A DEFENCE OF THE ASS 253 
of the jaguar, or his neck dislocated by the puma that 
leaps on to his back. 
Instead of regarding the ass as a type and symbol 
of human stupidity I regard him with affection as 
of my kith and kin, for a better reason than Coleridge 
had, since with him it was purely the Franciscan 
feeling of pity and love. A being with qualities that 
place him above all the other domesticated animals. 
An incarnation of patient merit. Not the hopeless, 
desponding patience of the conquered broken slave. 
A slave with a heavy burden to bear for a thousand 
generations, he has not lost the sense of the injustice 
of his lot, the power and spirit to inflict blow for blow 
on his taskmaster and tyrant when the occasion offers. 
And that's the "hoof of the ass" about which we 
hear so much from our intellectual, spiritual-minded, 
uplifting preachers and talkers and writers! Even 
now when writing this chapter I see in the news- 
papers that yet another brilliant saying of that wise 
man among us, the famous Dean of St. Paul's, has 
been caught up, and is being wafted far and wide 
all over the land. For wisdom is a rare and precious 
thing, and we value it accordingly. We have left 
the tiger and ape behind, he says : let us hope that by- 
and-by we may find it possible to drop the ass's hoof. 
Original, as well as beautifully expressed! The 
thought is always in some people's minds, and the 
ape and tiger and wolf and ass are its symbols. 
It has been spoken every day for centuries, millions 
of times, in a thousand forms. I have admired 
the expression in one form only, by a poet and 
