Ce sont oreilles que Dieu fit.”
The Hare insists:
“On les fera passer pour cornes.”[1]
And that is all. What a pity that La Fontaine did not make the insect hold forth at greater length! The good-natured Cricket is depicted for us in a couple of lines which already show the master’s touch. No, indeed, he is no fool: his big head might have found some capital things to say. And yet the Hare was perhaps not wrong to take his departure in a hurry. When slander is at your heels, the best thing is to fly. [[302]]
Florian[2] was less concise in his story, which is on another theme; but what a long way we are from the warmth and vigour of old La Fontaine! In Florian’s fable Le Grillon, there are plenty of flowery meadows and blue skies; Dame Nature and affectation go hand in hand; in short, we have the feeble artificialities of a lifeless rhetoric, which loses sight of the thing described for the sake of the description. It lacks the simplicity of truth and also the saving salt of humour.
Besides, what a preposterous idea, to represent the Cricket as discontented, bewailing his condition in despair! All who have studied him know, on the contrary, that he is very well pleased with his own talent and his hole. This, moreover, is what the fabulist makes him admit, after the Butterfly’s discomfiture:
“Combien je vais aimer ma retraite profonde!
Pour vivre heureux, vivons caché!”[3]
[[303]]
I find more force and more truth in the apologue by the nameless friend to whom I owe the Provençal piece, La Cigalo e la Fournigo. He will forgive me if for the second time I expose him, without his consent, to the dangerous honour of print. Here it is: