IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 69 



is a universe of law and order and marvelous bal- 

 ance ; conditions these of life, of normal, peaceful, 

 joyous life. Life and not death is the law ; joy and 

 not fear is the spirit, is the frame of all that breathes, 

 of very matter itself. 



"And ever at the loom of Birth 



The Mighty Mother weaves and sings; 

 She weaves fresh robes for mangled earth; 

 She sings fresh hopes for desperate things." 



But suppose the fox were a defenseless rabbit, 

 what of fear and terror then ? 



Ask any one who has shot in the rabbity fields of 

 southern New Jersey. The rabbit seldom runs in 

 blind terror. He is soft-eyed, and timid, and as gentle 

 as a pigeon, but he is not defenseless. A nobler set 

 of legs was never bestowed by nature than the little 

 cottontail's. They are as wings compared with the 

 bent, bow legs that bear up the ordinary rabbit- 

 hound. With winged legs, protecting color, a clear 

 map of the country in his head, its stumps, rail- 

 piles, cat-brier tangles, and narrow rabbit-roads, 

 with all this as a handicap, Bunny may well run his 

 usual cool and winning race. The balance is just as 

 even, the chances quite as good, and the contest 

 every bit as interesting to him as to Reynard. 



I have seen a rabbit squat close in his form and 

 let a hound pass yelping within a few feet of him, 

 but waiting on his toes as ready as a hair-trigger 

 should he be discovered. 



