Shouting and singing and hullooing his satellites the gregarious sun
comes ranting upon the collective stage. After so many billion
repetitions you might expect him to be getting the least bit
perfunctory : but not he ; no sirree. Like a conscientious actor
determined to give the public full value for money, he rampages through
his performance as enthusiastically as the first time he put on the act.
Of course the rest of the cast plays up to him. The clouds jump to
their opening positions, hurriedly snatching the gaudy properties of the
cooperative scarf dance. On earth ocean bellows to ocean across the
continents like allied commanders exchanging a salute of guns. The
mutual greetings of the archipelagoes are more intime.
As the sunwaves break over the roof of the jungle, flocks of parrots
burst upward from the dark teeming mass like an explosion of rockets.
The monkey village yawns, fornicates, pinches, scratches, chatters
itself awake. In honeycombed caves the glow-worms conglomerate starrily.
In linked caves, between clotted stalactites, the bats hang themselves
up together. The gentle pandas in their dainty dress indulge in party
frolics among the rocks.
At sea it is the same thing : whales, porpoises, dolphins, flying
fish, mackerel, sprats, all travelling in schools and shoals ;
oyster-beds packed to capacity ; animalcula and foraminifera swarming in
astronomical multitudes.
Higher up the scale there's no difference eiher. The tribal community rouses itself en mass.
Everyone begins laughing and talking and praying and crying and cooking
and washing and working on top of everyone else. The baskets of the
fighting-cocks are placed close together for company's sake. Paying the
civilized penalty, Mr. Whosit awakens flimsily divided from the tens or
hundreds of rabbits inhabiting his particular warren. Quick the switch
and the dial, then, to bring loud the voices of nations ; quick the
collar and tie, quick the pants of respectability, the shined shoes to
run to the crowded eating-places, the streets, the buses, the trains,
the cars, planes, offices, parks, night-clubs, theatres, hospitals,
churches, graveyards, tombs.
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