like a deep and gaping bite. These wounds are mostly on the belly, but the tail of one seal is bloody all round, as though another had seized it in its mouth and severely bitten it. No doubt it is all due to fighting, and the claws, I think, must have played as great a part as the teeth. Two other seals lie on a smaller rock, raised similarly above high-water mark, and a third on one that has only just become uncovered. Altogether, then, there are fifteen of them, making me think of Virgil's description of the Protean herds, written in those happy days before the accursed gun had thinned, as it now has, almost to the verge of extinction, the brave, honest, animal world. Surely the lower thing rules on earth for ever. Those who love living animals, with souls inside them, must see this world made dead and empty by those who love only their skins, stuffed with straw. They conquer, these Philistines, and the finer-touched spirit lies bleeding and suffering beneath them. How grossly we deceive ourselves! ... I say that the "pale Galilean" has not conquered here, but that Thor has, though often in his rival's name.
The modern Christian poet speaks truth as though it were falsehood, and falsehood as though it were truth. Hear Longfellow, for instance—
Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it,
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor's-Day![1]
