Strona 5 z 274

Aesop, or Babrius (or whatever his name was), understood that,

for a fable, all the persons must be impersonal. They must be

like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess. The lion

must always be stronger than the wolf, just as four is always

double of two. The fox in a fable must move crooked, as the

knight in chess must move crooked. The sheep in a fable must

march on, as the pawn in chess must march on. The fable must not

allow for the crooked captures of the pawn; it must not allow for

what Balzac called "the revolt of a sheep" The fairy tale, on the

other hand, absolutely revolves on the pivot of human

personality. If no hero were there to fight the dragons, we

should not even know that they were dragons. If no adventurer

were cast on the undiscovered island--it would remain

undiscovered. If the miller's third son does not find the

enchanted garden where the seven princesses stand white and

frozen--why, then, they will remain white and frozen and

enchanted.