IN THE SHETLANDS 251 
would arrive at the point where I now stand, by the 
same natural process which has brought me there. 
One cannot long watch any creature without insensibly 
beginning to sympathise with it, to enter into its 
state, to imagine oneself it—which is to be it—and 
then, how can one shoot oneself? Why, it would be 
suicide. As for me, I watch wild animals, when I get 
the chance, not only with sympathy, but with envy. 
I am eternally wishing myself them—strange as it 
may appear to some who, I suppose, rate themselves 
highly. That was Iago’s case. ‘Ere I would,” says 
he, etc., etc. (something very preposterous), “I would 
exchange my humanity with a baboon.” Well, and 
why not? With a guarantee against getting into the 
Zoological Gardens, most of us would be gainers by 
the bargain. I, at any rate—I say it merely as an 
expression of my conviction ; let my enemies make 
the worst of it—I, at any rate, would. As to the 
advantages which would have accrued from the ar- 
rangement in Iago’s case—not only to himself, but to 
almost all the dramatis persone of the play—they are 
too obvious to need pointing out. Baboons, however, 
stand so high in the scale that the change for many of 
us would, except in regard to surroundings, be hardly 
perceptible, so that the desire to bring it about may 
offer too little proof of that force of sympathy which 
I pretend to. But I do not stop there, and even at 
this very moment I would gladly exchange myself 
with this bottle-nosed seal I am watching, could I 
bring myself to cheat the poor fool so. Oh that fine 
