Some Harmless Btosis. 141 



beast which man by his superior intelligence and strength 

 can always overcome when he chooses. 



" His ann can plack the lion from his prey. 

 And hold the homed rhinoceios at bay." 



A conspicuous exception to all the rest, however, is the 

 poets' treatment of the deer. It is the dove among the 

 beasts. And the hind and the fawn are the turtle-doves. 



But it is evident to me, studying the poets among their 

 animals, that very few indeed cared for any one of the 

 beasts any further than it assisted them to a simile for 

 something human. That this can be justified I easily 

 allow ; but at the same time it is a matter for fair surprise 

 that poets, when the name of a wild beast suggested to them 

 a mental picture of the actual thing in Nature, did not 

 enrich their bald references with one or other of the many 

 beautiful and picturesque images which are at once con- 

 jured up. 



Had I been bom a poet, I should never have tired, for 

 instance, so it seems to me, of the elephant symbol — 



" The huge elephant, wisest of brutes ! 

 O truly wise, with gentle might endowed, 

 Though powerful not destructive." 



It is so comprehensive, so intelligent, so versatile. Elephants 

 do most things that men do, and a great many besides that 

 men cannot Every one of them is a whole Cleopatra's- 

 needle-fuU of hieroglyphics and significances. They knock 

 down the walls of houses with their foreheads and pick 

 up pins with their trunks. One elephant bumping against 

 another knocks it over, yet elephants have been taught to 

 dance on the tight-rope. It seems to have most of the 

 virtues in ordinary times of an honest man ; at others it 

 develops a depth of cunning malignity that all the Newgate 

 calendar cannot match. However, this is not the poets' 

 elephant 



