THE SERPENT’S TONGUE 151 
principal agent in fascination, but only that it is 
a necessary part of the creature, and of the creature’s 
strangeness, which is able to produce so great and 
wonderful an effect. The long, limbless body, 
lithely and mysteriously gliding on the surface; 
the glittering scales and curious mottlings, bright 
or lurid; the statuesque, arrowy head, sharp-cut 
and immovable; the round lidless eyes, fixed and 
briliant; and the long, bifurcated tongue, shining 
black or crimson, with its fantastic flickering play 
before the close-shut, lipless mouth—that is the 
serpent, and probably no single detail in the fateful 
creature’s appearance could be omitted and _ the 
effect of its presence on other animals be the same. 
When, years ago, I had finished writing the 
above paper, which appeared later in the Fort- 
nightly Review, I made the following entry in my 
Diary, and reproduce it here just to show that I 
am not apt to set too high a value on my own 
theory. 
“This paper was not too long, but I’m glad it’s 
finished and done with. Not because the subject 
didn’t interest me—on the contrary, it had a 
tremendous attraction for me—but because, having 
written it, a difficulty has been removed, a pain 
relieved, a want satisfied. True, that I’ve only 
imagined this use for a serpent’s tongue, and that 
it may not be the true use—if any use there be; 
but if we have a need to build, and there is any 
wind or cloud to build on, ’tis best to go on bravely 
