The Fable of the Sinking Ship and Its Strange Moral — The Man With Two Watches and His Holy Ejaculation — What the Innkeeper Did to the Devil When He Caught Him — The Penitent and the Lad — Four Reformers — The Man and His Friend — The Distinguished Stranger.

Copyright, 1895, by Longmans, Green & Company.

FABLE, as a form of literary art, had at all times a great attraction for Mr. Stevenson, and in an early review of Lord Lytton's "Fables and Song," he attempted to define some of its proper aims and methods. To this class of work, according to his conception of the matter, belonged essentially several of his own shorter, semi-supernatural stories, such as "Will of the Mill" and "Markheim." He was accustomed also to try his hand occasionally on the composition of fables in a stricter sense, and in the conventional brief and concentrated form. By the winter of 1887-88 he had enough of these by him, together with a few others running to greater length, and conceived in a more mystic and legendary vein, to enable him, as he thought, to see his way towards making a book of them. Then came his voyage in the Pacific and residence at Samoa. In the multitude of new interests and images which filled his mind during the last six years of his life, he seems to have given little thought to the proposed volume of fables, although one or two were composed during this period. — Sidney Colvin.

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I — The Sinking Ship.

"SIR," said the First Lieutenant, bursting into the Captain's cabin, "the ship is going down."

       "Very well, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain, "but that is no reason for going about half-shaved. Exercise your mind a moment, Mr. Spoker, and you will see that to the philosophic eye there is nothing new in our position; the ship (if she is to go down at all) may be said to have been going down since, she was launched."

       "She is settling fast," said the First Lieutenant, as he returned from shaving.

       "Fast, Mr. Spoker?" asked the Captain. "The expression is a strange one, for time (if you will think of it) is only relative."

       "Sir," said the Lieutenant, "I think it is scarcely worth while to embark in such a discussion when we shall all be in Davy Jones' Locker in ten minutes."

       "By parity of reasoning," returned the Captain, gently, "it would never be worth while to begin any inquiry of importance; the odds are always overwhelmingly that we must die before we shall have brought it to an end. You have not considered, Mr. Spoker, the situation of man," said the Captain, smiling and shaking his head.

       "I am much more engaged in considering the position of the ship," said Mr, Spoker.

       "Spoken like a good officer," replied the Captain, laying his hand, on the Lieutenant's shoulder.

       On deck they found the men had broken into the spirit room and were fast getting drunk.

       "My men," said the Captain, "there is no sense in this. The ship is going down, you will tell me, in ten minutes; well, and what then? To the philosophic eye, there is nothing new in our position. All out lives long we may have been about to break a blood vessel or to be struck by lightning, not merely in ten minutes, but in ten seconds; and that has not prevented us from eating dinner — no, nor from putting money in the savings bank. I assure you, with my hand on my heart, I fail to comprehend your attitude."

       The men were already too far gone to pay much heed.

       "This is a very painful sight, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain.

       "And yet to the philosophic eye, or whatever it is," replied the First Lieutenant, "they may be said to have been getting drunk ever since they came aboard."

       "I do not know if you always follow my thought Mr. Spoker," returned the Captain, gently. "But let us proceed."

       In the powder magazine they found an old salt smoking his pipe.

       "Good God!" cried the Captain, "what are you about?"

       "Well, sir," said the old salt, apologetically, "they told me as she were going down."

       "And suppose she were?" said the captain. "To the philosophic eye there would be nothing new in our position. Life, my old shipmate, life at any moment and in any view is as dangerous as a sinking ship, and yet it is man's handsome fashion to carry umbrellas, to wear India rubber overshoes, to begin vast works, and to conduct himself in every way as if he might hope to be eternal. And for my own poor part I should despise the man who, even on board a sinning snip, should omit to take a pill or to wind up his watch. That, my friend, would not be the human attitude."

       "I beg pardon, sir," said Mr. Spoker. "But what is precisely the difference between shaving in a sinking ship and smoking in a powder magazine?"

       "Or doing anything at all in any conceivable circumstances?" cried the Captain. "Perfectly conclusive, give me a cigar."

       Two minutes afterwards the ship blew up with a glorious detonation.

 

II — The Two Matches.

ONE day there was a traveler in the woods in California, in the dry season when the trades were blowing strong. He had ridden a long way, and he was tired and hungry, and dismounted from his horse to smoke a pipe. But when he felt in his pocket he found but two matches. He struck the first, and it would not light.

       "Here is a pretty state of things," said the traveler. "Dying for a smoke, only one match left, and that certain to miss fire. Was there ever a creature so unfortunate? And yet," thought the traveler, "suppose I light this match and smoke my pipe and shake out the dottle here in the grass; the grass might catch on fire, for it is dry like tinder, and while I snatch out the flames in front, they might evade and run behind me and seize upon yon bush of poison oak; before I could reach it that would have blazed up. Over the bush I see a pine tree hung with moss. That, too, would fly in fire upon the instant to its topmost bough, and the flame of that long torch — how would the trade wind take and brandish that through the inflammable forest? I hear this dell roar in a moment with the joint voice of wind and fire; I see myself gallop for my soul, and the flying conflagration chase and outflank me through the hills; I see this pleasant forest burn for days, and the cattle roasted and the springs dried up, and the farmer ruined and his children cast upon the world. What a world hangs upon this moment."

       With that he struck the match, and it missed fire.

       "Thank God," said the traveler, and put his pipe In his pocket.

 

III — The Devil and the Innkeeper.

ONCE upon a time the devil stayed at an inn where no one knew him, for they were people whose education had been neglected. He was bent on mischief, and for a time kept everybody by the ears. But at last the innkeeper set a watch upon the devil and took him in the fact.

       The innkeeper got a rope's end.

       "Now I'm going to thrash you," said the innkeeper.

       "You have no right to be angry with me," said the devil. "I am the only devil, and it is my nature to do wrong."

       "Is that so?" said the innkeeper.

       "Fact, I assure you," said the devil.

       "You really cannot help doing ill?" asked the innkeeper.

       "Not in the smallest," said the devil: "it would be useless cruelty to thrash a thing like me."

       "It would, indeed," said the innkeeper.

       And he made a noose and hanged the devil.

       "There," said the innkeeper.

 

IV — The Penitent.

A MAN met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked.

       "I am weeping for my sins," said the lad.

       "You must have little to? do," said the man.

       The next day they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do you weep now?" asked the man.

       "I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad.

       "I thought it would come to that," said the man.

 

V — The Four Reformers.

FOUR reformers met under a bramble bush. They were all agreed the world must be changed. "We must abolish property," said one.

       "We must abolish marriage," said the second.

       "We will abolish God," "said the third.

       "I wish we could abolish work," said the fourth.

       "Do not let us get beyond practical politics," said the first. "The first thing is to reduce men to a common level."

       "The first thing," said the second, "is to give freedom to the sexes."

       "The first thing," said the third, "is to find out how to do it."

       "The first step," said the first, "is to abolish the Bible."

       "The first thing," said the second, "is to abolish the laws."

       "The first thing," said the third, "is to abolish mankind."

 

VI — The Man and His Friend.

HE was quarreling with his friend.

       "I have been much deceived in you," said the man.

       And the friend made a face at him and went away.

       A little after, they both died, and came together before the great white Justice of Peace.- It began to look black for the friend, but the man for awhile had a clear character and was getting in good spirits.

       "I find here some record of a quarrel," said the justice, looking in his notes. "Which of you was in the wrong?"

       "He was," said the man. "He spoke ill of me behind my back."

       "Did he so?" said the Justice. "And pray how did he speak about your neighbors?"

       "Oh, he had always a nasty tongue," said the man.

       "And you chose him for your friend?" cried the Justice. "My good fellow, we have no use here for fools."

       So the man was cast in the pit, and the friend laughed out loud in the dark and remained to be tried on other charges.

 

VII — The Distinguished Stranger.

UPON a time there came to this earth a visitor from, a neighboring planet. And he was met at the place of descent by a great philosopher, who was to show him everything.

       First of all they came through a wood, and the stranger looked upon the trees. "Whom have we here?" said he.

       "These are only vegetables," said the philosopher. "They are alive, but not at all interesting."

       "I don't know about that," said the stranger. "They seem to have very good manners. Do they never speak?"

       "They lack the gift," said the philosopher.

       "Yet I think I hear them sing," said the other. "That is only the wind among the leaves," said the philosopher. "I will explain to you the theory of winds, it is very interesting."

       "Well," said the stranger, "I wish I knew what they were thinking."

       "They cannot think," said the philosopher.

       "I don't know about that," returned the stranger, and then, laying his hand upon the trunk, "I like these people," said he.

       "They are not people at all," said the philosopher. "Come along."

       Next they came through a meadow where there were cows.

       "These are very dirty people," said the stranger.

       "They are not people at all," said the philosopher, and he explained what a cow is in scientific words, which I have forgotten.

       "That is all one to me," said the stranger. "But why do they never look up?"

       "Because they are graminivorous," said the philosopher, "and to live upon grass, which is not highly nutritious, requires so close an attention to business that they have no time to think or speak, or look at the scenery or keep themselves clean."

       "Well," said the stranger, "that is one way to live, no doubt. But I prefer the people with the green heads."

       Next they came into a city; and the streets were full of men and women.

       "These are very odd people," said the stranger.

       "They are the people of the greatest nation In the world," said the philosopher.

       "Are they, indeed?" said the stranger. "They scarcely look so."

 

VIII — The Tadpole and the Frog.

"BE ashamed of yourself," said the frog. "When I was a tadpole I had no tail."

       "Just what I thought," said the tadpole. "You never were a tadpole."

(THE END)