SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS
The danger in handling a fable does not lie, as the interpreter seems so often to think, in adopting too serious a tone. All the literature of pure fancy, from the humorous essays of Bacon through the Arabian Nights to the nonsensical rhymes of Lear, must be treated with great gravity of tone and temper by the interpreter. It is not levity, but only whimsicality of temperament, I demand from one who would read from this particular lore to me. I want my whimsical friend to interpret my Chaucer and Crothers, Peter Pan and the Pied Piper, Hans Christian Andersen, Carroll, and Lear, and all the rest of the genial host who minister to my most precious sense of nonsense. And, perhaps, most of all, it is he (the whimsical friend) who must read fables to me, for a fable, the dictionary tells us, is "a story in which, by the imagined dealings of men with animals or mere things, or by the supposed doings of these alone, useful lessons are taught." Now a moral "rubbed in" is like an overdose of certain kinds of medicine, where a little cures, too much kills. It is the presence of the lesson which the whimsical tone alone can offset. The whimsical tone never falls into the monotone. Whimsicality always seeks variety of emphasis and movement. Let us apply this to the reading of the fable called
THE CROW AND THE PITCHER
A crow, half dead with thirst, came upon a pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the crow put his beak into the mouth of the pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him; and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.
Little by little does the trick.
How shall we avoid the monotony of the lines beginning "Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the pitcher"? Note that this line is followed by one in which but two words are changed, and then by a line with but one change, and then by three lines with no change at all. Our only hope lies in a variation of emphasis and movement—a whimsical variation. Try it! Give "another" the particular stress in reading the first of these lines. Pause at the close of the line as if to study the effect of the pebble. In the next line "that," of course, takes the emphasis. Pause before the word and give it a salient stress. The movement of the voice through these two lines has been deliberate. On the next line hasten it a little, and make the pause at the close of the line shorter. With the fourth line let the tone settle down to work. Give each of the first five words equal stress. With the fifth and last line let us feel that you may "go on forever," and surprise us with a very short pause and a joyful stress upon "at last, at last," and don't fail to let the enthusiasm of your tone give us the full sense of the relief which comes with the mounting of the water, and the delight in the conclusion—"he was able to quench his thirst and save his life." And now, most whimsically, let us voice the moral, "Little by little does the trick."