A Bit of Comparative Criticism

THE pleasantest thing about writing for “ The Contributors’ Club ” of the Atlantic Monthly lies in the fact that one enjoys such unblushing liberty to use the personal pronoun, “ I,” and feels no call to dilute it into the milk-and-water of “ We.”

Now, at this present juncture, I — and not somebody else — feel impelled to indulge in a purely egoistic bit of comparative criticism, based on no other shred of warrant than abnormal individual experience. My theme of comment is suggested by the startling description given by the famous African explorer, Livingstone, of his peculiar sensations when suddenly sprung upon, felled to the ground, pawed over, and breathed upon by the blasting pants of torrid breath from the lungs of an enormous lion.

He was not — so he insists — in the least terrified. On the contrary, he at once insensibly lapsed into a pleasing, half-dreamy state of consciousness of all that was going on; viewing, however, the whole transaction from an objective, rather than a subjective, point of view, as though the tragic scene were entirely concerned with a certain Dr. Livingstone in whose personal fate he felt at best a merely intellectual curiosity, and a not at all selfishly biased interest.

“Sheer absurdity!” exclaimed thousands of readers of the narrative. Livingstone’s yarn is essentially incredible, and a simple slap in the face to every recognized law of human nature. His terrible African lion must have been some chance tabby cat, astray from a missionary station. The bare idea of his amusedly contemplating himself, when the helpless victim of a ferocious carnivorous beast, as though he were somebody else! Tell that to the marines!—of whom there are on shore quite as many as on shipboard.

Not content, moreover, with such monstrous tax on human credulity, this selfsame Livingstone proceeds to expatiate on the immense moral relief he later derived form his peculiar experience, through its philanthropic bearing on a class of seemingly cruel transactions in the realm of nature. The ways of a cat, for example, in lingering out the torture of a palpitating little mouse, had always been a sore oppression to his heart. Thenceforth, however, he had taken unspeakable comfort in the conviction that the mouse in the claws of the cat was not really suffering, any more than he had been in the claws of the lion.

The mouse was simply hypnotized. The initial shock of fear had acted as a soothing anodyne, practically benumbing certain large tracts of feeling, but, like opium, imparting intensified vividness to dream-consciousness; in fine, so we suppose Livingstone would have his readers believe, translating the mouse into a miniature Thomas De Quincey, lacking only the dower of literary gift to write a no less fascinating book than Thomas on the peculiar felicities of opium-eating.

Now for one, on the score of kindred personal experience, I stand ready to back up Livingstone in the substantial accuracy of every statement he makes, and even to embrace his consolatory doctrine of the private sentiments of the mouse.

Some ten years ago, when in India, I drove out at early dawn with a friend, from the city of Jeypore, to visit one of those enormous subterranean reservoirs for the storage of water, so common in that drought-infested land. On our drive back, we had gone about five miles, when the road made a semicircular turn around a high rock-precipice, and in an instant our eyes were greeted with an appalling sight, and our ears stunned with a terrific roar.

Before detailing, however, what this formidable sight and roar came from, it is absolutely necessary to call a brief halt at this seemingly climacteric point of my story, for a description of the equipage we were driving in. I do so solely on the admitted logical principle that “ the longest way round is the shortest way home.”

The equipage was an open barouche drawn by two horses. On the box in front sat a Hindu driver as nearly naked as Adam was before the happy suggestion of the fig-leaf, while on the platform behind stood erect another Hindu, in the same condition of “ angel innocency.” The rich blood-shot brown of the skin of each presented a color study that would have ravished the soul of Titian. Meanwhile, inside the carriage, sat my friend and myself, as blanched and anaemic in contrast as a couple of white potato-blossoms against a brace of resplendent cardinal flowers.

Well, the appalling sight and terrific roaring came from an enormous leopard, not more than fifty feet from us. He had lashed himself into a frantic rage, and the yarr and snarl of his bestial throat were reverberated from the rocks of the cliffs in a way fit to rip off an avalanche of splintered shards. All the wild beasts I had ever seen in menageries seemed in comparison purring kittens, and besides, there had been iron bars between them and us. Four or five of his terrific leaps and he would be upon us. And he plainly meant breakfast.

Was I frightened ? Not for a moment. I was simply hypnotized, and at once thrown into a pleasing, dreamy state, in which visual imagination became preternaturally quickened, while no sense of terror survived. The ferocious brute had acted on my mind as a soothing anodyne taken before a night of threatened insomnia; and at once a series of agreeable pictures began to float through my consciousness.

Curiously enough, I saw and felt myself seated at the head of a long, festive dining-table over which I presided as host, while at the opposite end of the table sat upright the leopard. On either side were ranged the two rows of guests. As hospitable master of the feast, I was intently engaged in carving a large turkey, and as I would cut off a sufficient portion, I would turn in due order to each successive guest and courteously ask, “ Which do you prefer, white meat or dark ? ” All proceeded regularly till at last the turn came of the leopard, who, meanwhile, had displayed none but the most urbane and irreproachable table manners. “ And which do you prefer, white or dark ? ” I politely asked. “Dark if you please,” was his immediate answer, with a gracious inclination of his head, an answer which diffused a vague but ineffable sense of peace through my whole being, I hardly knew why.

Afterwards, the data in actual senseimpression of this curious hypnotic dream became abundantly clear to me. They rooted of course in the sudden apparition of the ferocious leopard, and in the rich dark skins of our Hindu driver and footman and their contrast with the blanched and anaemic complexions of my friend and myself. But no trace of distinct recollection of any of these startling items — all the while, none the less, appalling actualities of the immediate outside world — obtruded itself on the present purely visionary scene. All had “suffered a sea change, into something rich and strange.” The dining-table was real, the turkey real, the courteous question to each guest real; and the prompt reply, “ Dark meat if you please! ” from the gentlemanly leopard, was no less real.