THE BEAR ! GENTLEMAN SAVAGE. 
185 
of these same Persians, who he says never entered into delibera- 
tion before having drowned their reason in their cups. But then 
it is not the bear, frugal friend of cresses and strawberries, to 
whom the prophet Daniel should have compared this corrupted 
Asiatic people. Awkwardness and ferocity are two accusations 
equally false to the character of the bear. 
There has been gross ignorance on the part of the professors 
of natural history and directors of public thought in respect to 
beasts. They have not looked farther than their noses, and have 
neglected to interrogate the social position of the bear and his po- 
litical principles. Hence the absurd prejudices which have given 
the bear as the emblem of the misanthrope — taciturn, morose, 
unsociable. 
The Bear is the emblem of the Savage as the Elephant is the 
emblem of the Eden state. His dominant passion is the love of 
independence and of the woods. 
We know that the Savage is the most intimate enemy of repug- 
nant labo]-, in whicli I approve him. The Savage wants none of 
the refinements of civilized luxury at the price of working at a 
trade or at the plow. It is the same with the bear, whom the 
charms of the masked ball, have never been able to seduce, and 
who professes, like myself, for civilized pleasure parties in general, 
the most sovereign contempt. 
The savage understands happiness only in the full and contin- 
uous enjoyment of the seven natural rights : hunting, fishing, gath- 
ering the free fruits of the earth, carelessness, etc. It is also thus 
with the bear, who finds his highest happiness only in the exer- 
cise of the two natural rights of free harvesting and carelessness ; 
not that the bear is a being completely insensible to the pleasures 
of hunting and fishing : the white bear, for example, would be 
very much at a loss if deprived of the exercise of this last right. 
I only mean that vegetable diet suits the temperament of the 
bear better than any other, lover as he is above all things of straw- 
berries and the far niente. 
The bear does not dissemble that he is better cut out for climb- 
ing trees than for running down a doe ; and he has adopted a line 
of conduct coolormable to the aptitudes of his nature. His frugiv- 
