14 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
criticism is in fasHon, and is pitiless, for the awkwardness of mis- 
placed pretensions. Whence the self-esteem of the hunter, the sen- 
timent of personal dignity, the exaltation of courage, and the con- 
tempt of death ? Who more stoically supports torture and dies 
better than the savage, hardened by the chase to suffering and pri». 
vation? It is true that the savage of the great lakes in singing 
his death-song was persuaded that the Manitou awaited to give him 
a hunting permit for the spirit forests. It has not been calculated 
how far the love of the chase enters into the contempt of death 
among these brave martyrs. 
If so many goddesses and queens have been seen to marry shep- 
herds, it is because shepherds are of the wood of which hunters are 
made, and hunters of the wood of which heroes are made. 
If the hunter so often obtains the prize of honor decreed by beau- 
ty, it is because beauty has not given in to the error of false moral- 
ity, and has nobly remained faithful to the voice of God, which is 
passional attraction, and which secretly designates to her His elect. 
God has conceded to woman the privilege of making men happy, 
only on condition that she choose them among the worthiest, among 
warriors, hunters, and heroes. Love is the focus of enthusiasm, and 
generator of glory, the court of appeal which raises merit from the 
unjust condemnations of society. Capital is its black beast, to hum- 
ble which makes its happiness. On the other side, God has placed 
within the hearts of heroes supreme attraction for the happiness of 
love. Victorious Hercules has spun, perhaps, a hundred distaffs 
for the first kiss of Omphala, and only at a much later period claimed 
higher wages. 
Moralists have cast much blame on this pretended weakness of 
the noble son of Alcmena, spinning at a woman’s feet. For my 
own part, I know of nothing more religious or more human than 
this touching myth of the personification of brute force subdued by 
charm, than those eternal and delightful stories of Mars disarmed 
by Love, of lions that passion transforms into lambs. God and the 
human race have no worse enemies than those proud moralists who 
pretend to correct the work of God, in compressing passions, and 
who do it so awkwardly, that they never fail to cause its explosion 
