I do not know the
wild dogs; wild roses are very nice. But nobody ever thinks of either
of them if the name is abruptly mentioned in a gossip or a poem.
On the other hand, there are tame tigers and tame cobras, but if
one says, "I have a cobra in my pocket," or "There is a tiger in
the music-room," the adjective "tame" has to be somewhat hastily
added. If one speaks of beasts one thinks first of wild beasts;
if of flowers one thinks first of wild flowers.
But there are two great exceptions; caught so completely into the wheel
of man's civilization, entangled so unalterably with his ancient
emotions and images, that the artificial product seems more natural
than the natural. The dog is not a part of natural history,
but of human history; and the real rose grows in a garden.
All must regard the elephant as something tremendous, but tamed;
and many, especially in our great cultured centres, regard every
bull as presumably a mad bull. In the same way we think of most
garden trees and plants as fierce creatures of the forest or morass
taught at last to endure the curb.
But with the dog and the rose this instinctive principle is reversed.
With them we think of the artificial as the archetype; the earth-born
as the erratic exception. We think vaguely of the wild dog as if
he had run away, like the stray cat. And we cannot help fancying
that the wonderful wild rose of our hedges has escaped by jumping
over the hedge.
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