After all that has been said concerning Jack, yet the world is full of
people, educated and intelligent as they consider themselves to be, who
cannot see that this bit of flesh and spirit has been endowed by the
same wise Creator with the same traits of character, but differing in
degree, that they themselves possess. Going back to the ingenuity which
Jack displayed in the cases of the cage and the strap referred to, it
may be said to his credit that even Baron Trench himself could not have
shown greater skill in the discovery of the weak parts of his prison
and bonds than did this so-called brute, nor could he have exhibited
more patience and perseverance in working at them. Indeed, there are
many human beings that would not have been half so sensible as Jack,
but still we must believe that such high intelligence, comparatively
speaking, must inevitably perish with the body, through which as
a vehicle it was made to manifest itself. All intelligence is an
emanation from the Divine Intelligence, and, when the life has gone out
of the body from which it was made to shine forth, then it, instead of
perishing with the material, returns to the Source of all intelligence,
not to be re-absorbed, but, as I think, to continue as a separate
intelligence, drawing its life and light from the great Central Head,
like as the planets derive theirs from the centre of our material
universe--the Sun.
UNTUTORED MAN.
Strange and unique as are the plants and animals of Australia, yet
nothing definite can be affirmed of its native human inhabitants. They
are a peculiar people, separated by a wide remove from the Papuans,
the Malays and the Negro. Of a dark, coffee-brown complexion, rather
than actually black, the Australian is but little inferior to the
average European in height, but is altogether of a much slimmer and
feebler build, his limbs, particularly, being very lean and destitute
of calves, a defect which is a peculiarity of the darker races of man.
His head is long and narrow, dolichocephalic in type, with a low brow,
prominent just above the orbital regions, but receding thence in a very
marked degree. The nose, proceeding from a comparatively narrow base,
broadens outwardly to a somewhat squat end, the eyes on each side of
its attenuated root appearing drawn together. His face bulges into high
cheek bones; his mouth is large and grotesque, the jaw-bone contracted,
the upper jaw projecting over the lower, but with fine, white teeth;
the chin cut away, and his ears slightly pricked forward. Not only the
head and face, but the entire body as well, is covered with a profusion
of hair, which, when freed of its enclogging dirt and oil, is soft and
glossy. Like most savage peoples, the effluvium of his skin, offensive
as it naturally is, is very much exaggerated by the fish-oil he uses in
the anointment of his person.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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