Let us rather generously forget that elephantine lapse, just as we remember that, after all, Noah — in that “aged surprisal of six hundred years” only got drunk once.
Nor, when we speak loftily of the elephant’s docility, should we forget that the measure of this virtue may be gauged by the individual’s capacities for the reverse. A white mouse is one of the most docile of animals, but w^hat would it matter if it were not? A pinch of the tail would always suffice to frighten it into abject submission. But when the sagacious elephant decides for itself, as it often does, that docility is not worth the candle, that occasional turbulence, good-all-round rebellion, is wholesome for its temper and constitution, — who is going to pinch its tail? With one swing of its trunk it lays all the attendants flat, butts its head through an inconvenient wall, and is free! They are brave men who capture the wild elephants, but no one, however brave, tries to capture a mad one. It has to be shot in its tracks, dropped standing, for it is then something more than a mere wild animal. It has developed into a creature of deliberate will and, having in its own mind weighed the pros and cons, has come to the fixed conclusion that captivity is a mistake, and proceeds therefore on a definite line of intelligent and malignant action.
Indeed, among the episodes of Indian rural life there are few more appalling than such a one as that of the Mad Elephant of Mundla. It had been for many years a docile inmate of a government stud, but one day made up its mind to be infamous. Wise men have before now told the world that it is well to be drunk once a month, and others that we should not always abstain
