ent.

So, returning to my moral, one cannot find under heaven any animal, any
being, any creature who has not his opponent. This appears to be a law
of nature. It would be time wasted to seek for a reason. God does well
whatever he does. Beyond that I know nothing; but I do know that people
come to high words over nothing three times out of four. Ah, ye human
folk! even at the age of sixty you ought to be sent back to the
schoolmaster.

XL

THE WOLF AND THE FOX

(BOOK XII.--No. 9)

A fox once remarked to a wolf, "Dear friend, do you know that the utmost
I can get for my meals is a tough old cock or perchance a lean hen or
two. It is a diet of which I am thoroughly weary. You, on the other
hand, feed much better than that, and with far less danger. My foraging
takes me close up to houses; but you keep far away. I beg of you,
comrade, to teach me your trade. Let me be the first of my race to
furnish my pot with a plump sheep, and you will not find me ungrateful."

"Very well," replied the obliging wolf. "I have a brother recently dead,
suppose you go and get his skin and wear it." This the fox accordingly
did and the wolf commenced to give him lessons. "You must do this and
act so, when you wish to separate the dogs from the flocks." At first
Reynard was a little awkward, but he rapidly improved, and with a little
practice he reached at last the perfection of wolfish strategy. Just as
he had learned all that there was to know a flock approached. The sham
wolf ran after it spreading terror all around, even as Patroclus
wearing[19] the armour of Achilles spread alarm throughout camp and
city, when mothers, wives, and old men hastened to the temples for
protection. "In this case, the bleating army made sure there must be
quite fifty wolves after them, and fled, dog and shepherd with them, to
the neighbouring village, leaving only one sheep as a hostage.

This remaining sheep our thief instantly seized and was making off with
it. But he had not gone more than a few steps when a cock crew near by.
At this signal, which habit of life had led him to regard as a warning
of dawn and danger, he dropped his disguising wolf-skin and, forgetting
his sheep, his lesson, and his master, scampered off with a will.

Of what use is such shamming? It is an illusion to suppose that one is
really changed by making the pretence. One resume's one's first nature
upon the earliest occasion for hiding it.

FOOTNOTES:

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