I recollect that once our house was filled with visitors, some local tin-god and official attendants, and one of the aforesaid attendants had a bright little terrier at his heels. Poor dog, his master could not silence the irreverent barkings that interrupted even the divinity his master was attending. Cuffs and kicks were useless. Charlie, up aloft, had fixed the terrier with her glittering eye, and “Oo-oo-oo-ed” at him till he was frantic. When [246] ]he was thrashed into a moment’s silence, and she saw she was observed, she nimbly scuttled away among the upper carpentry, only to reappear in a few seconds elsewhere, and catch the dog’s eye again, and “Oo-oo-oo” at him afresh; and then the barking recommenced, and the inevitable beating and yelping, which she seemed to enjoy immensely.
9. EQUALITY IS EQUITY
Although she went about on her hind legs, as we do, she did not despise her four-footed acquaintances, and was always intimate with the tabby, to whom she had been introduced on arrival. It was a pretty sight to watch them dip their little heads together into the saucer of milk. They always started fair, but pussy lapped the better. The milk diminished so fast that Charlie could see that her share would be the smaller one at that rate. Then tenderly but irresistibly she put her strong right arm round pussy’s neck and pulled her back, out of reach of the saucer. Charlie went on lapping herself, looking round often at the cat, winking vigorously with both eyes, and uttering various friendly vowel sounds. Here, perhaps, it had better be noted, for the [247] ]information of philologists, that hers was exclusively a vowel language. I never heard her sound a consonant. It would therefore have been difficult to represent it phonetically. The modulations of tones were too delicate for an Aryan ear; but a Chinaman might have been more successful, and my Burmans caught them well. Her meaning could best have been recorded by ideograms, like the oldest of the Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphs. But there was no use for such a thing. She did not need it, and would not have learned it.
It was probably the accompanying gestures that made pussy understand her. To be pulled back from the saucer, and tightly held out of reach of it, is what may be called an unmistakable hint. Puss acquiesced. When Charlie thought their shares had been equalled she relaxed the embrace, and puss began again; but though she resumed drinking in a polite, deferential way, as if saying, “By your leave, ma’am,” puss never abated her speed of lapping, and so had soon to be withdrawn once more. Occasionally this took place as often as three or four times in the emptying of one saucer; and seldom did it fail to happen once. In fact I noticed that at length they used to begin operations with Charlie’s arm upon pussy’s neck, ready for action. Day after day [248] ]this went on. Puss never struggled. When the milk was thus equally finished they parted friends. The great rule of equity law, that “Equality is equity,” was never better practised; and so profoundly is it in accordance with the nature of things that even a cat can understand it, when constrained.
10. WHERE CIVILISATION BEGAN
But where had Charlie learned that “Equality is equity,” a rule that has been found beyond the grasp of a “common”-minded chancellor? Surely, in the family circle. Her whole character, and, in particular, the readiness to imitate, upon which I do not dwell only because everybody knows that kind of thing, was that of one who had inherited family instincts, whose ancestors had lived in families for immemorial generations. The habits of living species are slowly modified in the lapse of millenniums; and we were not teaching Charlie tricks, but letting her develop naturally, and observing her.
The mention of imitation reminds me that Charlie could handle my wife’s hand-mirror as well as any lady; but the first sight of it raised [249] ]hopes that were disappointed. She was seen to be moving it back and forward with one hand, while with the other she was groping behind it, until at last she was satisfied that there was no other gibbon there. The great life-sorrow of Charlie was that she never saw another like herself again. It was pathetic to see her looking in the mirror, and then at other inmates of the house, as if asking herself, “Why am I so different?” She was like Robinson Crusoe, without a chance of deliverance; or she might be compared to Gulliver among the giants. Though in proportion not so small as he was, she was too small to feel at home or among equals; and for animals as for men to be weak is to be miserable, and strength and weakness are largely matters of comparison. We petted her so that she did not feel that much; and though nothing could supply the lack of kindred beings, the lapse of time benumbed the pain, and she was consoled.
“Reader, if thou an oft-told tale wilt trust,
Thou’lt gladly do and suffer what thou must.”
One of the best-known bits of English literature is the sentence which keeps the memory of old Hobbes green, his fancy picture of a state of Nature.—