THE DUMB HOUR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7728, 11 June 1903, Page 3

THE DUMB HOUR.

* ! To every man death cometh soon or late , (says "The Hospital"). In every Life's , Day there is a Dumb Hour. It may be in , the mofhents of dawn or when the vitalising energy is at noon, though sometimes it comes not till the chill and dark of midnight lias fallen. There is no more pathetic and yet irresistibly attractive subject for ! the serious student of medicine than the investigation ol the mysteries of that process ' of physical dissolution which men spepk of as dying. And yet there is so personal an ' interest in the quest that only the bravest minds can grapple undismayed in a re- . search into the problems of Death. 1 We mny learn much by a reference to animal instincts in this.as in so many other matters. Mr William J. Long, in his re- , cently .issued and most charming volume, " School of the Woods : Some Life Studies of Animal Instincts and Animal Training," attempts to reveal something of the mystery and pathos of the dumb hour as seen in the dumb beast. In his study oil " How the Animals Die" he shows that life's curtain is usually rung down quietly, the footlights are turned oufe gradually, the auditorium is emptied silently, the darkness deepens peacefully. The animal feels the oncoming of the shadow and creeps into the deepest coverts. The unnumbered multitudes "chooiw their own place and close, their eyes for the last time,, as peacefully as ever they lay down to sleep." " The vast majority of animals go away quietly when that time comes; and their death is not recorded because man has eyes only for exceptions. Something! . calls the creature from his daily round ; age or natural disease touches him gently in a way that he has not felt before. He steals away, obeying the old warning instinct of his iand, and picks out a spot where they shall not find him till he is well again." Man thinks himself a little lower than the angels, and it may be so ; but of this we may be sure, there is that in the dumb hour which marks the kinship of man with the uncomplaining animal submissive to 1 the decree of nature, and noble in its obedience to the call of the Voice that , silences all other voices.