Rodilard, or Maître Mitis; the mice are 'la gent trotte-menu'; the
stomach is Messer Gaster; Jupiter is Jupin; La Fontaine himself is
Gros-Jean. The charming tales, one feels, might almost have been told by
some old country crony by the fire, while the wind was whistling in the
chimney and the winter night drew on. The smile, the gesture, the
singular _naïveté_--one can watch it all. But only for a moment. One
must be childish indeed (and, by an odd irony, this exquisitively
sophisticated author falls into the hands of most of his readers when
they are children) to believe, for more than a moment, that the
ingenuousness of the _Fables_ was anything but assumed. In fact, to do
so would be to miss the real taste of the work. There is a kind of art,
as every one knows, that conceals itself; but there is another--and this
is less often recognized--that displays itself, that _just_ shows,
charmingly but unmistakably, how beautifully contrived it is. And La
Fontaine's art is of the latter sort. He is like one of those
accomplished cooks in whose dishes, though the actual secret of their
making remains a mystery, one can trace the ingredients which have gone
to the concoction of the delicious whole. As one swallows the rare
morsel, one can just perceive how, behind the scenes, the oil, the
vinegar, the olive, the sprinkling of salt, the drop of lemon were
successively added, and, at the critical moment, the simmering delicacy
served up, done to a turn.

It is indeed by an infinity of small touches that La Fontaine produces
his effects. And his effects are very various. With equal ease,
apparently, he can be playful, tender, serious, preposterous, eloquent,
meditative, and absurd. But one quality is always present in his work;
whatever tune he may be playing, there is never a note too much. Alike
in his shortest six-lined anecdote and his most elaborate pieces, in
which detail follows detail and complex scenes are developed, there is