Human and Other Animals

Southland Times, Issue 16021, 28 April 1902, Page 4

Human and Other Animals

As 1 walk to and fro in Edgware Road I cannot help sometimes wondering why these people exist, why they take tbn trouble to go on' existing (says Mr Arthur Symons in the A Dglo- American Magazine.) Watoh their faces, and yon will Bee in -them Hstlesßneßß,a bard uoooncern, a failure to be interested, which tpeaks equally in the roving eyes of the man who stands smoking at the curbstone with his hands in his pockets, and in the puckered cheeks of the woman doing ber -shopping, and in the noisy laugh of the youth leaning against the wall, and in tbe grey, narrow face of the obild whose thin legs at c too tired to danoe when the barrelorgan plays jig?. Whenever anything happens in the eir«c t there is a crowd at once, and thia crowd if made np vi people who have no pleasures and no interest s of their own to attend toj and to whom a y variety is welcome id the tedium of their livee. In all these faces you will see no beauty, and you will see no beauty in the clothes they wear, or in tbair attitudes in rest or movement, or in their voices when they epeak. Toey are human beiDga to whom nature has given do grace or charm, whom life has made vulgar, and for whom circumstances bave left no escape from themsslvee. In the climate of Eugland, in the atmosphere of London, on these pavements of Edgware Road, ihere ie no way of getting any simple happiness out of natural thinge, and they have lost the capacity for accepting natural p'eiEuree g'acicuuly, if saoh came to them. Crawling between heaven and earth thus miserably, they have never known what makes existence a practicable art or a tolerable tpectacle, and they have infinitely leßs feenee of febe mere abstract human significance of life than the 'faccbino' who lies a ICDg blue ttrsak in the euo, on the Zatteie Bit Venice, or the girl who carries water from the well in an e»rthpn pitcher, balancing it od her head, in any Spanish street. O-, instead of turning to bnrnan beings, in some more favourable patb of the world, go to, the Zoological Gardens and look at the beasts there. The conditions of existence are, ; perhaps, slightly worse for the beaats ; their cages are narrow.more securely barred; human curiosity ia brought to bear upon them with a more, publio offence. But observe, under all these condition?, the dignity of the beaßta, their disdain, their indifference J . When' the fluttering, be-ribboned, chattering human herd troops past them, pointing at them- with shrill laughter, uneasy, pie-cccupied, one eye on the beasts and the other on the neighbour's face or frock, thty sit there suilidly in their cages, not

condescending to notice their unruly critics. When they move, they move with the grace of Datutai beings, made rhythmical with beauty and strong for ravage and g*ifb for flight. The; pace to and fro,rubbing themuolves againtt the bar 9, restlessly ; bat they si em all on fir a v ith a life that tingles to the roots of their claws and to the tips of their taile, dilating their uo3irils and quiverirg ia lit'.ls shudders down iheir soiooth fl.nks. Th<y lave found an enemy craftier than t! ey, they have been conquered and carried aw»y cuptive, and ihey are fall of smoulderirg rag-. But with the loss of liberty they his.ro 1 <st Denning of themelvet; the soul of t heir flceh ie uaconUmiuated by haauliatioD. They paBB a memrnfut existeace nobly, e»oh nfter bia kiod, in loDtliness or in unwilling companioDßhip; theirtyeapaatlookua without ereing as ; we have no power over their corcentratioo witbin the muscles of their vivid limbs or within the coils of their subtle bodies. Humanity, at the beet, has much to be ashamed of physically, beside the supreme physical perfection of the panther or the snake. All of us kok poor enough creatures as we come away from their cageß. But think now of these men and women whom we have seen swarming in Edgwarn Road, of their vulgarity, tbeir abjeotnees of attitude coward life, their uglinecs, dirt, insolence, tbeir load laughter. All the animals except man have too much dignity to laugh : only man found out the way to esospi the direct force of things by attaining a critical sense, or » eeoße of relief to a Bound which is neither a cackle nor, a whinny, but which has something of the two inarticulate voices ofi.ature. As I passed thioagh the Saturday night crowd lately, between two opposing currents of evil sme'laj overheard a man who was lurchmg'aloDg the pavement say in a contemptuous comment : ' Twelve o'clock ! We may be &il dead by twelve o'clock ! He seemed tin sum up th« philosophy of that crowd, its listles-m^M, it hard unconcern,' its failure to be interestsed. Nothing matters, he seemed to siy for them; >et us drag out our time until the time is over, and the sooner it is over the better.