“I have often wondered what the world would be like if all fear of every kind was abolished—of punishment, of bodily hurt, and of pain? Everything that swims, flies, or walks is afraid of something else—women of men, men of each other. The first thing an infant does is to cry out—not from the pain, but from fright—just as a small dog or the cub of a bear hides under its mother’s coat before its eyes are open. It is the ogre, Fear, that begins with the milk and ends with the last breath in terror over the unknown, and it is our fault. Half the children in the world—perhaps three-fourths of them—have been brought up by fear and not by love.”
“How about the lambasting your father gave you, Herbert, when you hooked it from school? ‘Spare the rod and spoil the—’ You know the rest of it. Did you deserve it?”
“Probably I did,” laughed Herbert. “But, all the same, Louis, that foolish line has done more harm in the world than any line ever written. Many a brute of a father—not mine, for he did what he thought was right—has found excuse in those half-dozen words for his temper when he beat his boy.”
“Oh, come, let us get back to dry ground, gentlemen,” broke in Brierley. “We commenced on birds and we’ve brought up on moral suasion with the help of a birch-rod. Nobody has yet answered my argument: What about the birds and the way they play it on Peter and me?” and again Brierley winked at me.
“It’s because you tricked them first, Brierley,” returned Herbert in all seriousness and in all sincerity. “They got suspicious and outwitted you, and they will every time. A beast never forgets treachery. I know of a dozen instances to prove it.”
“Now I think of it, I know of one case, too,” remarked Louis gravely, in the voice of a savant uncovering a matter of great weight; “that is, if I may be allowed to tell it in the presence of the big Nimrod of the Congo—he of a hundred pairs of tusks, to say nothing of skins galore.”
Herbert nodded assent and with an air of surprise leaned forward to listen. That the jovial painter had ever met the savage beast in any part of the world was news to him.
“A most extraordinary and remarkable instance, gentlemen, showing both the acumen, the mental equipment, and the pure cussedness, if I may be permitted the expression, of the brute beast of the field. The incident, as told to me, made a profound impression on my early life, and was largely instrumental in my abandoning the pursuit and destruction of game of that class. I refer to the well-known case of the boy who gave the elephant a quid of tobacco for a cake, and was buried the following year by his relatives when the circus came again to his town—he unfortunately having occupied a front seat. Yes, you are right, the beast forgives anything but treachery. But go on, Professor Herbert; your treatment of this extremely novel view of animal life is most exhilarating. I shall, at the next meeting of the Academy of Sciences, introduce a——”
Brierley’s hand set firmly on Louis’ mouth, who sputtered out he would be good, would have ended the discussion had not Lemois moved into an empty chair beside Herbert, and, resting his hand on the sculptor’s shoulder, exclaimed in so absorbed a tone as to command every one’s attention:
“Please do not stop, Monsieur Herbert, and please do not mind this wild man, who has two mouths in his face—one with which he eats and the other with which he interrupts. I am very much interested. You were speaking of the ogre, Fear. Please go on. One of the things I want to know is whether it existed in the Garden of Eden. Now if you gentlemen will all keep still”—here he fixed his eyes on Louis—“we may hear something worth listening to.”