IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 63 



I would hear the passing of a fox, see perhaps his 

 keen, hungry face an instant as he halted, winding 

 me. 



There is struggle, and pain, and death in the 

 woods, and there is fear also, but the fear does not 

 last long ; it does not haunt and follow and terrify; 

 it has no being, no shape, no lair. The shadow of 

 the swiftest scudding cloud is not so fleeting as this 

 Fear-shadow in the woods. The lowest of the animals 

 seem capable of feeling fear ; yet the very highest 

 of them seem incapable of dreading it. For them 

 Fear is not of the imagination, but of the sight, and 

 of the passing moment. 



" The present only toucheth thee ! " 



It does more, it throngs him our little fellow 

 mortal of the stubble-field. Into the present is lived 

 the whole of his life he remembers none of it ; he 

 anticipates none of it. And the whole of this life is 

 action ; and the whole of this action is joy. The mo- 

 ments of fear in an animal's life are few and vanish- 

 ing. Action and joy are constant, the joint laws of 

 all animal life, of all nature of the shining stars 

 that sing together, of the little mice that squeak to- 

 gether, of the bitter northeast storms that roar across 

 the wintry fields. 



I have had more than one hunter grip me excitedly, 

 and with almost a command bid me hear the music 

 of the baying pack. There are hollow halls in the 



