187 



XIX. 



THE DONKEYS ANCESTORS. 



He is a dear shaggy old donkey, with the 

 true pathetic donkey eyes, and that wonderful 

 donkey power of making himself perfectly 

 happy on a bare rocky hillside upon four 

 sprouting thistles, a bit of prickly carline, and 

 three square yards of wet turf at the outcrop 

 of the little spring, overgrown with rank bog- 

 asphodel and stringy goose-grass. Given 

 this delicious pabulum, with five minutes* 

 total freedom from beating or bullying, and 

 your shaggy donkey is in his seventh heaven. 

 That is what constitutes the true poetry and 

 pathos of his life. I am not ashamed to side 

 with Coleridge on that question, in spite of 

 the sneers in * English Bards,* or in * Rejected 



