THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 187 
indexing of notes, would be exceeded by the task 
of selection to follow—selection and compression 
—since “The Book of the Serpent” would be in 
one volume and not in half-a-dozen. And after 
selection, or let us say deglutition, there would 
ensue the dilatory process of digestion and assimila- 
tion. If properly assimilated, the personal impres- 
sions of a hundred independent observers, field- 
naturalists and travellers, and of a hundred in- 
dependent students of ophiology, would be fused, 
as it were, and run into one along with the author’s 
personal observations and his deductions. 
Now, even if all this could have been done, and 
the best form hit upon, and the work eloquently 
written, it would still fall far short of the ideal 
“Book of the Serpent” on account of insufficient 
knowledge of a particular kind—I don’t mean 
anatomy. And had I been a person of means I 
should, before beginning my work—getting a pale, 
wan face through poring over miserable books— 
have gone away on a five or ten years’ serpent 
quest to get that particular kind of knowledge by 
becoming acquainted personally with all the most 
distinguished ophidians on the globe. The first 
sight of a thing, the shock of emotion, the vivid 
and ineffaceable image registered in the brain, is 
worth more than all the knowledge acquired by 
reading, and this applies to the serpent above all 
creatures. There is indeed but little difference 
between this creature dead and in confinement. 
It was the serpent in motion on the rock that was 
