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This is markedly the case with Apologues and Facetious Tales, two classes of traditions which do not come within the purview of the present work. But the story has then passed beyond the traditional stage, or else such proof could not be given.
The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description of a lady's footman's daily life, from within, has a good deal of sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic couplet.
A half-dozen of children and their nurses are listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a poke bonnet passes, and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting population of native tradesmen. As for the library, its window is full of pictures of burly theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, and so forth.
His happiest success is in the tales and apologues which illustrate the adventures that constitute a framework for his poetry, which is natural and spirited; and in this, as in other points, he strikingly resembles Chaucer.
And yet the Rime of Sir Thopas, who goes seeking an elf queen for his mate, and is encountered by the giant Sir Olifaunt, burlesques these same romances with their impossible adventures and their tedious rambling descriptions. The tales of the prioress and the second nun are saints' legends. The Monk's Tale is a set of dry, moral apologues in the manner of his contemporary, the "moral Gower."
This is exceeding judiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there affirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet, in the fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of others always exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other scrip thereof, which hangs behind, are kept the bearer's proper transgressions and inauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor thought upon, unless he be a person that hath a favourable aspect from the heavens.
What has become of Charles Kingsley's novels, of the apologues of Maria Edgeworth? "Main Street" is such a story; so was "Mr. Britling Sees It Through"; so probably "A Doll's House." Decay is already at their hearts. Only the student knows how many like tales that preached fierily a text for the times have died in the past. But I am writing of popularity not of permanence.
She had a fine natural gift of recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed.
But since I have not yet commenced the historical physiology of their courageous hearts, I will not mar what I am arranging, methodically, in my head, by slight allusions, or apologues that are ill wrought.
Respecting the second reason, the deceptive appearance which nature sometimes assumes, the exaggeration, almost unavoidable, by partially informed observers, of the details of a phenomenon, or its duration; improper, ill-understood, or badly translated expressions, figurative language, and a practical style; erroneous explanations of emblematical representations; apologues and allegories adopted as real facts.
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