En sage et discrete personne,
    Maitre chat excusait ces jeux.

Then the second sparrow is introduced and his quarrel with the first.  The cat fires up—­

    Le moineau du voisin viendra manger le notre? 
    Non, de par tous les chats!—­Entrant lors au combat,
    Il croque l’etranger.  Vraiment, dit maitre chat,
    Les moineaux ont un gout exquis et delicat!

And now in one line the story ends—­

    Cette reflexion fit aussi croquer l’autre.

One more instance of La Fontaine’s inimitable conciseness may be given.  When Bertrand (the monkey) has eaten the chestnuts which Raton (the cat) has pulled out of the fire, the friends are interrupted; the fable ends thus—­

    Une servante vint; adieu, mes gens!  Raton
    N’etait pas content, ce dit-on.

How admirable are the brevity and the lightness of that ’adieu, mes gens’!  In three words the instantaneous vanishing of the animals is indicated with masterly precision.  One can almost see their tails whisking round the corner.

Modern admirers of La Fontaine have tended to throw a veil of sentiment over his figure, picturing him as the consoling beatific child of nature, driven by an unsympathetic generation to a wistful companionship with the dumb world of brutes.  But nothing could be farther from the truth than this conception.  La Fontaine was as unsentimental as Moliere himself.  This does not imply that he was unfeeling:  feelings he had—­delicate and poignant ones; but they never dominated him to the exclusion of good sense.  His philosophy—­if we may call so airy a thing by such a name—­was the philosophy of some gentle whimsical follower of Epicurus.  He loved nature, but unromantically, as he loved a glass of wine and an ode of Horace, and the rest of the good things of life.  As for the bad things—­they were there; he saw them—­saw the cruelty of the wolf, and the tyranny of the lion, and the rapacity of man—­saw that—­

    Jupin pour chaque etat mit deux tables au monde;
    L’adroit, le vigilant, et le fort sont assis
    A la premiere; et les petits
    Mangent leur reste a la seconde.

Yet, while he saw them, he could smile.  It was better to smile—­if only with regret; better, above all, to pass lightly, swiftly, gaily over the depths as well as the surface of existence; for life is short—­almost as short as one of his own fables—­

    Qui de nous des clartes de la voute azuree
    Doit jouir le dernier?  Est-il aucun moment
    Qui vous puisse assurer d’un second seulement?