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Page 18
The owner of the garden boasted in each season the very best of what was
due. In spring he could show the most delightful blossoms and in autumn
the very pick of all the apples.
One day he espied this schoolboy carelessly climbing a fruit tree and
knocking off the buds, those sweet and fragile forerunners of promised
fruit in abundance. The urchin even broke off a bough, and did so much
other damage that the owner sent a message of complaint to the boy's
schoolmaster. This worthy soon appeared, and behind him a tribe of the
scholars, who swarmed into the orchard and began behaving worse than the
first one. The schoolmaster's plan in thus aggravating the injury was
really to make an opportunity for delivering them all a good lesson,
which they should remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and
Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such
a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden
and despoil it in a hundred places.
I hate pompous and pedantic speeches that are out of place and
never-ending; and I do not know a worse fool in the world than a naughty
schoolboy--unless indeed it be the schoolmaster of such a boy. The
better of them would never suit me as a neighbour.
XXVI
THE SCULPTOR AND THE STATUE OF JUPITER
(BOOK IX.--No. 6)
Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with
its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it
was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make
of it? Shall it be a god, a table, or a basin? It shall be a god. And I,
myself, shall ordain that the god shall poise a thunderbolt in his hand.
So tremble, mortals, and worship! Behold the lord of the earth!"
The artist set to work and expressed so powerfully the attributes of the
god that those who saw it averred that it only lacked speech to be
Jupiter himself. It is said that the sculptor had scarcely completed the
statue when he became so overawed as to fear and tremble before the work
of his own hands.
The poet of old, likewise, greatly dreaded the hate and the wrath of the
gods he himself created: a weakness which left little to choose between
him and the sculptor.
These traits are those of childhood. The minds of children are always
anxious lest any one should maltreat their dolls. The emotions
invariably give the lead to the intellect, and this fact accounts for
the great error of paganism. For that error has been prompted by the
emotions of men in all the peoples of the earth. Men uphold with fanatic
zeal the interests of the unreal creatures of their imagination.
Pygmalion became enamoured of the Venus[7] he had created, and in the
same way every one tries to turn his dreams into reality. Man remains as
ice before truth, but catches fire before illusion.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: La Fontaine forgets. It was Galatea whose image Pygmalion
created and whom Venus brought to life.]
XXVII
THE OYSTER AND THE PLEADERS
(BOOK IX.--No. 9)
One day two pilgrims espied upon the sands of the shore an oyster that
had been thrown up by the tide. They devoured it with their eyes whilst
pointing at it with their fingers; but whose teeth should deal with it
was a matter of dispute.
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