Nature & Animals Quote by Robertson Davies

Davies lands the punch with a ladder of threats, each rung less bite-mark literal and more psychologically dangerous. A mad dog is simple: even fools know to run, to grab a stick, to treat the situation as emergency. Survival is a reflex. Then he swaps in “a mad woman,” and the line curdles into social satire: men who can handle obvious physical danger suddenly lose their competence when the pursuit is human, intimate, and charged with shame, desire, and reputation. The “fewer” isn’t just misogyny for shock value; it’s Davies needling a specifically male fantasy of rational control. Around women, the story goes, men become erratic narrators of their own lives.

The final turn is the real target: “a mad notion.” Davies, a novelist steeped in moral psychology and the booby traps of intellect, suggests ideas are the most predatory force because they arrive wearing the mask of reason. You don’t hear them growling. They don’t announce themselves as danger. A “notion” can recruit ego, ideology, and group belonging; it can make a person feel brave while acting foolishly. That’s why only “the wisest survive”: wisdom here isn’t intelligence, it’s resistance to self-enchantment.

Context matters: Davies wrote in a century that watched “notions” (nationalism, utopian politics, purity campaigns, charismatic certainties) outpace common sense with catastrophic results. The wit is in the escalating absurdity; the warning is that the worst attacks are the ones you invite into your mind.