could not do, even with the aid of his tail, while he went on all-fours. So he began to rejoice in what he called 'the new freedom.' But to the eyes of the denizens of the banyan tree, he looked very ridiculous. They called him stiff-necked, strait-laced, unbending, and inflexible. They swarmed into his little colony of come-outers, on all fours, and began to play their monkeytricks. He met them gravely and said: 'Walk upright, as the rest of us do, and you may stay and share alike with us. Otherwise, out you go.' And out some of them went, back to the banyan tree; and there, with the chimpanzees and the red and blue baboons, they still chatter over their cocoanut wine, and emit from time to time a scream of simian rage, and declare their straight-backed relative a tyrant, a despot, and a persecutor of his good old four-footed cousins.
You may say that this is only a foolish fable. But it contains all the essential features of the eternal Puritan: namely, dissatisfaction with the past, courage to break sharply from it, a vision of a better life, readiness to accept a discipline in order to attain that better life, and a serious desire to make that better life prevail—a desire reflecting at once his sturdy individualism and his clear sense for the need of social
