The Goose

“I see what you are up to, Uncle,” interrupted Jules; “you are taking up your favorite refrain, the praise of the slandered."

“When we say of some one, ‘He is as silly as a goose,’ we think of him not as a fowl but as a very stupid man.” (Capon¹)

(Capon adds) “It is a mistake to think that words have no meaning without any sort of context, even in our own day. When we do that, our minds and hearts follow the words right to the grave. We begin to think that the meaning of words has to do only with the way they sound.”

How true is this in our own lives, whether speaking about others, or to ourselves.

[...]

A while ago you extolled the two ugliest of creatures, the bat and the toad; now you are going to undertake the defense of the goose and clear it of the slander it suffers

[...]

Q:

[...]

A: What I am defending is not the individual vices of those animals, but their souls as a whole; and I have said so often enough.

A: I admit that this bird may often seem to me as vile as we have heard other people talking about it, but here in this room, you see how I feel.

A: Not a drop of blood but a great drop of sweat.

Know that in its wild state the goose is an impassioned traveler, even more so than its companion, the duck. Influenced by considerations of convenience, the latter often nests in our latitudes; the goose is more given to mistrust and passes us by.

“Since it is only necessary to go north,” answered Jules, “I should first make sure of the points of the compass. I should turn toward the sun, and if it is rising, I should set out accordingly.”

[...]

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1: Robert Farrar Capon (October 26, 1925 – September 5, 2013) was an American Episcopal priest, author and chef.