Imaginary Friends
I went to the zoo with Lord Byron once. I was standing there, looking through the glass to see polar bears swimming under water when I suddenly realized he was next to me, entranced as much by the window as the world it looked in on. He marvelled a while at the powerful beasts, familiar in many ways but at the same time so different from the old black bear he had kept as a pet. Lost in thought, the poet seemed to contemplate the two sides of the bear: one, serene, free and natural; the other, caged and dangerous. A soft sigh was the only hint of his melancholy before the wonder of it all overtook him again. My companion had seen zoos before. He had kept quite a menagerie himself at different stages of his life, even travelling with a small flock of geese in his carriage for a time. But this modern zoo was so unlike the zoos of his time. There were no bars, no small cramped cages. The animals here were well-tended, given room to roam, and had the companionship of others of the...