The fable and the proverb are much alike in that both are highly condensed, and both are told to instruct. The short, direct, applied narratives known as “Fables” are among the oldest ancestors of the short story. Even in the most ancient times there were fables, those of Æsop having been told perhaps as early as the sixth century, B.C. Many familiar fables have animals for their characters, their known characteristics needing no comment. Thus the fox and the wolf appear frequently, their mere names suggesting traits of character. The fable, as a type of wisdom literature, is always short, simple, and emphatic. It always emphasizes marked human characteristics, and usually ends with a “moral” that adds to the emphasis. The influence of the fable helped to make the story short, condensed, vivid, pointed, and based on character.

The Ten Trails is a modern imitation of older fables. Its directness, simplicity, clear story, and appended moral are characteristic of the type.

Ernest Thompson Seton, born in England in 1860, has written many stories in which he presents animal life with appealing sympathy. He has devoted himself particularly to cultivating a love for outdoors life, and for animate nature. Wild Animals I Have Known, The Biography of a Grizzly, and similar books, are full of original interest.

WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO
By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI

An allegory is a story that has an underlying meaning or moral. It is in some ways an expanded fable, with the meaning understood rather than presented. The chief difference between the “Fable” and the “Allegory” lies in length and complexity of treatment, and in the way of presenting the underlying meaning. The “Fable” is short and usually appends the moral. The “Allegory” is usually long, and tells the story in such a way that the reader is sure to grasp the meaning without further comment. The purpose, as in the “Fable,” is double,—to tell a story, and to teach a truth. All literatures have numerous allegories, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King being notable examples in English literature.

Where Love Is, There God Is Also is an allegorical story of a pleasing type that is often found in our present-day literature. The story has such evident good humor, appreciation of the needs of humble life, and such an unselfish spirit of sympathy that it appeals to any reader. Its strong realism, effective plan, and clear, emphatic presentation make the story one of the best of its kind.

Count Leo Tolstoi, born at Yasnaya Polyana, in Russia, in 1828, and dying at Astapovo in 1910, is one of the greatest and most interesting figures in all modern literature. The story of his career, with its surprising changes from the life of a nobleman to that of a peasant, from a life given over to pleasure to a life devoted to the moral uplift of a whole people, is even more astonishing than any of the stories he told in his many works of fiction. Student, soldier, traveler, lover of social life, philosopher, reformer, and self-sacrificing idealist, he developed a personality unique in the extreme, and became a world-wide influence for good. His best known novels are War and Peace, and Anna Karenina. In them, as in all that he wrote, the notable qualities are realism, dramatic force, original thought, and courageous expression of beliefs.

Grivenki. A grivenka is 10 copecks, or about five cents.

WOOD-LADIES
By PERCEVAL GIBBON

There is a strange fascination about the supernatural, for men of all races instinctively believe that they are surrounded by a world of good and evil that lies just beyond their touch. Some have thought the woods and mountains peopled with unseen divinities; others have believed in strange gnomes and dwarfs who are thought to live in the depths of the earth; some have believed in pale ghosts, specters that move by night, haunting the scenes of unattoned crime. One of the most pleasing beliefs is that in fairies, or “Little Folk,”—unseen, beautiful, and usually beneficent beings who live in woodland places and are endowed with all powers of magic.