THE EARS OF AN ASS 71 



which the migratory geese keep their squadrons 

 together, the howling of jackals, the lowing of cows, 

 the hum of the hive, the chatter of the drawing-room, 

 and a hundred other voices in forest and field and 

 town remind us that the voice and the ear are the 

 pair of wheels on which society runs. 



And this thought points the way out of another 

 contradictious puzzle, that which confronts my 

 argument from the ears of an ass. It roams treeless 

 deserts where no foe can approach unseen. Thistles 

 make no sound. Why should it be adorned with 

 ears which in their amplitude are scarcely surpassed 

 by those of the rabbit and the hare. There is no 

 answer unless their function is to hear the bray of 

 a fellow-ass. . . . One may object that that majestic 

 sound is surely of force to impress itself without 

 any aid from an external ear ; but that is a vain 

 argument built on the costermonger's moke — • 

 dreary exile from its fatherland. Remember that 

 its ancestors wandered on the steppes of Central 

 Asia or the borders of the Sahara. In those bound- 

 less solitudes, with nothing that eye can see or that 

 common ear can hear to remind her that she is not 

 the sole inhabitant of the universe, the wild ass 

 " snuff eth up the wind in her desire," and lifting 

 her windsails to the hot blast, hears, borne across 

 miles of white sand and shimmering mirage, the 

 joyful reverberations of that music which tells of 

 old comrades and boon companions scouring the 

 plain and kicking up their exultant heels. 

 13 



