Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-08-18
rhe Monkey of Father Cassabon

BY PROF. JAMES D.-f' ------>, ! + n ----
A magnificent monkey was once the pc
of French priest, Father Cassabon
| wherever be went, and on week days wa.
left at liberty but on Sundays he wa:
carefully locked up. ..-
One Sabbath, however, the priest haC
scarcely begun his sermon before he motto,
ed little boy gazing up at him and laugh,
| ing. The urchin's mother scowled at the
little sinner, and shook him, but looking
up herself to see if the minister noticed the
disturbance, she also commenced laughing.
Others near her no sooner cast their eyes
up toward the pulpit than they also laugh
ed. The preacher at once rebuked the
irreyerence, in the outset mildly, but as
the laughter still increased, severely.
Many stuck handkerchief in their mouths
or covered their faces, but the merriment
became universal, burst out in uproarious
outlaws, and woke even the soundest
sleepers. Then the good father, indignant,
showed blmselfa son Of thunder, and pour
ed out such fulminations and vials of wrath
as would make both ears of any outside
auditor TO tingle. All was in vain. The
more he talked, the more the people were
convulsed. The graver he grew, the gay
er they were. 1t was hard to say whether
his face was more wrinkled with sacred
rage, or theirs with profane rlsibility.
At last the sexton ran up the pulpit
stairs and pointed upward. Thereupon
the exasperated preacher cast his eyes on
high, and his grim visage at once relaxed.
He first grinned horribly, ghastly smile,
and then gave forth as loud side-shaking
explosion as any of the laughers he had
just mathematical.
What was the matter! Why, the pet
monkey was the tempter, like the serpent
in Eden. That rogue had escaped from
his prison, had slyly slipped into the empty
church that morning, and hid IN a nook
behind the sounding-board, above the
pulpit. He lay there quiet until the minis
ter began his sermon; but then perched
himself quietly upon the sounding board,
where he could mark and mimic every
attitude, gesture and facial expression of
the preacher. So noiselessly did he ply
these mockeries that he was for some time
unnoticed, and then only by the sharp
ewes of one restless boy. The minister, as
we have seen, played on harp of thou
sand strings. So did the monkey. The
ape proved equal to the situation, and his
master could not show himself more grave,
solemn, than he did. He had ensconced
himself so high that he could neither be
reached nor dislodged. Accordingly, the
sermon and services broke off in the mid
die, perforce, and the monkey remained
master of the Westinghouse, and monarch
of all he surveyed.
doubt if there be, in all the world,
man Of such vinegar aspect that, in scene
like this he would not show his teeth by
way of smile. Every thing combined to
heighten the ludicroasness. A monkey is,
always and every whore, ridiculous, but
here his pranks were made infinitely more
irresistible by the day, the place, the
position, the contrast with holy tones, and
the growing zeal of both master and
monkey. Above all was the fun lntelsltl-
ed by the magic sympathy OF numbers AL |
thrilling witn one identical impulse. No
wonder the enraged preacher caught the
side-splitting contagion. lie could no
more escape it than ne could remain cold
amid universal summer. The single step
from the sublime to the ridiculous was, for
him, very short and slippery.
There is another scene analogous TO
this of the monkey mocking his minister,
beth in the way of resemblance and of con-
trast. 1t is no less sublime than the other
is ridiculous. refer to the Battle of the
Huns, the subject of Kaulbach's grandest
fresco. AS fast as the Romans and bar
barians had slain one another on that