count your own blessings
and let your neighbor count theirs –
secure as a vault …

Based on the James Thurber Further Fable for Our Time, The Philosopher and the Oyster.

By the sea on a lovely morning strolled a philosopher — one who seeks a magnificent explanation for his insignificance — and there he came upon an oyster lying in its shell upon the sand.

“It has no mind to be burdened by doubt,” mused the philosopher, “no fingers to work to the bone.

It can never say, ‘My feet are killing me.’

It hears no evil, sees no television, speaks no folly. It has no buttons to come off, no zipper to get caught, no hair or teeth to fall out.”

The philosopher sighed a deep sigh of envy.

“It produces a highly lustrous concretion, of great price or priceless,” he said, “when a morbid condition obtains in its anatomy, if you could call such an antic, anomalous amorphousness anatomy.”

The philosopher sighed again and said, “Would that I could wake from delirium with a circlet of diamonds upon my fevered brow.

Would, moreover, that my house were my sanctuary, as sound and secure as a safe-deposit vault.”

Just then a screaming sea gull swooped out of the sky, picked up the oyster in its claws, carried it high in the air, and let it drop upon a great wet rock, shattering the shell and splattering its occupant.

There was no lustrous concretion, of any price whatever, among the debris, for the late oyster had been a very healthy oyster, and, anyway, no oyster ever profited from its pearl.

MORALS: Count your own blessings, and let your neighbor count his.

Where there is no television, the people also perish.

I quote from Mr. Thurber today because, if you subscribed to the New Yorker Magazine in the year 1956, and on this day in 1956, you got your copy of the New Yorker from your mailbox and read later that night after dinner, on page 19, you would have read The Philosopher and the Oyster as that was when the story was first published.

Seventy years ago today or as Mr. Lincoln might say, Three Score and Ten.

The Further Fables, according to one biography were all written in a Columbus, Ohio hotel where Thurber was staying as he visited with his family for a month in 1955.

According the biography, James Thurber : his life and times by Harrison Kinney (Holt: New York, 1995), Thurber began a new series of fables. Thirty-seven of them ran in the New Yorker from May 12 to October 13, 1956. Katharine White had obtained permission from Harper & Bros, to run certain illustrations from the 1940 Fables for Our Time with the new fables, and, beyond her official call of duty, obtained additional permission for their use in both the American and British editions of Further Fables for Our Time. Most of the other illustrations in the books are composites of Thurber’s cartoons and spots over the years.

Mr. Kinney continues: Further Fables for Our Time, complete with the New Yorker rejects, was published October 31, 1956, with a first printing of thirty thousand copies. The Book Find Club accounted for another fifteen thousand, and the New Yorker s business department had five thousand complimentary copies bound to send to advertising space buyers. S. J. Perelman let it be known that the fables contained “the finest writing of our time,” but Thurber was upset to be told that one reviewer had called them “the tired writing of a tired man.” That another critic had said, “He writes with the verve of a young man” didn’t compensate him for the put-down.

In a letter to a Miss Carolyn Wilson, dated West Cornwall, Connecticut, May 2, 1960, Mr. Thurber writes:

Our mutual friend Libba Thayer has given me your address and reminded me that you and I were great friends of Elmer Davis,’ so I felt like writing to you. 

Elmer Davis was my favorite American of this century, as I have said in private and in print, and I was happy that he lived to read my dedication to him of Further Fables for Our Time. He wrote me a brief, painful, but bright note about it, saying that it made him feel like a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Schweitzer. I know a great many other admirers of Elmer, including Edward P. Morgan, who broadcasts for WABC, and many newspapermen. (Selected letters of James Thurber by James Thurber (London : Hamish Hamilton, 1982)).

Mr. Kinney commented: The dedication page of Further Fables for Our Time reads: “To Elmer Davis, whose comprehension of people and persons has lighted our time, so that we can see where we are going, these fables are dedicated with admiration, affection and thankfulness.” Thurber had been a faithful listener to Davis, whose defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network from Vincent Hartnett, editor of Red Channels. Davis was in the hospital with an illness that would prove fatal. He was moved by Thurber’s compassionate efforts to cheer him, and wrote Thurber that given his years of blindness, Thurber surely had too many He was moved by Thurber’s compassionate efforts to cheer him, and wrote Thurber that given his years of blindness, Thurber surely had too many of his own travails to worry about Davis’s.

According to Wikipedia, Elmer Holmes Davis (January 13, 1890 – May 18, 1958) was an American news reporter, author, the Director of the United States Office of War Information during World War II and a Peabody Award recipient. Beginning on January 3, 1954, he had a program on ABC Radio on Sundays from 10:15 to 10:30 Eastern Time. Davis used the platform to criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy for his anti-communist investigations.

To repeat, Thurber had been a faithful listener to Davis, whose defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network from Vincent Hartnett, editor of Red Channels.

And again, His defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network.

Ripples from little stones dropped in the pool.

You can see all of the Thurber images online that I have collected at For Muggs and Rex.

out she swung – far out
twixt heaven and earth .. curfew
shall not ring tonight

According to Wikipedia, Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight is a narrative poem by Rose Hartwick Thorpe, written in 1867 and set in the 17th century.

Thorpe wrote her poem in 1867, following the American Civil War, while living in Litchfield, Michigan. She traded the manuscript to a Detroit newspaper in exchange for a subscription. The original newspaper printing has never been found, but the poem was widely printed before the first version in book form in 1882.

Thorpe’s poem, a favorite of Queen Victoria’s, was one of the most popular of the 19th century, but later faded into obscurity. An 8-foot monument in Litchfield, Michigan along State Highway 99 honors the poem and author’s connection to that town.

Litchfield adopted the title of the poem as a symbol, having fire trucks and the city website show the symbol of a bell reading “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight”. A bell in the center of Litchfield commemorates the poem and Thorpe’s time spent in the town

Oddly enough while Wikipedia entry for the poem, it mentions that the poem was written in Litchfield, Michigan and that a highway marker commemorates that fact, the Wikipedia entry for Litchfield does not list Rose Hartwick Thorpe under famous people from Litchfield.

But I digress.

Wikipedia does mention that An illustrated version of this poem is contained in Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber (1940).

My research shows that the James Thurber’s Illustrated Poem first appeared in the New Yorker Magazine 87 years ago today, June 17, 1939.

In his book working at the New Yorker Magazine, The Years with Ross, Thurber writes that editor Harold Ross was fond of the Illustrated Poem series writing, “Why in God’s name did you stop doing the illustrated poems? There are forty million other verses in the English language, many of them unquestionably suitable for Thurber illustration.”

Thurber says he responded, “As for the illustrated poems, they began when I sent St. Clair McKelway, from Frederick, Maryland, the Barbara Frietchie drawings, and they ended when I tried Poe’s Raven, and it turned into a common cornfield crow.”

My research shows that The Raven never appeared in the magazine, but was published in the book, Thurber and Company, in 1966.

Here is the complete poem.

Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight

England’s sun was slowly setting oe’r the hilltops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,–
He with steps so slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she, with lips all cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

“Sexton,” Bessie’s white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its walls so tall and gloomy, moss-grown walls dark, damp and cold,–
“I’ve a lover in the prison, doomed this very night to die
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset;” and her lips grew strangely white,
As she spoke in husky whispers, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

“Bessie,” calmly spoke the sexton (every word pierced her young heart
Like a gleaming death-winged arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart),
“Long, long years I’ve rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has tolled the twilight hour.
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right:
Now I’m old, I will not miss it. Curfew bell must ring to-night!”

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,
As within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh,
“At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die.”
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
One low murmur, faintly spoken. “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the old church-door,
Left the old man coming slowly, paths he’d trod so oft before.
Not one moment paused the maiden, But with eye and cheek aglow,
Staggered up the gloomy tower, Where the bell swung to and fro;
As she climbed the slimy ladder, On which fell no ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying, “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

She has reached the topmost ladder, o’er her hangs the great dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
See! the ponderous tongue is swinging; ’tis the hour of curfew now,
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs, and grasps it firmly: “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

Out she swung,– far out. The city Seemed a speck of light below,–
There twixt heaven and earth suspended, As the bell swung to and fro.
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil’s funeral knell.
“Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white,
Stilled her frightened heart’s wild throbbing: “Curfew shall not ring tonight!”

It was o’er, the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before,
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white,
Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.

O’er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow,
Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands, all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face, still haggard, with the anguish it had worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.
“Go! your lover lives,” said Cromwell. “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die,
All his bright young life before him. Neath the darkening English sky,
Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with lovelight sweet;
Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet.
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,
Whispered, “Darling, you have saved me, curfew will not ring to-night.”