Fable Narration Example

A couple of years ago I shared our family's use of Aesop's fables. We've recently begun again with written narrations for our oldest son. I tracked down a copy of Aesop Without Morals, which includes the complete fables all without the moral attached. Today my thirteen year old wrote this narration with a twist - he thought of a sonnet to illustrate the moral:

Once, two friends were walking through a dark quiet forest. All of a sudden a huge bear attacked them.  One of them climbed up into a tree but the other, not being able to climb, fell down as if he were dead; for we all know that a bear will not harm a dead man. The bear looked at the man on the ground and sniffed him several times, and then it walked off. The other man came down out of the tree and asked what the bear had whispered in the first man’s ear and the man answered: “don’t trust a man who leaves you when you are in trouble.”

And the moral of the story is, in Shakespeare’s words:

He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need:

If thou sorrow, he will weep;

If thou wake, he cannot sleep;

Thus of every grief in heart

He with thee doth take a part.

These are certain signs to know

Faithful friend from flattering foe

Sonnet  XXI 

The Function of Art...

"The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good." - Andrei Tarkovsky

Cry Wolf by Paul Lake

Paul Lake's political fable, Cry Wolf, is a marvel. I have read dozens of books out loud to the family but never have we read a book that generated as much discussion. And not only that, it was a real page turner. The fable tackles some difficult topics: immigration, political correctness, democracy, and religion. I have a feeling this book will serve as fodder for all kinds of future discussion as well. Must reading.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beautiful."

To repeat the shibboleth, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is to say, "I, too, am a modern." The premodern man says, "Beauty is in the eye of the beautiful." He knows that ugly eyes - undisciplined, uneducated, vicious eyes - are blind. (from Pure by Mark Anderson, a fantastic little book)

Aphorisms on Liberalism

Either man has rights, or the people is sovereign. The simultaneous assertion of two mutually exclusive theses is what people have called liberalism.

Liberalism proclaims the right of the individual to degrade oneself, provided one’s degradation does not impede the degradation of one’s neighbor.

Modern liberalism no longer defends any of the “rights of man” except the right to consume.

Today’s conservatives are nothing more than liberals who have been ill-treated by democracy.

Tolerance consists of a firm decision to allow them to insult everything we seek to love and respect, as long as they do not threaten our material comforts. Modern, liberal, democratic, progressive man, as long as they do not step on his calluses, will let them degrade his soul.

A small sample of the aphorisms of Columbian reactionary Nicolas Gomez Davila

"The Loftiest Function of Art"

"The loftiest function of art is to mediate these two reciprocal spheres of being, to give access to the Divine in the realm of culture." Fr. Silouan Justiniano in The Road to Emmaus Vol. XIV, No. 3

It would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world

A Little dialogue from the end of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scott-King’s Modern Europe, between a school administrator and the classics professor:

Later the headmaster sent for Scott-King.

“You know,” he said, “we are starting this year with fifteen fewer classical specialists than we had last term?”

“I thought that would be about the number.”

“As you know I’m an old Greats man myself. I deplore it as much as you do. But what are we to do? Parents are not interested in producing the ‘complete man’ any more. They want to qualify their boys for jobs in the modern world. You can hardly blame them, can you?”

“Oh yes,” said Scott-King. “I can and do.”

“I always say you are a much more important man here than I am. One couldn’t conceive of Granchester without Scott-King. But has it ever occurred to you that a time may come when there will be no more classical boys at all?”

“Oh yes. Often.”

“What I was going to suggest was—I wonder if you will consider taking some other subject as well as the classics? History, for example, preferably economic history?”

“No, headmaster.”

“But, you know, there may be something of a crisis ahead.”

“Yes, headmaster.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“If you approve, headmaster, I will stay as I am here as long as any boy wants to read the classics. I think it would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world.”

“It’s a short-sighted view, Scott-King.”

“There, headmaster, with all respect, I differ from you profoundly. I think it the most long-sighted view it is possible to take.”