THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 21 



pression exactly like the dent in the rubber ball 

 — as if it had never been. 



Yet the analogy only half holds. Memories of 

 the most tenacious kind the animals surely have ; 

 but little or no voluntary, unaided power to use 

 them. Memory is largely a mechanical, a crank 

 process with the animals, a kind of magic-lantern 

 show, where the concrete slide is necessary for the 

 picture on the screen ; else the past as the future 

 hangs a blank. The dog will sometimes seem to 

 cherish a grudge ; so will the elephant. Some one 

 injures or wrongs him, and the huge beast harbors 

 the memory, broods it, and waits his opportunity 

 for revenge. Yet the records of these cases 

 usually show the creature to be living with the 

 object of his hatred — keeper or animal — and 

 that his memory goes no further back than the 

 present moment, than the sight of the enemy; 

 memory always taking an immediate, concrete 

 shape. 



At my railroad station I frequently see a yoke 

 of great sleepy, bald-faced oxen, that look as much 

 alike as two blackbirds. Their driver knows them 

 apart ; but as they stand there bound to one an- 

 other by the heavy bar across their foreheads, it 



