40 The Poets Beasts. 



" He swells with angry pride, 

 And calls forth all his spots on every side." 



For once the poets have nearly managed to make a wild 

 beast a real wild beast, and these variations from nature are 

 as deplorable as they were unnecessary. 



As I have said before, " there is no nonsense about the 

 tiger, as there is about the lion." He does not go about 

 imposing on people. Wolves may, if they like, pretend that 

 ♦they are only dogs gone wrong from want of a better bring- 

 ing-up, and the lion swagger as if he were something more 

 than a very large cat ; but the tiger never descends to such 

 prevarication, setting himself up for better than he is, or 

 claiming respect for qualities which he knows he does not 

 possess. There is no ambiguity about anything he does. 

 All his character is on the surface. " I am," he says, " a 

 thoroughgoing downright wild beast, and if you don't like 

 me you must lump me ; but in the meanwhile you had 

 better get out of my way." There is no pompous affecta- 

 tion of superior "intelligence" about tigers. If they are 

 met with in jungles, they do not make-believe for the 

 purpose of impressing the traveller with their uncommon 

 magnanimity, or waste time like the lion in superfluous roar- 

 ings, shaking of heads, or "looking kingly." On the con- 

 trary, they behave honestly and candidly, like the wild 

 beasts they are. They either retire precipitately with every 

 confession of alarm, or in their own fine outspoken way 

 "go for the stranger." Nor when they make off do they 

 do it as if they liked it or had any half mind about it — as 

 the lion, that Livingstone tells us trots away slowly till it 

 thinks itself out of sight and then bounds off like a grey- 

 hound — wasting time in pretentious attitudes or in trying 

 to save appearances. They have no idea of showing off. 

 If they mean to go, they go like lightning, and don't for 

 a moment think of the figure they may be cutting. But 

 if, on the other hand, they mean fighting, they give the 



