To begin with, I know him very well, and he knows me. I have fed him many a time and oft with the sugared compliments he likes best--and what is really a matter worth noting he has _allowed_ me to feed him. This is very good of him. He is not so amiable to everybody. Few indeed are permitted the high honour of holding out a dainty morsel of flattery to that delicately-sniffing trunk which "smells a rat" too swiftly to be easily cajoled. But it has pleased the Elephant to take food from my hand, though while he ate, I noticed he never stopped winking. So that I know perfectly well who it was that lifted me up a while ago in a journal that shall be nameless, and did his utmost to smash me utterly by the force with which he threw me down again. Elephants have "nasty humours" now and then--it is their nature. But for once this particular animal found his match. He didn't hurt me though he tried; I got up from under his very feet, and--offered him another Compliment. He took it--gracefully; swallowed it "beautifully"--and does not wink quite so much now. Still, his eye is always on me--and mine on him--and we begin to understand each other. His prettiest trick, and the one for which he is chiefly admired, is, as I said before, the delicate way in which he picks up Pins. Pins that any less sensitive creature would think worthless, he instantly perceives, selects and classes as "distinctly precious." Minute points of discussion having to do with vague subjects which (unless we could live on an Island of Dreams like the Laureate's Lotus-eaters) no one has any time to waste in considering, he (the Elephant) turns over and over and disposes of in his own peculiar fashion. He has a low estimate of man's moral responsibilities, he thinks that if the "masses" could only be brought to appreciate Colour as keenly as he himself appreciates it, the world would be both happy and wise, and would have no further need of law. He considers Nature _au naturel_ a mistake. Nature must be refined by Art. _Ergo_, a grand waterfall would not appeal to him, unless properly illumined by electricity, or otherwise got up for effect. He himself is got up for effect--if he were not, according to his own showing, he would be hideous. An Elephant of the jungle is unlovely, but an Elephant in civilian attire, decently housed, with a Fairy to look after him and preside over his meals, is a very different animal. Art has refined him. Nature has nothing more to do with him.