Chumfo, the Super-sense 



of terror and tragedy. Yet every writer of such 

 books probably owns a dog that displays in less 

 degree (because he is less alive) every single 

 symptom of the wild creature, including his alleged 

 fears; and the dog, far from leading a tragic or 

 terror-governed life, is hilariously disposed to make 

 an adventure or a picnic of every new excursion 

 afield. Moreover, if one of these portrayers of 

 animal fears or tragedies has ever had an adventure 

 of his own; if he has penetrated a wild region on 

 tiptoe, or run the white rapids in a canoe, or 

 heard the wind sing in his ears on a breakneck 

 gallop across country, or trailed a bear to his covert, 

 or hunted bandits in the open, or followed the 

 bugles when they blew for war, then he must 

 know well that these unforgetable moments, when 

 a man's senses all awaken and his nerves tingle 

 and he treads the earth like a buck in spring, are 

 the only times in a man's dull life when he feels 

 himself wholly alive and a man. That a naturalist 

 should forget this when he sees an alert wild 

 animal, and deny his dog and his own experience 

 of life by confounding alertness with fear, is 

 probably due not so much to his own blindness 

 as to his borrowed notions, such as the "struggle 

 for existence," the "reign of terror," and other 

 hallucinations which have been packed into his 

 head in the name of science or natural history. 



[39] 



