Praise and Flattery

Praise may be gigantic and insane without having any quality of flattery so long as it is praise of something that is noticeably in existence. A man may say that a giraffe's head strikes the stars, or that a whale fills the German Ocean, and still be only in a rather excited state about a favourite animal. But when he begins to congratulate the giraffe on his feathers, and the whale on the elegance of his legs, we find ourselves confronted with that social element which we call flattery.

-G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, "On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set"

Camp Songs #8

There was a whale and when she smiled
You could see her teeth for miles and miles
And her tonsils
And her spareribs
And things too fierce to mention

Now what would you do with a whale like that?
Now what would you do if she sat on your hat?
Or your toothbrush?
Or your counselor?
Or anything helpless like that?

Nice But Nubbly

In the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was the small 'Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale's right ear, so as to be out of harm's way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, “I'm hungry.” And the small 'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, “Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?”

“No,” said the Whale. “What is it like?”

“Nice,” said the small 'Stute Fish. “Nice but nubbly.”

-Rudyard Kipling, “How the Whale Got His Throat,” Just So Stories