X 



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 v - 

 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^ 

 1 ^ 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. 



1 



" The present only toucheth thee ! " 



It does more, it throngs him our little fellow 

 mortal of the stubble-field. Into the present is lived "^5 

 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- J 

 .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 





