Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/17

 *vince any well-informed dog of the hopelessness of proposing either business or pleasure to such a doting and toothless pate. He certainly must have overheard the conversation of his betters, when the Shallows, Slenders, and Silences are near. What a prompt retreat human beings make, and what wariness is expended in steering clear of them for the future! Yet I never feel quite sure that the dunces are not amused at the manœuvre. Is there a human being permitted to live without wit enough to know when he is avoided? Even this duck has a twinkle in that bead of an eye, as it rejoins the other ducks, that seems to convey to us its sense of the absurdness of a creature so caninely exuberant. Or was it a duck which I noticed? I am sure I have often seen creatures who are hopelessly posed or scandalized waddle away from some superior extravagance.

What vague auroral flittings of human perception pass beneath that horrid crest of the gorilla, as he elevates it in astonishment at encountering a creature of matchless symmetry like the wild ass, of picturesqueness like the zebra, of remote rarity like a beautiful woman! As for cockatoos, parrots, and macaws, I am convinced they are an endless source of amusement to the monkey tribe, who pelt them with nuts to make them scream and scold. Monkeys have a great flow of animal spirits: this, with their imitative talent and quick observation, renders them capable of entertaining ludicrous impressions. But one must be very closely related to the anthropoid ape, if not quite recently derived from it, to tell what they are.