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It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to be told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, determination, self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of application and seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, enter in such a career ... correction and recorrection in the blotted manuscript; consideration; new observations; the patient massing of many reflections, experiences, and imaginings for one minute purpose; and the patient separation from the heap of all the fragments that will unite to serve it these would be unicorns and griffins to them fables altogether.
Father Marquette not only believed it but described it as a man-eater in the account of his explorations, where he mentions other zoological curiosities, such as unicorns with shaggy mane and land-turtles three feet long with two heads, "very mischievous and addicted to biting." He even showed a picture of the maneater that accorded rudely with the picture on the rocks.
"You shall have centuries of sleep," said the soul, "but you must not sleep now, for I have seen deep meadows with purple flowers flaming tall and strange above the brilliant grass, and herds of pure white unicorns that gambol there for joy, and a river running by with a glittering galleon on it, all of gold, that goes from an unknown inland to an unknown isle of the sea to take a song from the King of Over-the-Hills to the Queen of Far-Away.
Here a jewelled pitcher given the seigniory by a Persian king, also the ducal cap blazing with jewels, and on its crown a diamond and a chrysolite, each as big as an almond; two golden crowns and twelve golden stomachers studded with jewels, from Constantinople; item, a monstrous sapphire; item, a great diamond given by a French king; item, a prodigious carbuncle; item, three unicorns' horns.
Shakspeare appears to have been acquainted with the plan of taking elephants in pitfalls: Decius, encouraging the conspirators, reminds them of Cæsar's taste for anecdotes of animals, by which he would undertake to lure him to his fate: "For he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees. And bears with glasses; elephants with holes." JULIUS CÆSAR, Act ii.
"They are there," he gasped almost inarticulately, "sixteen of them; not more than half a mile away." "And what do `they' actually prove to be?" murmured the baronet. "Not unicorns, of course?" "Yes, unicorns! Animals with only one horn the males, that is to say. Some have no horns, and those I take to be females." This was too much for Sir Reginald's curiosity.
And there, some two miles away, rose the low, bare hill upon the crest of which the professor had first seen the troop of unicorns standing out against the background of pale primrose sky as they grazed. Ay, and there were animals of some sort up there now! The professor rushed below, and presently reappeared with a pair of binoculars in his hand, which he hastily levelled at the tiny dots.
After thirty-three hours in a South African "Flying Watkin" even this spurious excitement was welcome. They shaved corners, always on one wheel, sometimes even scraping the corners of houses, and causing those pedestrians in their line of flight to skip like young unicorns. Then, recovering, the startled wayfarers would hurl their choicest blessings after the cab.
These animals, being very large, are injudiciously placed over columns very small, which make them appear monsters." The lions and unicorns have now been removed. This steeple has been described by Horace Walpole as a masterpiece of absurdity. Within, the walls rise right up to the roof with no break, and give an impression of great spaciousness.
Beyond the temple there are certain parks or inclosures, in which there are two unicorns to be seen, called by the Greeks Monocerotae, which are shewn to the people as miracles of nature, and not without good reason, on account of their scarcity and strange appearance.
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