is no one who
would not in his heart prefer being a knave to being a
fool; and when we fail in a piece of attempted roguery,
as Coleridge has wisely observed, though reasoning
unwisely from it, we lay the blame not on our own
moral nature, for which we are responsible, but on our
intellectual, for which we are not responsible. We do
not say what knaves, we say what fools, we have been;
perplexing Coleridge, who regards it as a phenomenon
of some deep moral disorder; whereas it is but one
more evidence of the universal fact that gifts are the
true and proper object of appreciation, and as we admire
men for possessing gifts, so we blame them for
their absence. The noble man is the gifted man; the
ignoble is the ungifted; and therefore we have only to
state a simple law in simple language to have a full
solution of the enigma of Reineke. He has gifts
enough: of that, at least, there can be no doubt;
and if he lacks the gift to use them in the way
which we call good, at least he uses them successfully.
His victims are less gifted than he, and therefore less
noble; and therefore he has a right to use them as he
pleases.

And after all, what are these victims? Among the
heaviest charges which were urged against him was the
killing and eating of that wretched Scharfenebbe--
Sharp-beak--the crow's wife. It is well that there are two
sides to every story. A poor weary fox, it seemed, was not
to be allowed to enjoy a quiet sleep in the sunshine but
what an unclean carrion bird must come down and take
a peck at him. We can feel no sympathy with the
outcries of the crow husband over the fate of the
unfortunate Sharpbeak. Wofully, he says, he flew over
the place where, a few moments before, in the glory
of glossy plumage, a loving wife sate croaking out her
passion for him, and found nothing--nothing but a
little blood and a few torn feathers--all else clean gone
and utterly abolished. Well, and if it was so, it was
a blank prospect for him, but the earth was well rid
of her: and for herself, it was a higher fate to be
assimilated into the body of a Reineke than to remain
in a miserable individuality to be a layer of carrion
crows' eggs.

And then for Bellyn, and for Bruin, and for Hintze,
and the rest, who would needs be meddling with what
was no concern of theirs, what is there in them to
challenge either regret or pity. They made love
their occupation.

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature fails
Between the pass an