A Wolf saw a Goat feeding at the summit of a rock, where he could not get at her. “Why do you stay up there in that sterile place and go hungry?” said the Wolf. “Down here where I am the broken-bottle vine cometh up as a flower, the celluloid collar blossoms as the rose, and the tin-can tree brings forth after its kind.” “That is true, no doubt,” said the Goat, “but how about the circus-poster crop? I hear that it failed this year down there.” The Wolf, perceiving that he was being chaffed, went away and resumed his duties at the doors of the poor.”
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Bierce, in this fable, sounds a whole lot like George Ade’s Fables in Slang. I discovered they were contemporaries and actually were in the same orbit, meeting in person and admiring each other’s work. I’d heard of Bierce and his Devil’s Dictionary while in college English classes, but there was nary a word, as I recall, of Mr. Ade.
Bierce had a dark, misanthropic style George Ade’s was gentler and more forgiving. The lines about the “circus-poster crop” and the “tin can tree” are pure George Ade. Both had highly successful careers as satirists.
For more on George Ade, see one of my first posts of his fables here.
And for Ambrose Bierce, here.
*Source: FANTASTIC FABLES By AMBROSE BIERCE New York and London: G. P. PUTNAM & SONS, The Knickerbocker Press, 1899.
As a point of reference here is a standard version of Aesop’s fable which Mr. Bierce adapted:
The Wolf and the Goat: A wolf seeing a goat feeding on the edge of a high precipice where he could not come at her, besought her to come down lower, for fear she should miss her footing at that dizzy height. “Moreover,” said he, “the grass is far sweeter and more abundant here below.” But the Goat replied; “Excuse me; it is not for my dinner that you invite me, but for your own.”
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N.B. For other essays on numerous other topics go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.
© Copyright all text John Lubans 2025