The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-10-02
RESEMBLANCE TO ANIMALS.
The Various FOur-FOOted Beasts, and Birds
of the Air, That Look Like Us.
From the Boston Traveller.I

From the Boston Traveller.1
A Frenchman of the Middle Ages said
that all men were proud of their resem-
blance to some animal, particularly to
the eagle, the lion, the tiger, the ele-
phant, and the owl. The ambition,
power, freedom, cruelty, strength, and
wisdom typified by these beasts were all
gifts which men emulated. They were
all untamable, unuseful animals, except
ing the elephant, and he had his dan
gerous side. No man is complimented
by being told that he looks like a horse
or dog, although they are nearest to
him in intelligence; perhaps their sub
serviency Offends his vanity. No woman
likes TO be told that she looks like
sheep, although many women do look
like sheep. The miser has his proto-
type in the rodents, whose two narrow,
gnawing teeth are eternally reproduced
in humanity.
To look like an old lion is the proud
peculiarly of the strong graybeards.
There is nothing finer, more impressive
in man than this resemblance. Long
fellow has it, as a familiar illustration.
We see it often in the best pictures of
the old Greek poets. When a mans
eye remains bright, although the shag-
gy brow above it has turned white, the
effect is splendid. There seems to be
an unquenchable fire behind that pent-
house. It is the lamp that never
goes out. Men of sardonic tenn
per and smooth outlines, who
are wise enough to wear a white
straight mustache, have a grand re-
semblance to Bengal tiger. They look
cruel, but it is handsome, strong cruel
ty. No one can help respecting a Ben
gal tiger, although his traits are Scarcely
amiable. No one, however, likes to look
like a cat, although, alas too many of us
do. We hate small, ignoble ferocity,
commonplace deceits, secretive capa-
bilities. To see a cat start off on dip
lOmatic mission across a field, with no
public to deceive, but with only an OBJ
scure mouse to surprise, with all the pre-
cautions against detection which a BOrgia
might have used; to see her feints of
going east when she means to 90 west,
is to see old Talleyrand revealed, and to
laugh at and to admire the desire of the
human race to circumvent somebody,
to take the crooked path when the
straight one would be so much easieri
The cat is satire on diplomacy; she
should be studied.
People look like dogs; sometimes not
unpleasantly, sometimes ludicrously. A
very much whiskered individual, driving
in Victoria downtown with his Scotch
terrier, asked witty lady what she
thought of them. 81 Why, :" said she, al
thought you were beside yourselfi'' A
man of the DtC71dreGTy type can look very
like a terrier. There is a noble mastiff
type, which is honest and fine. Christie
pher North had it, and Walter Scott
looked like his own Mazda. The bull
dog finds his manly prototype in Bill
!SibeS,. and we have all seen slender,
greyhOund-lOOking men and little, mean
ferret faces on the lookout for game.
Noble oxen are reproduced in some gro
tesque faces, and Virgil speaks of COX
eyed Juno
Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth seem
to admit of great varieties. They are
easily initiated up to a certain point, then
they become infinitely varied. The re-
semblance to animals is largely dwelt
upon by the Darwinites, who seem to
find this lingering look a proof of the
evolution. This school of thinkers,
however, always ignore the one great
question, as to where and when the soul
entered into the progressive COW, or
sheep, or ape, and the animal became
man. They do not dwell upon that con-
elusive experiment of the brutal savage
and the intelligent ape, whom some
traveller brought from Patagonia, and
who in three months of training in Eng
land resulted in this fact-the ape re-
manned an ape, while the savage had
learned to read, and to write, and to
pray. The resemblance of man to
monkeys is, indeed, very remarkable
and disagreeable. Who was it who said
that he could not bear to be with them,
they looked so like poor relations? There
is the little old bearded money, so ike
a prominent philanthrOpist. There is
the cocly little fop of a monkey, so like
our g ''Jeunesse dOree.'' There is the
Orange-mouthed, big-chinned chimpan-
zee, the type of a sensualist. There is
the little lady monkey, with airs and
grades so like an affected woman. The
worst of this is that we see ourselves,
alasi at our worst. We see what we
may be to others than ourselves.
When l was a youth" says THeO-
l1hrGSt1ts Such, al danced a hOrnpipe,
and am convinced now that | appeared
very badly; what sort of a hOrnpipe am
[ dancing nOw?'' it may always do us
good to look at ourselves, and to see if
we are perking like a peacock, chatter
ing like a magpie, talking like parrot,
showing a dOrmOuse timidity, a rat-like
greed, foX's cunning, or dogs appe-
tite. These familiar friends of ours, the
animals, are at once our comfort and
our satire; they ingenuously show forth
the failings which we think to hide.
1t is curious how the serpent type re-
appears in women. Rachel always sug-
gested a beautiful snake-the little flat
head, the sparkling eyes, the almost
forked tongue, the long, 1.-THE body, the
sinuOsity, the nOiselessness, were all like
the - great Ophidian who deceived our
grandmother Eve," as Oliver Wendell
Holmes puts it. We often look into
gentle eyes, that suddenly change and
| frighten us, and we see the long, slit-Ike
aperture of an eve which suggests the
snake, the most repulsive of all forms of
animal life. For the beauty of a snake
| is as dreadful as the ugliness of a hedge
| hog. How suggestive of the irritable is
that sudden physical irradiatiOn, - the
| quilts upon the fretful porcupine." How
| anger, % that brief madness, - is pictured
! by this queer animal. The scandal
mOnger is surely meant by that jelly-fish
who emits an ink-lilze fluid, and is her
self lost in it, and Victor Hugo's monster
with no body, but with eyes and tenta-
eulse-dO we not all know her?
Shakespeare, who has said every thing,
has also said much on this topic:
We are beastly, subtle as the fox, for prey,
Like warliSe as the wolf, for what we eat.
Our valor is to chase what flies, our cage
We make quire, as doth the prison bird,
And sing our bondage freely.
The birds have given us many re-
semblance. We talk OF the eagle eye,
the eye like hawk, the pigeon breasted,
the raven cunning, the cuckoo invasion,
and the dOve-like innocence, as human
qualities and belongings. Brilliant and
overdressed women suggest cockatoos
and .t sMan-like necks - and dncks