The Puma 291 



scientific attainments, but merely because they themselves 

 have seen and felt the influence of so much that is too 

 evasive for definite detail. The grander passions may be 

 painted ; in virtue of the unstable equilibrium of nervous 

 elements, and that comparatively imperfect system of con- 

 nections existing between the centres, they are always 

 explosive. But a world of complex, kaleidoscopic views 

 interpose between fury and tranquility. Feeling cannot 

 be continually intense, nor need it necessarily remain un- 

 expressed because it is not violent. Only those emotions 

 which are for the time absorbing have an unmistakable 

 physiognomy, and these both brutes and higher beings feel 

 but rarely. In attempting anything more than a sugges- 

 tion of the impression produced by current feeling, the 

 observer is liable to become constructive ; to picture him- 

 self instead of the model, or to lose the subject in the midst 

 of anatomical, physiological, and psychological details. 



Unprovoked dislike, antipathy, permanent and constant 

 in special directions, together with antithetical feelings, 

 which are also said to be spontaneous, Gato possessed in 

 abundance. He gave up trying to kill the Apostle John, 

 but liked him no better than did those heathens who boiled 

 the saint in oil. Whether on account of an animosity he 

 had towards all men, or because in his own fashion he be- 

 came superstitious about the statue, this much is certain, 

 that if dragged up to it, he took offence. On the other 

 hand, Gato made friends with a horse. Every morning 

 when his groom let him out. Said trotted to the rear of the 

 house, put his head over the half-door looking into the 

 court-yard, and asked for a little wine and sugar with a 



