THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 191 
if he did not use that particular expression he 
protested against the multiplication of such works, 
and even feared that we should all be buried alive 
under them—the ponderous tomes which nobody 
reads, elephantine bodies without souls; or shall 
we say, carcasses, dressed and placed in their 
canvas coverings on shelves in the cold storage of 
the zoological libraries, 
As to the paper which follows, it was never 
intended to use it as it stands for the book. It is 
nothing but a little exercise, and merely touches 
the fringe of a subject for a great book—not an 
anthology (Heaven save us!), but a history and 
review of the literature of the serpent from Ruskin 
back to Sanconiathon, and I now also generously 
give away this title of “The Serpent in Literature.” 
When the snakists of the British Museum or 
other biological workshop have quite done with 
their snake, have pulled it out of its jar and popped 
it in again to their hearts’ content; weighed, 
measured, counted ribs and scales, identified its 
species, sub-species, and variety; and have duly 
put it all down in a book, made a fresh label, 
perhaps written a paper—when all is finished, 
something remains to be said; something about 
the snake; the creature that was not a spiral- 
shaped, rigid, cylindrical piece of clay-coloured 
gutta-percha, no longer capable of exciting strange 
emotions in us—the unsightly dropped coil of a 
spirit that was fiery and cold. Where shall that 
