Collected Fables

A SEAL WHO lay basking on a large, smooth rock said to himself: all I ever do is swim. None of the other seals can swim any better than I can, he reflected, but, on the other hand, they can all swim just as well. The more he pondered the monotony and uniformity of his life, the more depressed he became. That night he swam away and joined a circus.

MORAL: It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.

One day his father said to him, “You haven’t burned a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me as if you were never going to. All your brothers have been badly burned flying around street lamps and all your sisters have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now, get out of here and get yourself scorched! A big strapping moth like

So she took him for a walk in the bright sunlight and they were both caught and killed by the shrike’s brother, a shrike named Stoop. MORAL: Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.