In a poem to “Noon,” Michael Field sings:
“... Sharply on my mind
Presses the sorrow; fern and flower are blind”;
and this is no uncommon thought, no uncommon “sorrow” for others than poets to have. Pity for the dear, blind flowers; pity, therefore, for such a flower as the Autumn Crocus; is it justified? I imagine it is not. I venture even to say I am sure it is not.
Here is a flower that is exceptional. It defies the general rule, the usual sequence of life for flowers. It reverses the customary order of events and, so to speak, turns day into night. And it does so with the utmost felicity. Its well-being is ideal, for it shows perfect adaptation to its circumstance. What, then, have we? “What rumour of what mystery?” Can it be a rumour of disability through blindness? Is it a rumour of the mystery of justice? Is it, that is to say, a rumour of “injustice”? I think not; nay, I am sure not. It is, if you ask me, a rumour of that wide and many-sided efficiency to which we refer when we declare: “There are more ways than one of killing a cat.”
The fault is quite a common one with us. We fall into it each time we talk of animals—the “poor, dumb animals.” Wherefore poor? Wherefore dumb? Man, noisily verbose, condescends to commiserate with anything less noisy or less verbose than himself. To him, an absence of capacity for a volubility matching his own marks unhappiness. What, he asks, would not a cow give for humanity’s gift of the gab? Anything short of a garrulous chatterbox of a mouse must be a wretched mouse!
How contorted a view to take when every living thing (except, perhaps, man) is capable of adequate communion with its kind, and when that which is adequate is happy! The method of communication may not be man’s method; he may not understand a sound of it, and there may even be no sound for him to hear; nevertheless there is language clear and effective—perhaps more clear and more effective than his own. Who shall say the language of the ant or the bee is not more developed and more efficient than either English or Chinese? Efficiency does not ultimately lie in complexity, neither does it ultimately depend upon noise.
I have no doubt that a horse, unless he has better sense, feels the profoundest pity for his garrulous master, and counts him among the most unhappy of his acquaintances. A lion’s roar or a bat’s squeak may contain a wealth of information such as it would take Man an hour’s hard talking to translate; and both may indicate a world of happiness.
Man, the rowdiest animal in Creation, is also the most conceited. He is for ever thanking his stars he is not as others are; and this enables him to misplace a vast amount of pity. I warrant the poor, dumb, grunting pig is perfectly happy—far happier than the most glib of human orators; and far more to the point. Poor, dumb animals? Why, what a poor, talkative creature is man! And how unmindful of his own proverb about “little pitchers”!