Fables E-Book

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 76

Beschreibung

Short collection of anecdotes. According to Wikipedia: "Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson ( 1850 - 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins", as G. K. Chesterton put it. He was also greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov, and J. M. Barrie. Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their definition of modernism. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the canon."

Leseprobe

FABLES BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Books by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Across the Plains

The Art of Writing

Ballads

Black Arrow

The Bottle Imp

Catriona or David Balfour (sequel to Kidnapped)

A Child's Garden of Verses

The Ebb-Tide

Edinburgh

Essays

Essays of Travel

Fables

Familiar Studies of Men and Books

Father Damien

Footnote to History

In the South Seas

An Inland Voyage

Island Nights' Entertainments

Kidnapped

Lay Morals

Letters

Lodging for the Night

Markheim

Master of Ballantrae

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin

Memories and Portraits

Merry Men

Moral Emblems

New Arabian Nights

New Poems

The Pavilion on the Links

Four Plays

The Pocket R. L. S.

Prayers Written at Vailima

Prince Otto

Records of a Family of Engineers

The Sea Fogs

The Silverado Squatters

Songs of Travel

St. Ives

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Tales and Fantasies

Thrawn Janet

Travels with a Donkey

Treasure Island

Underwoods

Vailima Letters

Virginibus Puerisque

The Waif Woman

Weir of Hermiston

The Wrecker

The Wrong Box

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I. - THE PERSONS OF THE TALE.

II. - THE SINKING SHIP.

III - THE TWO MATCHES.

IV. - THE SICK MAN AND THE FIREMAN.

V. - THE DEVIL AND THE INNKEEPER.

VI. -  THE PENITENT

VII. - THE YELLOW PAINT.

VIII. - THE HOUSE OF ELD.

IX - THE FOUR REFORMERS.

X. - THE MAN AND HIS FRIEND.

XI. - THE READER.

XII. - THE CITIZEN AND THE TRAVELLER.

XIII. - THE DISTINGUISHED STRANGER.

XIV. - THE CART-HORSES AND THE SADDLE-HORSE.

XV - THE TADPOLE AND THE FROG.

XVI. - SOMETHING IN IT.

XVII. - FAITH, HALF FAITH AND NO FAITH AT ALL.

XVIII. - THE TOUCHSTONE.

XIX. - THE POOR THING.

XX. - THE SONG OF THE MORROW.

I. - THE PERSONS OF THE TALE.

AFTER the 32nd chapter of TREASURE ISLAND, two of the puppets  strolled out to have a pipe before business should begin again, and  met in an open place not far from the story.

"Good-morning, Cap'n," said the first, with a man-o'-war salute,  and a beaming countenance.

"Ah, Silver!" grunted the other.  "You're in a bad way, Silver."

"Now, Cap'n Smollett," remonstrated Silver, "dooty is dooty, as I  knows, and none better; but we're off dooty now; and I can't see no  call to keep up the morality business."

"You're a damned rogue, my man," said the Captain.

"Come, come, Cap'n, be just," returned the other.  "There's no call  to be angry with me in earnest.  I'm on'y a chara'ter in a sea  story.  I don't really exist."

"Well, I don't really exist either," says the Captain, "which seems  to meet that."

"I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous chara'ter might  consider argument," responded Silver.  "But I'm the villain of this  tale, I am; and speaking as one sea-faring man to another, what I  want to know is, what's the odds?"

"Were you never taught your catechism?" said the Captain.  "Don't  you know there's such a thing as an Author?"

"Such a thing as a Author?" returned John, derisively.  "And who  better'n me?  And the p'int is, if the Author made you, he made  Long John, and he made Hands, and Pew, and George Merry - not that  George is up to much, for he's little more'n a name; and he made  Flint, what there is of him; and he made this here mutiny, you keep  such a work about; and he had Tom Redruth shot; and - well, if  that's a Author, give me Pew!"

"Don't you believe in a future state?" said Smollett.  "Do you  think there's nothing but the present story-paper?"

"I don't rightly know for that," said Silver; "and I don't see what  it's got to do with it, anyway.  What I know is this: if there is  sich a thing as a Author, I'm his favourite chara'ter.  He does me  fathoms better'n he does you - fathoms, he does.  And he likes  doing me.  He keeps me on deck mostly all the time, crutch and all;  and he leaves you measling in the hold, where nobody can't see you,  nor wants to, and you may lay to that!  If there is a Author, by  thunder, but he's on my side, and you may lay to it!"

"I see he's giving you a long rope," said the Captain.  "But that  can't change a man's convictions.  I know the Author respects me; I  feel it in my bones; when you and I had that talk at the blockhouse  door, who do you think he was for, my man?"

"And don't he respect me?" cried Silver.  "Ah, you should 'a' heard  me putting down my mutiny, George Merry and Morgan and that lot, no  longer ago'n last chapter; you'd heard something then!  You'd 'a'  seen what the Author thinks o' me!  But come now, do you consider  yourself a virtuous chara'ter clean through?"

"God forbid!" said Captain Smollett, solemnly.  "I am a man that  tries to do his duty, and makes a mess of it as often as not.  I'm  not a very popular man at home, Silver, I'm afraid!" and the  Captain sighed.

"Ah," says Silver.  "Then how about this sequel of yours?  Are you  to be Cap'n Smollett just the same as ever, and not very popular at  home, says you?  And if so, why, it's TREASURE ISLAND over again,  by thunder; and I'll be Long John, and Pew'll be Pew, and we'll  have another mutiny, as like as not.  Or are you to be somebody  else?  And if so, why, what the better are you? and what the worse  am I?"

"Why, look here, my man," returned the Captain, "I can't understand  how this story comes about at all, can I?  I can't see how you and  I, who don't exist, should get to speaking here, and smoke our  pipes for all the world like reality?  Very well, then, who am I to  pipe up with my opinions?  I know the Author's on the side of good;  he tells me so, it runs out of his pen as he writes.  Well, that's  all I need to know; I'll take my chance upon the rest."

"It's a fact he seemed to be against George Merry," Silver  admitted, musingly.  "But George is little more'n a name at the  best of it," he added, brightening.  "And to get into soundings for  once.  What is this good?  I made a mutiny, and I been a gentleman  o' fortune; well, but by all stories, you ain't no such saint.  I'm  a man that keeps company very easy; even by your own account, you  ain't, and to my certain knowledge you're a devil to haze.  Which  is which?  Which is good, and which bad?  Ah, you tell me that!   Here we are in stays, and you may lay to it!"

"We're none of us perfect," replied the Captain.  "That's a fact of  religion, my man.  All I can say is, I try to do my duty; and if  you try to do yours, I can't compliment you on your success."

"And so you was the judge, was you?" said Silver, derisively.

"I would be both judge and hangman for you, my man, and never turn  a hair," returned the Captain.  "But I get beyond that: it mayn't  be sound theology, but it's common sense, that what is good is  useful too - or there and thereabout, for I don't set up to be a  thinker.  Now, where would a story go to if there were no virtuous  characters?"

"If you go to that," replied Silver, "where would a story begin, if  there wasn't no villains?"

"Well, that's pretty much my thought," said Captain Smollett.  "The  Author has to get a story; that's what he wants; and to get a  story, and to have a man like the doctor (say) given a proper  chance, he has to put in men like you and Hands.  But he's on the  right side; and you mind your eye ! You're not through this story  yet; there's trouble coming for you."

"What'll you bet?" asked John.

"Much I care if there ain't," returned the Captain.  "I'm glad  enough to be Alexander Smollett, bad as he is; and I thank my stars  upon my knees that I'm not Silver.  But there's the ink-bottle  opening.  To quarters!"

And indeed the Author was just then beginning to write the words:

CHAPTER XXXIII.

 II. - THE SINKING SHIP.

 "SIR," said the first lieutenant, bursting into the Captain's  cabin, "the ship is going down."

"Very well, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain; "but that is no reason  for going about half-shaved.  Exercise your mind a moment, Mr.  Spoker, and you will see that to the philosophic eye there is  nothing new in our position: the ship (if she is to go down at all)  may be said to have been going down since she was launched."

"She is settling fast," said the first lieutenant, as he returned  from shaving.

"Fast, Mr. Spoker?" asked the Captain.  "The expression is a  strange one, for time (if you will think of it) is only relative."

"Sir," said the lieutenant, "I think it is scarcely worth while to  embark in such a discussion when we shall all be in Davy Jones's  Locker in ten minutes."