Jack London. Before Adam -
22 >
came the need for new sounds wherewith to express the new
thought. Sometimes, however, we thought too long a distance in
advance of our sounds, managed to achieve abstractions (dim
ones I grant), which we failed utterly to make known to other
folk. After all, language did not grow fast in that day.
Oh, believe me, we were amazingly simple. But we did know
a lot that is not known to-day. We could twitch our ears, prick
them up and flatten them down at will. And we could scratch
between our shoulders with ease. We could throw stones with our
feet. I have done it many a time. And for that matter, I could
keep my knees straight, bend forward from the hips, and touch,
not the tips of my fingers, but the points of my elbows, to the
ground. And as for bird-nesting--well, I only wish the
twentieth-century boy could see us. But we made no collections
of eggs. We ate them.
I remember--but I out-run my story. First let me tell of
Lop-Ear and our friendship. Very early in my life, I separated
from my mother. Possibly this was because, after the death of
my father, she took to herself a second husband. I have few
recollections of him, and they are not of the best. He was a
light fellow. There was no solidity to him. He was too voluble.
His infernal chattering worries me even now as I think of it.
His mind was too inconsequential to permit him to possess
purpose. Monkeys in their cages always remind me of him. He was
monkeyish. That is the best description I can give of him.
He hated me from the first. And I quickly learned to be
afraid of him and his malicious pranks. Whenever he came in
sight I crept close to my mother and clung to her. But I was
growing older all the time, and it was inevitable that I should