use they are generally brief; because
they are simple; because they are trenchant and
witty; because they are fresh and captivating and
have a bite to them like the tang of salt water;
because they are strong and vital, and what is
thoroughly alive in the beginning always lives
longest.

And, now we come to La Fontaine the French
fabulist, who in 1668 published the first six books
of his fables. "Bonhomme La Fontaine," as
he was called, chose his subjects from Aesop and
Phaedrus and Horace, and, in the later volumes,
from such Oriental sources as may have been
within his reach. He rendered the old tales in
easy-flowing verse, full of elegance and charm,
and he composed many original ones besides.
La Bruyere says of him: "Unique in his way
of writing, always original whether he invents or
translates, he surpasses his models and is himself
a model difficult to imitate. . . . He instructs
while he sports, persuades men to virtue
by means of beasts, and exalts trifling subjects
to the sublime."

Voltaire asserts: "I believe that of all authors
La Fontaine is the most universally read. He is
for all minds and all ages."

Later, by a hundred years, than La Fontaine,
comes Krilof, the Russian fable-maker, who
was born in 1768. After failing in many kinds
of literary work the young poet became intimate
with a certain Prince Sergius Galitsin; lived in
his house at Moscow, and accompanied him to
his country place in Lithuania, where he taught
the children of his host and devised entertainments
for the elders. He used often to spend
hours in the bazaars and streets and among the
common people, and it was in this way probably
that he became so familiar with the peasant life
of the country. When he came back from his
wanderings on the banks of the Volga he used to
mount to the village belfry, where he could write
undisturbed by the gnats and flies, and the children
found him there one day fast asleep among the
bells. A failure at forty, with the publication of
his first fables in verse he became famous, and
for many years he was the most popular writer
in Russia. He died in 1844 at the age of seventy-six,
his funeral attended by such crowds that the great
church of St. Isaac could not hold those who
wished to attend the service. Soon after, a public
subscription was raised among all the children
of Russia, who erected a monument in the
Summer Garden at Moscow.

There the old man sits in bronze, as he us