"DUMB."


I can hardly express to you how much I feel there is to be thought of,
arising from the word "dumb" applied to animals. Dumb animals! What an
immense exhortation that is to pity. It is a remarkable thing that this
word dumb should have been so largely applied to animals, for, in reality,
there are very few dumb animals. But, doubtless, the word is often used to
convey a larger idea than that of dumbness; namely, the want of power in
animals to convey by sound to mankind what they feel, or, perhaps, I should
rather say, the want of power in men to understand the meaning of the
various sounds uttered by animals. But as regards those animals which are
mostly dumb, such as the horse, which, except on rare occasions of extreme
suffering, makes no sound at all, but only expresses pain by certain
movements indicating pain--how tender we ought to be of them, and how
observant of these movements, considering their dumbness. The human baby
guides and governs us by its cries. In fact, it will nearly rule a
household by these cries, and woe would betide it, if it had not this power
of making its afflictions known. It is a sad thing to reflect upon, that
the animal which has the most to endure from man is the one which has the
least powers of protesting by noise against any of his evil treatment.

ARTHUR HELPS.

* * * * *

UPWARD.

His parent hand
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore,