In mimicry of the great world, they had their
leaders, so inscrutably self-imposed:--instinctively, they felt and
underwent that mystery of leadership, with its consequent heats of
spirit, its tides and changes of influence.
On the other hand also, to Gaston, dreamily observant, it was quaint,
likeable, the way they had of reproducing, unsuspectingly, the
humours of animal nature. Does not the anthropologist tell us of a
heraldry, with a large assortment of heraldic beasts, to be found
among savage or half-savage peoples, as the "survival" of a period
when men were nearer than they are or seem to be now, to the
irrational world? Throughout the sprightly movement of the lads'
daily life it was as if their "tribal" pets or monsters were with or
within them. Tall Exmes, lithe and cruel like a tiger--it was
pleasant to stroke him. The tiger was there, the parrot, the hare,
the goat of course, and certainly much apishness. [35] And, one and
all, they were like the creatures, in their vagrant, short, memories,
alert perpetually on the topmost crest of the day and hour,
transferred so heartlessly, so entirely, from yesterday to to-day.
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