The news & observer., 1905-12-15
Animal Writer Refused
to be Serious.
GLORIFIED THE SKUNK
Lecture at A. & N. With Stereoptican
and Animal limitations Combined
With Authors Personality and
Mannerisms to Make Comic
Treat.

Ernest Thompson-Seton, author of
wild Animals / Have Known" and
noted mature writer" for magazines
as well as the apostle of the idea of
intelligent intercourse between birds
and animals one with the other and
the order. reason and system of AMI
NAL life in its family and collective
manifestations, lectured last night at
the A. and NJ. College to a large au-
dience of students, invited guests and
school girls.
The lecture was illustrated with
stereoptican slides, many of which
We're humorous rather than instruc-
tive and was pitched on plane cal
culated to amuse rather than to seri-
ously enlighten
AS far as manifested last night Mr..
Seton's acquaintance with animals
was restricted to a fair ability to
initiate calls and cries of beasts and
birds, the sound of pass ng wings, etc.
His description of a hound on the
trail of q rabbit was a fine exhibition
of vocal gymnastics, but scarcely food
for thought and his necessarily arbi-
trary diagram OF the twists and turns
of the fleeing cotton tail consisted of
the simple "doublings" of brer rabbit
known to every boy who has ever even
gotten the clay of a farm on his
brogans
However, Mr.. Seton vastly amused
his audience by being amusing, lend
ing to that end his voice. his body
and his Gallo temperament without
restraint RTo a company of school
children the lecture, with the colored
pictures and the high jinkS of the
performer would have been a delici-
Gus treat. To those, however, who
attended i'm the hope of listening To
any serious exposition of the eminent
authors animal philosophy, the con-
clusion of two hours of jokes and,
pictures brought distinct sense of
disappointment
In person Mr. Seton is long, nervous
and impulsive. He moves with q
jerky resolution which is carried 10
a considerable degree into his plat
form utterances In such repose as
it is possible for him to assume, he
cocks his head over his right should
er, nervously fingers poetic name of
black hair and worries curled, but
crooked black naustasche. When he
speaks, it is with an affectation that
one soon comes to recognize as natu-
ral He talks also, with head and
arms and legs and hands. Never for
a moment is he still. His fingers
twitch with every phrase. His voice
has the pitch of a foreigner and his
English is usually of an exactness to
indicate some inherited difficulty. So
marked is this that slang or colloqui-,
alism comes from him strangely. All
in all, Mr.. Seton looks French, with a
strong touch of Indian and dash of
Italian. His ensemble is mus zeal
rather than literary, and he resembles
a scientist about as much as a Sousa
sizes up with a German microbe
hunter.
In the beginning Mr.. Seton ex-
planned that of course in his stories
he did not always tell exactly the
truth as to the particular character
set forth, but that it was a composite
truth drawn from experiences with
many animals and fitted to the par
ticular one fated- for the uses of his
fiction. Nor could some of the things
be described in animals ever be seen
by any man, yet they were the truest
things of all. Just as it was of life
that truth was stranger than fiction"
true-at which Mr.. Seton's fingers
So of animal life the things one could
never know were really the truly
plucked a sweet thought from mid
air in much the manner in which
Chamberlain has trayestied Fra Ell
bertus. Mr.. Setons own arch
enemy.
After stating seriously that no man
could sit down and write a story
about animals unless he knew some
thing about them. the lecturer told
his audience of his having seen Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson in the throes of
attempted composition of an animal
story which was never good enough
to get to the press. In the next
breath he proposed to take his au-
dience with him to the woods and the
mountains and rivers and show them
how it was done-to carry them
straight to the cold facts-this torrid
tempered genius doing anything
coldly.
Then the light went out and the
stereoptican commenced to throw pic
lures on the wall and from the gloom
the rich tones of Mr. Seton came with
an infection that showed that he was
gesturing still.
Beginning with his first story of the
rabbit-written twenty years ago, he
said--and the only one in which he
had thought it necessary to make his
animals talk. the story proceeded to
the habits of the antelope and her
young, to various photographs of
wood-signS showing the tragedies
among the small animal life. to jour
neys " hich The author had taken with
his dog and the Things the dog mao
found and how he found them and
finally ended on the soft pedal with
Mr.. Seton swearing above the pictured
carcass of his first and only moose
that never aeain would he destroy any
wild animal of size whose species was
in danger of becoming extinct.
In the story of the rabbit. that gen.
tie animal fights a black-snake with
all the ferocity attributed to the breed
hv the Washington Post. the audience
sat by moonlt river while the lee
turer carried on a love scene between
a bull and a COW moose. varied with
an imitation challenge to battle be-
tween bulls, and was recalled by the
dramatic action of Mr.. Seton in creep
irg uD and dashing away and flying
over head and squealing in fear. etc.