English Prose: A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice of the Art of Writing
General
English Prose: A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice of the Art of Writing
English language -- Rhetoric; English language -- Style; English prose literature; Readers; Report writing -- Problems, exercises, etc.
The fact that the lower animals are excited by the same emotions as
ourselves is so well established that it will not be necessary to weary
the reader by many details. Terror acts in the same manner on them as on
us, causing the muscles to tremble, the heart to palpitate, the
sphincters to be relaxed, and the hair to stand on end. Suspicion, the
offspring of fear, is eminently characteristic of most wild animals. It
is, I think, impossible to read the account given by Sir E. Tennent, of
the behaviour of the female elephants used as decoys, without admitting
that they intentionally practise deceit, and well know what they are
about. Courage and timidity are extremely variable qualities in the
individuals of the same species, as is plainly seen in our dogs. Some
dogs and horses are ill-tempered and easily turn sulky; others are
good-tempered; and these qualities are certainly inherited. Every one
knows how liable animals are to furious rage and how plainly they show
it. Many, and probably true, anecdotes have been published on the
long-delayed and artful revenge of various animals. The accurate Rengger
and Brehm[59] state that the American and African monkeys which they
kept tame certainly revenged themselves. Sir Andrew Smith, a zoologist
whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons, told me the
following story of which he was himself an eye-witness: At the Cape of
Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal,
seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole
and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the
officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long
afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim.
The love of a dog for his master is notorious; as an old writer quaintly
says: "A dog is the only thing on this earth that luvs you more than he
luvs himself." In the agony of death a dog has been known to caress his
master, and every one has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection,
who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless the operation was
fully justified by an increase of our knowledge, or unless he had a
heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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