A Steadfast Starer
In the days of our childhood it used to be asserted that none of the lower animals, not even the lion, could stand for long the steady, direct, and compelling glance of man; under the steadfast scrutiny of the lord of creation they developed bashfulness, or the equivalent of an inferiority complex (which in those happy days had not been invented), and
averted their own troubled gaze. The inventor of that theory may have tried it on lions but evidently forgot to see whether he could stare a cow out of countenance. Had he gone down to the nearest meadow he could have found any number of contemplative cows that would have been quite content to look right through him for hours on end. What the cow thinks about is not known; it may not have anything to think with, and may be the world’s perfect example of the sphinx without a secret. But as creation’s champion starer it is unsurpassed. Even if the High Court had told it to stop it would just have gone on staring.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 27, 29 December 1939, Page 34
Word Count
181A Steadfast Starer New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 27, 29 December 1939, Page 34
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