MR. PAGE'S FABLES.*
IT i8 all very well to comfort children who are distressed by the pathetic outpourings of the troubled hare or chicken of the fable, with the scarcely very original remark, "But it's not true, you know, darling, because, you know, a hare can't talk,—can it ?" No doubt it stops the tears and makes " darling " comfortable, which is, we may be permitted to presume, more an object with darling's mamma than the inculcation of a great philosophical truth. But the question is, is it not true on that account? Pray why should the trouble be less real because the hare or chicken is dumb to our ear ? or rather, because we are deaf to its language ; or rather, perhaps, because individuals of what we call "the animal creation" are a little more reticent and self-controlled than that grand creature man, grumbling, blustering, or spouting audibly on all occasions ; or that still grander creature, woman, the real heart of the machine, influencing her representative, man; urging him to noble deeds, rebuking his faults and vices, con- vincing his reason, and, through him, reducing and civilising and enlightening the world ;—ah ! why resign so noble an office? Can they not see that when they do this great work directly instead of indirectly, they will fail to regenerate the individual man en route— and sometimes (of course, rarely) go on gossiping, slandering, and whining very audibly also ? Why should not the mind and heart be in the hare or chicken, even without the tongue, as well as in the lords of the creation and their ladies ? It is the fashion to decry the Old Testament, because, amongst other reasons, Balsam's ass is said to have spoken. For our parts, we hold by Balaam's ass. Why should it not have spoken ? Even the most reticent of beings might have felt the spirit move them on an occasion so critical. "It is not true, darling, because you know they can't talk, can they ? " Why, what stupidity is this ? Is not the very work of fable-writers to interpret for us the thoughts of the dear dumb creatures? But then they should do it philosophically. Even Mr. Page in his wide knowledge and wise interpretation of their views has forgotten that after all hares and horses are not men, and when it comes to windmills and gravestones and other in- animate individualities, it behoves them still more to consider care- fully the conditions of thought and feeling of the subjects of their in-
Out and All About. By H A. Page. London: W. Isbister and Co.
vestigation. It is too wide and deep a subject for brief discussion, but we may indicate the condition that such philosophical analysis might take. Let us take that favourite hero of a fable, the donkey. We see at once that his kick backwards is a gulf separating him from the human donkey, who kicks forwards. We watch the de- gradation of our foe, as he descends somewhat hastily our door- steps, at a single bound, propelled by our off-foot ; we rejoice in the manifest evidence of our power, or are filled with alarm, as the glance back of a malignant, undying hatred, stamps itself upon our retina, and promises to recur at inconvenient sea- sons of darkness and loneliness in the neighbourhood of our foe. How different, then, will be our reflections, in the intervals of business, from those of the four-legged donkey who, without looking round, and in that blissful ignorance of the scowl of his adversary which makes it folly to be wise, simply projects sud- denly his near hind-leg in the direction desired, and leaving con- sequences to providence, proceeds quietly to the next thistle. Thus he remains without data for future consideration of the con- sequences of his action, and his innocent life is shaded from worldly glare by the beneficent semi-darkness of happy ignorance, pleasantly lighted from beneath by the rosy tints of a sanguine confidence, which we, alas ! can never enjoy. On the other hand, though he may luxuriate in thistles, he cannot take a pipe and look at life through the softening, mellowing medium of its light-blue cloud ; or he may enjoy a bran-mash ; but what a chasm divides its sustaining and stimulating qualities from those of our reviving and inspiring souchong, always supposing that we do not patronise the chopped hay sold as tea at one-and- eightpence a pound. Then with birds, bow entirely must the fact that they have wings like a dove, and can flee away and be at rest, separate the conditions of their being from ours! Domestic fowls indeed are different,—they more resemble us, and we may conceive that their thoughts are more as our thoughts. Their wings are not worth Mentioning; they in- habit houses ; but compared even with theirs, how different are the objects of our existence. Can we lay golden eggs,—for are not their eggs gold at only five for a shilling ? On the other hand, how far removed we are from the awful temptation which must beset them in their life of ease and pleasure to break every- one of the commandments in succession ; we have no such dangerous leisure. One more illustration of our theory is sug- gested by Mr. Page's delightful fable of the Evangelical grave- stones. Now we ask with diffidence of so able an author, and yet with some confidence, how a gravestone or any other material or immaterial thing in the wide world could be Evangelical without a digestion ? Is it not patent that a healthy digestion leads to delight in pleasant things for eye or ear—to music, flowers, pictures, altar cloths, cricket on Sunday afternoons, and other vanities which land us in the High, the Broad, or the muscular Church—while it is a weak digestion that takes refuge in tracts and missionary meetings and deputations to the bishop? Is not bile at the bottom of all head-shakings and consignments to the bottomless pit? Is not bile the cause of "the melancholy satisfaction" we feel in thinking of the future of the unbeliever? How, then, could highly-favoured, because digestion- less, gravestones wait upon their representative with their grumblings, and get him to remonstrate with the vane ? Besides, is it not in the very nature and constitution of all vane things to be constantly turning, and invariably to the newest corner and the one who pays him most attention ? Why, then, represent him as so firm and immovable in his attitude towards the malcontents ? We do, however, observe with pleasure that Mr. Page has so far caught the idea we have endeavoured to develop, that he makes all his gravestones settle comfortably down again, which would naturally happen with digestionless Evangelicals, otherwise he would, of course, never have forgotten the obstinate element in all deputations, the seceders, who would inevitably—in the failure of their expostulations—have insisted upon a removal to the grounds of the private chapels attached to their family mansions. But we will extract the gravestone fable entire, that our readers may judge for themselves between our theory and the one hallowed by antiquity and endorsed by Mr. Page's great ability. The sly hit at the episcopacy will not be missed ; we wish we could also extract the pictures of the old church and the aristocratic rook :— " A new vane had been put up on the church tower, and suddenly the Gravestones began to mutter and protest. They had not been known to speak together for a long time before. Content to repose on the strength of their great individual worth, they were apt to look down upon each other ; but now they found 'common ground' which they had been known to jeer and flout at often enough, and agreed to present a petition to the Vane to come down from his high place. This they forwarded by a Rook of venerable appearance and long descent, whom
they looked up to simply because his forbears had appropriated the right to a whole colony of elms that lined the churchyard, driving off all other birds most mercilessly—an example which Mr. Rook the pre- sent took good care to follow, keeping intact all his territorial rights.
We will not rest,' said the Gravestones in their petition, 'till our request is granted ; and if you refuse, we will depart in a body from the place which we have done so much to honour and adorn. A gilded Vane is vanity, more especially when it bows and turns round and round, and looks, when the wind is in the east, exactly like a cross, and when it is in the west exactly like a cock. It is sheer profanity, as we conscientiously regard it, to associate the two things so prominently on a church spire, and to fix the oyes of the church-goers on empty trifles, even as they approach unto God's house for worship. We beseech you, therefore, to take very serious thoughts of it, in case of grave steps on our part, and to have more regard for the souls of those in Providence placed so near unto you.' To this petition the Vane replied courteously, but with a shortness that was emphatic :—' Your petition surprises me. I mean to keep my place, and do my work, which may not be without use, though you censoriously decry it. As for your departing from this place, you cannot do it. The earth is too much for you. Nature's laws and self-interest will combine to keep you where you are. In reproach- ing others, you should be careful to look to your own ways, and the signs you have upon yen, and can't get rid of. Many of you bear crosses, and one at least figures Peter's cock for a warning.' The Gravestones took the reproof quietly, and are still where they used to be, among the comfortable fat soil—the best place for them."
In the very amusing fable entitled "The Spider on Trial," again,
Mr. Page should have considered that though man, with his limited capacity, may be vain enough to haunt the sections of the British Association to discover with trembling anxiety if per- adventure he may not have been, first a lichen, much later a mollusc, and later still an ape, with countless ages to intervene before be shall culminate in a god, yet that the irrepressible spider, with its far-reaching grasp, its self-contained world, its endless
internal resources, would never so have let himself down, but would rather have taken up a position as himself the nucleus and centre of his system.
But we have no right to thrust our fancies on Mr. Page, so let us be rational, and judge his beautiful little book by the standard of an ordinary theory. It is, then, beautiful both outside and in, and has arrived just in right time for that institu- tion, so trying to the selecters, so delightful to the receivers, —Christmas present-giving. No one can do wrong in buying it, and what is still more to the purpose, there need be no anxiety as to the question to whom it will be suitable. The pictures alone would recommend it to anyone ; that is, those of landscapes, animals, birds, and flowers,—about half the whole num- ber of "eighty-five illustrations by eminent artists." Where the human figure is introduced the pictures are not so attractive, nor those which illustrate the "revolution in Toyland." But there is only one by whose presence amongst them the others may fairly feel aggrieved, namely, that of the " Urn and the Obelisk." Surely the most formal cemetery does not require, for honest representation, a mere crowd of nearly rectangular surfaces without shade, and backed by a straight line for the boundary wall, and a photograph of an old broom upside down upon it, doing duty as a tree? If we know anything about it, there is as much careful knowledge as imagination in such exquisite drawings as those at paged 4, 7, 12, &c., where the ant-hills, and wasps' nests, and the insects at their work attract one as much by their lifelike- ness and animation, as do the leaves, trees, and hills by which they are surrounded by the grace of their forme, and the truth and softness of their shadows. The night and stormy scenes are admirably drawn. There is one of a field or two and some poplars ; another of birds gathering in a storm, and many of birds roosting, building, or singing in the trees, and of windmills and churches in the dusk or dark, beautifully done by some one with, apparently, a strong feeling for the solemnity of night. Then there are farm-yard bits of great beauty,—a friendly cow and donkey ; a thoughtful, considering ox, a brood of imperti- nent chickens, all most perfectly finished little pictures. The hares drawn up in line and arranged according to size to ad- vance upon the sleeping stranger, is the only picture in which the artist indulges his sense of the comic.
In the letter-press also the children are not the only ones con- sidered,—indeed there is a depth of meaning, as in moat fables, that children will be unable to fathom without assistance. There is natural-history,—not, however, either learned or abundant enough to weary the most volatile reader ; a pleasant little touch of botany, as we have shown ; social, politi- cal, and moral philosophy in light and pleasing dress ; satire, humour, pathos, a little poetry—not remarkable indeed—and a harmless pun or two, to which our attention is carefully drawn
by italics. By far the greater number of the fables illustrate, as we might expect, moral truth; and teach, in a very lively way, lessons of forbearance, conciliation, mutual help and dependence, humility, respect for age and experience — one most lamentably needed now-a-days—readiness to be pleased, and other lessons of a large and gentle charity, seasoned with, but not counteracted by a few wise though humorous words of worldly, but not selfish, wisdom and caution. But there are fables, not more beautiful and not more instructive—perhaps less so—than these on simple moral questions, but certainly more amusing, and of more special application to the movements of the times, to which we must direct the attention of our elder readers, though our difficulty lies in the certainty of spoiling them by mutilation, and want of space to give them entire ; of these "The Grave- stones and the Vane," already referred to and quoted, is one, and another very amusing one, also spoken of above, entitled "The Spider on Trial," is, as we have implied, a parody on the proceedings of the British Association and the ques- tions so earnestly debated, now-a-days, on the origin of species and the theory of selection ; but we do not see how the cruel practice of vivisection, so humorously described here, can properly be mixed up with these debates ; probably the story is intended to satirise scientific discoverers as a body. A third very original, but less satisfactory fable is the one—" Revolution in Toyland "—which attempts to demolish the "women's rights' "question. It goes, however, a little too far beyond common-sense, and is a little too far-fetched for genuine humour. We cannot, of course, be expected to endorse the parallel between women and toys, nor to agree for a minute to the assumption that to select and capture husbands with the same freedom allotted to men in the choice of wives is the end and aim of the women's rights' movement. Can we have mistaken the drift of the fable? We confess that some of Mr. Page's beautiful and imaginative little stories seem to require a key. What, for instance, is the explanation of the "The Page and the Barnyard Fowls," and of the details of "The Woodman's Gift "?
To us the great charm of the book lies, however, in the exquisite insight into, and happy appreciation of nature and all natural beauty, in the little descriptions of woodland and moorland, of river and farmyard, and all their mute, but intelligent frequenters. There is nearly everywhere in the book the real atmosphere of the country ; the sights of the mill or of the farm, or the sounds of the wind or the stream, or the music of the birds ; there is the smell of the flowers, and all the repose and shade and breeziness of wood and glade and hill-side. It is especially a delightful book for Christmas, when the green and the brightness contrast so cheeringly with the darkness and deadness and coldness of winter, and the soft and pliant forms and brilliant colouring of the outer world with all the straight lines and hard textures and dingy hues of man-made interiors.
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