast, I won't bore you. Fine morning-isn't it? Au revoir!"

  This fable teaches that it is usually safe to avoid one who pretends to be a friend without having any reason to be. It wasn't safe in this instance, however; for the cat went after that departing rodent, and got away with him.

  LXVII.

  A man pursued by a lion, was about stepping into a place of safety, when he bethought him of the power of the human eye; and, turning about, he fixed upon his pursuer a steady look of stern reproof. The raging beast immediately moderated his rate per hour, and finally came to a dead halt, within a yard of the man's nose. After making a leisurely survey of him, he extended his neck and bit off a small section of his victim's thigh.

  "Beard of Arimanes!" roared the man; "have you no respect for the Human Eye?"

  "I hold the human eye in profound esteem," replied the lion, "and I confess its power. It assists digestion if taken just before a meal. But I don't understand why you should have two and I none."

  With that he raised his foot, unsheathed his claws, and transferred one of the gentleman's visual organs to his own mouth.

  "Now," continued he, "during the brief remainder of a squandered existence, your lion-quelling power, being more highly concentrated, will be the more easily managed."

  He then devoured the remnant of his victim, including the other eye.

  LXVIII.

  An ant laden with a grain of corn, which he had acquired with infinite toil, was breasting a current of his fellows, each of whom, as is their etiquette, insisted upon stopping him, feeling him all over, and shaking hands. It occurred to him that an excess of ceremony is an abuse of courtesy. So he laid down his burden, sat upon it, folded all his legs tight to his body, and smiled a smile of great grimness.

  "Hullo! what's the matter with you?" exclaimed the first insect whose overtures were declined.

  "Sick of the hollow conventionalities of a rotten civilization," was the rasping reply. "Relapsed into the honest simplicity of primitive observances. Go to grass!"

  "Ah! then we must trouble you for that corn. In a condition of primitive simplicity there are no rights of property, you know. These are 'hollow conventionalities.'"

  A light dawned upon the intellect of that pismire. He shook the reefs out of his legs; he scratched the reverse of his ear; he grappled that cereal, and trotted away like a giant refreshed. It was observed that he submitted with a wealth of patience to manipulation by his friends and neighbours, and went some distance out of his way to shake hands with strangers on competing lines of traffic.

  LXIX.

  A snake who had lain torpid all winter in his hole took advantage of the first warm day to limber up for the spring campaign. Having tied himself into an intricate knot, he was so overcome by the warmth of his own body that he fell asleep, and did not wake until nightfall. In the darkness he was unable to find his head or his tail, and so could not disentangle and slide into his hole. Per consequence, he froze to death.

  Many a subtle philosopher has failed to solve himself, owing to his inability to discern his beginning and his end.

  LXX.

  A dog finding a joint of mutton, apparently guarded by a negligent raven, stretched himself before it with an air of intense satisfaction.

  "Ah!" said he
, alternately smiling and stopping up the smiles with meat, "this is an instrument of salvation to my stomach-an instrument upon which I love to perform."

  "I beg your pardon!" said the bird; "it was placed there specially for me, by one whose right to so convey it is beyond question, he having legally acquired it by chopping it off the original owner."

  "I detect no flaw in your abstract of title," replied the dog; "all seems quite regular; but I must not provoke a breach of the peace by lightly relinquishing what I might feel it my duty to resume by violence. I must have time to consider; and in the meantime I will dine."

  Thereupon he leisurely consumed the property in dispute, shut his eyes, yawned, turned upon his back, thrust out his legs divergently, and died.

  For the meat had been carefully poisoned-a fact of which the raven was guiltily conscious.

  There are several things mightier than brute force, and arsenic[C] is one of them.

  LXXI.

  The King of Persia had a favourite hawk. One day his Majesty was hunting, and had become separated from his attendants. Feeling thirsty, he sought a stream of water trickling from a rock; took a cup, and pouring some liquor into it from his pocket-flask, filled it up with water, and raised it to his lips. The hawk, who had been all this time hovering about, swooped down, screaming "No, you don't!" and upset the cup with his wing.

  "I know what is the matter," said the King: "there is a dead serpent in the fountain above, and this faithful bird has saved my life by not permitting me to drink the juice. I must reward him in the regular way."

  So he called a page, who had thoughtfully presented himself, and gave directions to have the Remorse Apartments of the palace put in order, and for the court tailor to prepare an evening suit of sackcloth-and-ashes. Then summoning the hawk, he seized and dashed him to the ground, killing him very dead. Rejoining his retinue, he dispatched an officer to remove the body of the serpent from the fountain, lest somebody else should get poisoned. There wasn't any serpent-the water was remarkable for its wholesome purity!

  Then the King, cheated of his remorse, was sorry he had slain the bird; he said it was a needless waste of power to kill a bird who merely deserved killing. It never occurred to the King that the hawk's touching solicitude was with reference to the contents of the royal flask.

  Fabula ostendit that a "twice-told tale" needs not necessarily be "tedious"; a reasonable degree of interest may be obtained by intelligently varying the details.

  LXXII.

  A herd of cows, blown off the summit of the Himalayas, were sailing some miles above the valleys, when one said to another:

  "Got anything to say about this?"

  "Not much," was the answer. "It's airy."

  "I wasn't thinking of that," continued the first; "I am troubled about our course. If we could leave the Pleiades a little more to the right, striking a middle course between Boötes and the ecliptic, we should find it all plain sailing as far as the solstitial colure. But once we get into the Zodiac upon our present bearing, we are certain to meet with shipwreck before reaching our aphelion."

  They escaped this melancholy fate, however, for some Chaldean shepherds, seeing a nebulous cloud drifting athwart the heavens, and obscuring a favourite planet they had just invented, brought out their most powerful telescopes and resolved it into independent cows-whom they proceeded to slaughter in detail with the instruments of smaller calibre. There have been occasional "meat showers" ever since. These are probably nothing more than-

  [Our author can be depended upon in matters of fact; his scientific theories are not worth printing.-TRANSLATOR.]

  LXXIII.

  A bear, who had worn himself out walking from one end of his cage to the other, addressed his keeper thus:

  "I say, friend, if you don't procure me a shorter cage I shall have to give up zoology; it is about the most wearing pursuit I ever engaged in. I favour the advancement of science, but the mechanical part of it is a trifle severe, and ought to be done by contract."

  "You are quite right, my hearty," said the keeper, "it is severe; and there have been several excellent plans proposed to lighten the drudgery. Pending the adoption of some of them, you would find a partial relief in lying down and keeping quiet."

  "It won't do-it won't do!" replied the bear, with a mournful shake of the head, "it's not the orthodox thing. Inaction may do for professors, collectors, and others connected with the ornamental part of the noble science; but for us, we must keep moving, or zoology would soon revert to the crude guesses and mistaken theories of the azoic period. And yet," continued the beast, after the keeper had gone, "there is something novel and ingenious in what the underling suggests. I must remember that; and when I have leisure, give it a trial."

  It was noted next day that the noble science had lost an active apostle, and gained a passive disciple.

  LXXIV.

  A hen who had hatched out a quantity of ducklings, was somewhat surprised one day to see them take to the water, and sail away out of her jurisdiction. The more she thought of this the more unreasonable such conduct appeared, and the more indignant she became. She resolved that it must cease forthwith. So she soon afterward convened her brood, and conducted them to the margin of a hot pool, having a business connection with the boiling spring of Doo-sno-swair. They straightway launched themselves for a cruise-returning immediately to the land, as if they had forgotten their ship's papers.

  When Callow Youth exhibits an eccentric tendency, give it him hot.

  LXXV.

  "Did it ever occur to you that this manner of thing is extremely unpleasant?" asked a writhing worm of the angler who had impaled him upon a hook. "Such treatment by those who boast themselves our brothers is, possibly, fraternal-but it hurts."

  "I confess," replied the idler, "that our usages with regard to vermin and reptiles might be so amended as to be more temperately diabolical; but please to remember that the gentle agonies with which we afflict you are wholesome and exhilarating compared with the ills we ladle out to one another. During the reign of His Pellucid Refulgence, Khatchoo Khan," he continued, absently dropping his wriggling auditor into the brook, "no less than three hundred thousand Persian subjects were put to death, in a pleasing variety of ingenious ways, for their religious beliefs."

  "What that has to do with your treatment of us" interrupted a fish, who, having bitten at the worm just then, was drawn into the conversation, "I am quite unable to see."

  "That," said the angler, disengaging him, "is because you have the hook through your eyeball, my edible friend."

  Many a truth is spoken in jest; but at least ten times as many falsehoods are uttered in dead earnest.

  LXXVI.

  A wild cat was listening with rapt approval to the melody of distant hounds tracking a remote fox.

  "Excellent! bravo!" she exclaimed at intervals. "I could sit and listen all day to the like of that. I am passionately fond of music. Ong-core!"

  Presently the tuneful sounds drew near, whereupon she began to fidget; ending by shinning up a tree, just as the dogs burst into view below her, and stifled their songs upon the body of their victim before her eyes-which protruded.

  "There is an indefinable charm," said she-"a subtle and tender spell-a mystery-a conundrum, as it were-in the sounds of an unseen orchestra. This is quite lost when the performers are visible to the audience. Distant music (if any) for your obedient servant!"

  LXXVII.

  Having been taught to turn his scraps of bad Persian into choice Latin, a parrot was puffed up with conceit.

  "Observe," said he, "the superiority I may boast by virtue of my classical education: I can chatter flat nonsense in the language of Cicero."

  "I would advise you," said his master, quietly, "to let it be of a different character from that chattered by some of Mr. Cicero's most admired compatriots, if you value the priviledge of hanging at that public window. 'Commit no mythology,' please."

  The exquisite fancies of a remote age may not be im
itated in this; not, perhaps, from a lack of talent, so much as from a fear of arrest.

  LXXVIII.

  A rat, finding a file, smelt it all over, bit it gently, and observed that, as it did not seem to be rich enough to produce dyspepsia, he would venture to make a meal of it. So he gnawed it into smithareens[D] without the slightest injury to his teeth. With his morals the case was somewhat different. For the file was a file of newspapers, and his system became so saturated with the "spirit of the Press" that he went off and called his aged father a "lingering contemporary;" advised the correction of brief tails by amputation; lauded the skill of a quack rodentist for money; and, upon what would otherwise have been his death-bed, essayed a lie of such phenomenal magnitude that it stuck in his throat, and prevented him breathing his last. All this crime, and misery, and other nonsense, because he was too lazy to worry about and find a file of nutritious fables.

  This tale shows the folly of eating everything you happen to fancy. Consider, moreover, the danger of such a course to your neighbour's wife.

  LXXIX.

  "I should like to climb up you, if you don't mind," cried an ivy to a young oak.

  "Oh, certainly; come along," was the cheerful assent.