THE BEAR IN FABLE AND STORY. 113 



So when the gilded parts of vice 

 Are placed before our longing eyes, 

 With greedy haste we snatch our fill 

 And swallow down the latent ill ; 

 And when experience opes our eyes, 

 Away the fancied pleasure flies ; 

 It flies, but oh ! too late we find, 

 It leaves a real sting behind." 



11. ^Esop, in the fable, derives a lesson in morals and 

 manners from another peculiarity of the bear. This is 

 the fable : 



THE BEAE AND THE TWO FRIENDS. 



12. " Two friends, setting out together upon a journey 

 which led through a dangerous forest, mutually promised 

 to assist each other if they should happen to be assaulted. 

 They had not proceeded far before they perceived a bear 

 making toward them with great rage. 



13. " There were no hopes in flight ; but one of them, 

 being very active, sprang up into a tree, upon which the 

 other, throwing himself flat on the ground, held his breath 

 and pretended to be dead, remembering to have heard it 

 asserted that this creature will not prey upon a dead car- 

 cass. The bear came up, and, after smelling of him some 

 time, left him and went on. When he was fairly out of 

 sight and hearing, the hero from the tree called out, 

 'Well, my friend, what said the bear? He seemed to 

 whisper you very closely.' ' He did so,' replied the other, 

 4 and gave me this good advice, never to associate with a 

 wretch who in the hour of danger will desert his friend.' " 



14. The bear-stories of later date have little of the 

 fancy which gave such a charm to those of the old time. 

 Sometimes, however, they illustrate a point and have a 

 quaint humor of their own. Here is the story of 



