mplishment of
it. The much-enduring animals in the trucks opposite had
unquestionably some rude twilight of a notion of a world; of objects
they had some unknown cognisance; but he could get behind the
melancholy eye within a yard of him, and look through it. How, from
that window, the world shaped itself, he could not discover, could not
even fancy; and yet, staring on the animals, he was conscious of a
certain fascination in which there lurked an element of terror. These
wild, unkempt brutes, with slavering muzzles, penned together, lived,
could choose between this thing and the other, could be frightened,
could be enraged, could even love or hate; and gazing into a placid,
heavy countenance, and the depths of a patient eye, not a yard away, he
was conscious of an obscure and shuddering recognition, of a life akin
so far with his own. But to enter into that life imaginatively, and to
conceive it, he found impossible. Eye looked upon eye, but the one
could not flash recognition on the other; and, thinking of this, he
remembers, with what a sense of ludicrous horror, the idea came,--what,
if looking on one another thus, some spark of recognition could be
elicited; if some rudiment of thought could be detected; if there were
indeed a point at which man and ox could not compare notes? Suppose
some gleam or scintillation of humour had lighted up the unwinking,
amber eye? Heavens, the bellow of the weaning calf would be pathetic,
shoe-leather would be forsworn, the eating of roast meat, hot or cold,
would be cannibalism, the terrified world would make a sudden dash into
vegetarianism! Happily before fancy had time to play another vagary,
with a snort and pull the train moved on, and my truckful of horned
friends were left gazing into empty space, with the same wistful,
patient, and melancholy expression with which, for the space of five
minutes or so, they had surveyed and bewildered me.

A similar feeling of puzzlement to that which I have indicated, besets
one not unfrequently in the contemplation of men and women. You are
brought in contact with a person, you attempt to comprehend him, to
enter into him, in a word to _be_ him, and, if you are utterly foiled
in the attempt, you cannot flatter yourself that you have been
successful to the measure of your desire. A person interests, or
piques, or tantalises you, you do your best to make him out; yet strive
as you will, you cannot read the riddle of his personality