understanding will find, possibly to his surprise, that the theatre thus
afforded is wide and varied enough for the exercise of his best ingenuity
and capacities. At first, no doubt, the simple animal appears too simple
to be made artistically interesting, apart from this or that conventional
or imaginative addition. The lion must be presented, not as he is, but as
vulgar anticipation expects him to be; not with the savageness and terror
which are native to him, but with the savageness and terror which those
who have trembled and fled at the echo of his roar invest him with,--which
are quite another matter. Zoological gardens and museums have their uses,
but they cannot introduce us to wild animals as they really are; and the
reports of those who have caught terrified or ignorant glimpses of them in
their native regions will mislead us no less in another direction. Nature
reveals her secrets only to those who have faithfully and rigorously
submitted to the initiation; but to them she shows herself marvellous and
inexhaustible. The "simple animal" avouches his ability to transcend any
imaginative conception of him. The stern economy of his structure and
character, the sureness and sufficiency of his every manifestation, the
instinct and capacity which inform all his proceedings,--these are things
which are concealed from a hasty glance by the very perfection of their
state. Once seen and comprehended, however, they work upon the mind of the
observer with an ever increasing power; they lead him into a new, strange,
and fascinating world, and generously recompense him for any effort he may
have made to penetrate thither. Of that strange and fascinating world Mr.
Kemeys is the true and worthy interpreter, and, so far as appears, the
only one. Through difficulty and discouragement of all kinds, he has kept
to the simple truth, and the truth has rewarded him. He has done a service
of incalculable value to his country, not only in vindicating American
art, but in preserving to us, in a permanent and beautiful form, the vivid
and veracious figures of a wild fauna which, in the inevitable progress of
colonization and civilization, is destined within a few years to vanish