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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #61790 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61790)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Literary Zoo, by Kate Sanborn
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: My Literary Zoo
-
-Author: Kate Sanborn
-
-Release Date: April 8, 2020 [EBook #61790]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LITERARY ZOO ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Richard Tonsing, Sonya Schermann, and the
-Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-(This file was produced from images generously made
-available by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- MY LITERARY ZOO
-
-
-KATE SANBORN’S BOOKS.
-
-
- =Abandoning an Adopted Farm.= 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
-
-
-“Every page is rich with its amusing and entertaining stories and
-references.”—_Boston Herald._
-
-“Can not fail to be of the utmost interest to any and all who have spent
-any time in the country and observed the ways of country people. Miss
-Sanborn is simply inimitable in her ability to catch the humorous in
-what is passing about her, and in setting it down so that others can
-enjoy it.”—_Cleveland World._
-
-
- =Adopting an Abandoned Farm.= 16mo. Boards, 50 cents.
-
-
-“‘Adopting an Abandoned Farm’ has as much laugh to the square inch as
-any book we have read this many a day.”—_Boston Sunday Herald._
-
-“Miss Kate Sanborn has made a name and place for herself beside the
-immortal Sam Slick, and has made Gooseville, Connecticut, as illustrious
-as Slickville in Onion County, of the same State.”—_The Critic._
-
-“If any one wants an hour’s entertainment for a warm sunny day on the
-piazza, or a cold wet day by a log fire, this is the book that will
-furnish it.”—_New York Observer._
-
-
- =A Truthful Woman in Southern California.= 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
-
-
-“Miss Sanborn is certainly a very bright writer, and when a book bears
-her name it is safe to buy it and put it aside for delectation when a
-leisure hour comes along. This bit of a volume is enticing in every
-page, and the weather seemed not to be so intolerably hot while we were
-reading it.”—_New York Herald._
-
-“Her descriptions are inimitable, and their brilliancy is enhanced with
-quaint and witty observations and brief historical allusions....
-Valuable information and richly entertaining descriptions are admirably
-blended in this book.”—_Boston Home Journal._
-
-
- New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
-
-
-
-
- My Literary Zoo
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
- By
-
- Kate Sanborn
-
- Author of Adopting an Abandoned Farm, Abandoning an Adopted Farm, A
- Truthful Woman in Southern California, Etc.
-
-[Illustration]
-
- New York
- D. Appleton and Company
- 1896
-
-
-
-
- COPYRIGHT, 1896,
- BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
- CONTENTS.
-
-
- PAGE
-
- EVERYBODY’S PETS 1
-
- DEVOTED TO DOGS 19
-
- CATS 75
-
- ALL SORTS 105
-
-
-
-
- MY LITERARY ZOO.
-
-
-
-
- EVERYBODY’S PETS.
-
-
- The world’s not seen him yet,
- Who has not loved a pet.
-
-
-Not the human pets of noted persons, such as Walter Scott’s Pet
-Marjorie, that winsome, precocious little witch, so loved by the “Wizard
-of the North,” or Bettina von Arnim, the eccentric, brilliant girl,
-whose rhapsodic idolatry was placidly encouraged by the great Goethe,
-but the dumb favourites of distinguished men and women.
-
-I must devote a few pages to the various tributes to insects, birds, and
-animals, written about with love, pity, or admiration, yet not as pets,
-as Burns’s address to the Mousie:
-
- I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
- Has broken Nature’s social union,
- And justifies that ill opinion,
- Which makes thee startle
- At me, thy poor earth-born companion
- And fellow-mortal;
-
-and another to an unspeakable insect that rhymes with mouse. We
-remember, too, his essay on Inhuman Man, as he saw a wounded hare limp
-by. The fly has often been honoured in prose or verse, but we all like
-best the benevolent speech of dear Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy to the
-overgrown bluebottle, which had buzzed about his nose and tormented him
-cruelly during dinner, and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught
-at last. “I’ll not hurt thee,” said Uncle Toby; “I’ll not hurt a hair of
-thy head. Go,” said he, lifting up the window—“go, poor devil, get thee
-gone. Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold
-both thee and me.”
-
-Tristram adds, “The lesson then imprinted has never since been an hour
-out of mind, and I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to
-that one accidental impression.”
-
-The Greek grasshopper must have been a wonderful creature, a sacred
-object, and spoken of as a charming songster. When Socrates and Phædrus
-came to the fountain shaded by the palm tree, where they had their
-famous discourse, Socrates spoke of “the choir of grasshoppers.”
-
-Another makes the insect say to a rustic who had captured him:
-
- Me, the Nymphs’ wayside minstrel, whose sweet note
- O’er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float.
-
-Still another sings how a grasshopper took the place of a broken string
-on his lyre and “filled the cadence due.”
-
-This Pindaric grasshopper seems quite unlike the ravaging locust of the
-West. Burroughs suggests that he should be brought to our country, as
-some one is trying to introduce the English lark.
-
-Emerson devotes a poem to the burly dozing bumblebee, a genuine
-optimist:
-
- Wiser far than human seer,
- Yellow-breeched philosopher;
- Seeing only what is fair,
- Sipping only what is sweet.
-
-A delightful volume could be compiled on the literature of bird life,
-from the cuckoo, the earliest songster honoured by the poets, to Matthew
-Arnold’s canary. Passing on to animals, the Lake poets were interested
-to a noticeable degree in these humble companions. In Peter Bell, a poem
-that proved Wordsworth’s theories about poetry to be untenable, the ass
-is the hero, a veritable preacher, as in the days of Balaam. And
-Coleridge, greatly to the amusement of his critics, addressed some lines
-To a Young Ass, its Mother being tethered near it:
-
- How askingly its footsteps hither tend!
- It seems to say, And have I then one friend?
- Innocent foal! thou poor despised forlorn!
- I hail thee brother, spite of the fool’s scorn!
- And fain would take thee with me, in the dell
- Of peace and mild equality to dwell.
- Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride,
- And Laughter tickle Plenty’s ribless side!
- How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
- And frisk about as lamb or kitten gay!
- Yea! and more musically sweet to me
- Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,
- Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest
- The aching of pale fashion’s vacant breast.
-
-Wordsworth also wrote on The White Doe of Rylstone and The Pet Lamb.
-
-Southey paid his respects to The Pig and a Dancing Bear:
-
- Alas, poor Bruin! How he foots the pole,
- And waddles round it with unwieldy steps
- Swaying from side to side. The dancing master
- Hath had as profitless a pupil in him
- As when he tortured my poor toes
- To minuet grace, and made them move like clock-work
- In musical obedience.
-
-After sympathizing with his “piteous plight” he draws a moral for the
-advocates of the slave trade.
-
-He also addressed poems to The Bee and A Spider; the latter must be
-given entire, it is so strong and original in its comparisons:
-
- Spider! thou needst not run in fear about
- To shun my curious eyes;
- I won’t humanely crush thy bowels out
- Lest thou should eat the flies;
- Nor will I roast thee with a damned delight,
- Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see,
- For there is One who might
- One day roast me.
-
- Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways
- Of Satan, sire of lies;
- Hell’s huge black spider, for mankind he lays
- His toils, as thou for flies.
- When Betty’s busy eye runs round the room,
- Woe to that nice geometry, if seen!
- But where is he whose broom
- The earth shall clean?
-
- Thou busy labourer! one resemblance more
- May yet the verse prolong,
- For, spider, thou art like the poet poor,
- Whom thou hast helped in song.
- Both busily our needful food to win
- We work as Nature taught, with ceaseless pains,
- Thy bowels thou dost spin,
- I spin my brains.
-
-You remember that the pertinacity with which a spider renewed his
-exertions after failing six times to fix his net, roused Bruce to
-perseverance and success.
-
-Cackling geese saved Rome, and Caligula shod his favourite horse with
-gold and nominated him for vice consul, as he considered him vastly
-superior to the men who aspired to that honourable position. Virgil
-amused his leisure hours with a gnat. Homer made pets of frogs and mice.
-
-The horse has been dearly loved by many famous people who have not been
-ashamed to own it.
-
-Mr. Everett once told a pathetic anecdote of Edmund Burke, that “in the
-decline of his life, when living in retirement on his farm at
-Beaconsfield, the rumour went up to London that he had gone mad and went
-round his park kissing his cows and horses. His only son had died not
-long before, leaving a petted horse which had been turned into the park
-and treated as a privileged favourite. Mr. Burke in his morning walks
-would often stop to caress the favourite animal. On one occasion the
-horse recognised Mr. Burke from a distance, and coming nearer and
-nearer, eyed him with the most pleading look of recognition, and said as
-plainly as words could have said, ‘I have lost him too!’ and then the
-poor dumb beast deliberately laid his head upon Mr. Burke’s bosom.
-Overwhelmed by the tenderness of the animal, expressed in the mute
-eloquence of holy Nature’s universal language, the illustrious statesman
-for a moment lost his self-possession and clasping his arms around his
-son’s favourite animal, lifted up that voice which had caused the arches
-of Westminster Hall to echo the noblest strains that sounded within
-them, and wept aloud. Burke is gone; but, sir, so hold me Heaven, if I
-were called upon to designate the event or the period in Burke’s life
-that would best sustain a charge of insanity, it would not be when, in a
-gush of the holiest and purest feeling that ever stirred the human
-heart, he wept aloud on the neck of a dead son’s favourite horse.”
-
-Lord Erskine composed some lines to the memory of a beloved pony, Jack,
-who had carried him on the home circuit when he was first called to the
-bar, and could not afford any more sumptuous mode of travelling:
-
- Poor Jack! thy master’s friend when he was poor,
- Whose heart was faithful and whose step was sure!
- Should prosperous life debauch my erring heart,
- And whispering pride repel the patriot’s part;
- Should my foot falter at ambition’s shrine
- And for mean lucre quit the path divine,
- Then may I think of thee—when I was poor—
- Whose heart was faithful and whose step was sure.
-
-The following address of an Arab to his horse is translated from the
-Arabic by Bayard Taylor:
-
- Come, my beauty! come, my desert darling!
- On my shoulder lay thy glossy head.
- Fear not, though the barley sack be empty,
- Here’s the half of Hassan’s scanty bread.
-
- Bend thy forehead now to take my kisses,
- Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye.
- Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,
- Thou art proud he owns thee; so am I.
-
- We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
- And the splendour of the pashas there;
- What’s their pomp and riches? Why, I would not
- Take them for a handful of thy hair!
-
- Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty,
- And thou know’st my water skin is free.
- Drink, and welcome; for the springs are distant,
- And my strength and safety are in thee.
-
-Bayard Taylor loved and appreciated animals, and in an article in the
-Atlantic Monthly of February, 1877, on Studies of Animal Nature, he
-says: “If Darwin’s theory should be true, it will not degrade man; it
-will simply raise the whole animal world into dignity, leaving man as
-far in advance as he is at present.”
-
-He adds: “I have always had a great respect for animals, and have
-endeavoured to treat them with the consideration which I think they
-deserve. They have quick perceptions, and know when to be confiding or
-reticent. I have learned no better way to gain their confidence than to
-ask myself, If I were such or such an animal, how should I wish to be
-treated by man? and to act upon that suggestion. Since the key to the
-separate languages has been lost on both sides, the higher intelligence
-must condescend to open some means of communication with the lower.
-
-“The zoölogists unfortunately rarely trouble themselves to do this; they
-are more interested in the skull of an elephant, the thigh-bone of a
-bird, or the dorsal fin of a fish, than in the intelligence or
-rudimentary moral sense of the creature. But the former field is open to
-all laymen, and nothing but a stubborn traditional contempt for our
-slaves or our hunted enemies in the animal world has held us back from a
-truer knowledge of them.
-
-“In the first place, animals have much more capacity to understand human
-speech than is generally supposed. Some years ago, seeing the
-hippopotamus in Barnum’s Museum looking very stolid and dejected, I
-spoke to him in English, but he did not even move his eyes. Then I went
-to the opposite corner of the cage and said in Arabic: ‘I know you; come
-here to me.’ He instantly turned his head toward me. I repeated the
-words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I was standing, pressed
-his huge, ungainly head against the bars of the cage, and looked in my
-face with a touching delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or
-three times found a lion who recognised the same language, and the
-expression of his eyes for an instant seemed positively human.”
-
-He also tells his experience with a tame lioness in Africa. “In a short
-time we were very good friends. She knew me, and always seemed glad to
-see me, though I sometimes teased her a little by getting astride of her
-back, or sitting upon her when she was lying down. When she was in a
-playful mood she would come to meet me as far as the rope would let her,
-get her forepaws around my leg and then take it in her mouth, as if she
-were going to eat me up. I was a little alarmed when she did this for
-the first time; but I soon saw that she was merely in play, and had no
-thought of hurting me, so I took her by the ears and slapped her sides,
-until at last she lay down and licked my hand. Her tongue was as coarse
-as a nutmeg grater, and my hand felt as if the skin was being rasped
-off.
-
-“There was also a leopard in the garden with which I used to play a
-great deal, but which I never loved so well as the lioness. He was
-smaller and more active, and soon learned to jump upon my shoulders when
-I stooped down, or to climb up the tree to which he was tied, whenever I
-commanded him. But he was not so affectionate as the lioness, and
-sometimes forgot to draw in his claws when he played, so that he not
-only tore my clothing, but scratched my hands. I still have the marks of
-one of his teeth on the back of my right hand.
-
-“My old lioness was never rough, and I have frequently, when she had
-stretched out to take a nap, sat upon her back for half an hour at a
-time, smoking my pipe or reading.
-
-“I assure you I was very sorry to part with her, and when I saw her for
-the last time one moonlight night, I gave her a good hug and an
-affectionate kiss. She would have kissed me back if her mouth had not
-been too large; but she licked my hand to show that she loved me, then
-laid her big head upon the ground and went to sleep.
-
-“Dear old lioness! I wonder if you ever think of me. I wonder if you
-would know me, should we ever see each other again.”
-
-If our late minister to Berlin, the accomplished poet, linguist, and
-cosmopolitan, could give his attention to animals as friends and
-companions, there can be nothing belittling in reading their praises as
-said or sung by those whom we all delight to honour.
-
-Hamerton, indeed, makes a comparison in which we come out but second
-best. He says: “How much weariness has there been in the human race
-during the last fifty years, because the human race can not stop
-politically where it was, and, finding no rest, is pushed to a strange
-future that the wisest look forward to gravely, as certainly very dark
-and probably very dangerous! Meanwhile, have the bees suffered any
-political uneasiness? have they doubted the use of royalty or begrudged
-the cost of their queen? Have those industrious republicans, the ants,
-gone about uneasily seeking after a sovereign? Has the eagle grown weary
-of his isolation and sought strength in the practice of socialism? Has
-the dog become too enlightened to endure any longer his position as
-man’s humble friend, and contemplated a canine union for mutual
-protection against masters? No; the great principles of these existences
-are superior to change, and that which man is perpetually seeking—a
-political order in perfect harmony with his condition—the brute has
-inherited with his instincts.”
-
-Cowper, in The Task, devotes several pages to the proper treatment of
-animals, and expresses his admiration for their many noble qualities:
-
- Distinguished much by reason, and still more
- By our capacity of grace divine,
- From creatures, that exist but for our sake,
- Which, having served us, perish, we are held
- Accountable; and God some future day,
- Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse
- Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust.
- Superior as we are, they yet depend
- Not more on human help than we on theirs.
- Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given
- In aid of our defects. In some are found
- Such teachable and apprehensive parts,
- That man’s attainments in his own concerns,
- Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs,
- Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.
- Some show that nice sagacity of smell,
- And read with such discernment, in the port
- And figure of the man, his secret aim,
- That oft we owe our safety to a skill
- We could not teach, and must despair to learn.
-
-Bryant, in his well-known Lines to a Waterfowl, has a striking thought:
-
- ... He who from zone to zone
- Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
- In the long way that I must tread alone,
- Will lead my steps aright.
-
-
-
-
- BOW-WOW-WOW!
-
-
- The dogge forsaketh not his master; no, not when he is starcke
- dead.—DR. CAIUS.
-
-
- Dog with the pensive hazel eyes,
- Shaggy coat, or feet of tan,
- What do you think when you look so wise
- Into the face of your fellow, man?
- —W. C. OLMSTED.
-
-
-
-
- DEVOTED TO DOGS.
-
-
- We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven
- has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.—GEORGE
- ELIOT.
-
-
-Literature, history, and biography are full to overflowing of instances
-of affection between dogs and their owners. Remember the dog Argus,
-which died of joy on the return of his master Ulysses after twenty
-years’ absence. The story is touchingly told in Homer’s Odyssey:
-
-“As he draws near the gates of his own palace, he espies, dying of old
-age, disease, and neglect, his dog Argus—the companion of many a long
-chase in happier days. His instinct at once detects his old master, even
-through the disguise lent by the goddess of wisdom. Before he sees him
-he knows his voice and step, and raises his ears—
-
- And when he marked Odysseus in the way,
- And could no longer to his lord come near,
- Fawned with his tail and drooped in feeble play
- His ears. Odysseus, turning, wiped a tear.”
-
-It is poor Argus’s last effort, and the old hound turns and dies—
-
- Just having seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.
-
-Egyptians held the dog in adoration as the representative of one of the
-celestial signs, and the Indians considered him one of the sacred forms
-of their deities. The dog is placed at the feet of women in monuments,
-to symbolize affection and fidelity; and many of the Crusaders are
-represented with their feet on a dog, to show that they followed the
-standard of the Lord as a dog follows the footsteps of his master.
-“Man,” said Burns, “is the god of the dog”—knows nothing higher to
-reverence and obey. Kings and queens have found their most faithful
-friends among dogs. Frederick the Great allowed his elegant furniture at
-Potsdam to be nearly ruined by his dogs, who jumped upon the satin
-chairs and slept cosily on the luxurious sofas, and quite a cemetery may
-still be seen devoted to his pets. The pretty spaniel belonging to Mary
-Queen of Scots deserves honourable mention. He loved his ill-starred
-mistress when her human friends had forsaken her; nestled close by her
-side at the execution, and had to be forced away from her bleeding body.
-One of the prettiest pictures of the Princess of Wales is taken with a
-tiny spaniel in her arms.
-
-Before going further, just recall some of the most famous dogs of
-mythology, literature, and life, simply giving their names for want of
-space:
-
-Arthur’s dog Cavall.
-
-Dog of Catherine de’ Medicis, Phœbê, a lapdog.
-
-Cuthullin’s dog Luath, a swift-footed hound.
-
-Dora’s dog Jip.
-
-Douglas’s dog Luffra, from The Lady of the Lake.
-
-Fingal’s dog Bran.
-
-Landseer’s dog Brutus, painted as The Invader of the Larder.
-
-Llewellyn’s dog Gelert.
-
-Lord Lurgan’s dog Master McGrath: presented at court by the express
-desire of Queen Victoria.
-
-Maria’s dog Silvio, in Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.
-
-Punch’s dog Toby.
-
-Sir Walter Scott’s dogs Maida, Camp, Hamlet.
-
-Dog of the Seven Sleepers, Katmir.
-
-The famous Mount St. Bernard dog, which saved forty human beings, was
-named Barry. His stuffed skin is preserved in the museum at Berne.
-
-Sir Isaac Newton’s dog, who by overturning a candle destroyed much
-precious manuscript, was named Diamond.
-
-The ancient Xantippus caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near
-the sea, which has ever since retained his name, Cynossema. There are
-even legends of nations that have had a dog for their king. It is said
-that barking is not a natural faculty, but is acquired through the dog’s
-desire to talk with man. In a state of nature, dogs simply whine and
-howl.
-
-When Alexander encountered Diogĕnês the cynic, the young Macedonian king
-introduced himself with the words, “I am Alexander, surnamed ‘the
-Great.’” To which the philosopher replied, “And I am Diogĕnês, surnamed
-‘the Dog.’” The Athenians raised to his memory a pillar of Parian
-marble, surmounted with a dog, and bearing the following inscription:
-
- “Say, dog, what guard you in that tomb?”
- A dog. “His name?” Diogĕnês. “From far?”
- Sinopé. “He who made a tub his home?”
- The same; now dead, among the stars a star.
-
-What man or woman worth remembering but has loved at least one dog?
-Hamerton, in speaking of the one dog—the special pet and dear companion
-of every boy and many a girl, from Ulysses to Bismarck—observes that
-“the comparative shortness of the lives of dogs is the only imperfection
-in the relation between them and us. If they had lived to threescore and
-ten, man and dog might have travelled through life together; but as it
-is, we must have either a succession of affections, or else, when the
-first is buried in its early grave, live in a chill condition of
-dog-lessness.” I thank him for coining that compound word. Almost every
-one might, like Grace Greenwood and Gautier, write a History of my Pets,
-and make a most readable book. Bismarck honoured one of his dogs, Nero,
-with a formal funeral. The body was borne on the shoulders of eight
-workmen dressed in black to a grave in the park. He had been poisoned,
-and a large reward was offered for the discovery of the assassin. The
-prince, statesman, diplomatist, does not believe in dog-lessness, and
-gives to another hound, equally devoted, the same intense affection. “My
-dog—where is my dog?” are his first words on alighting from a railway,
-as Sultan must travel second class. He even mixes the food for his dogs
-with his own hands, believing it will make them love him the more.
-
-Another Nero was the special companion of Mrs. Carlyle, a little white
-dog, who had for his playmate a black cat, whose name was Columbine, and
-Carlyle says that during breakfast, whenever the dining-room door was
-opened, Nero and Columbine would come waltzing into the room in the
-height of joy. He went with his mistress everywhere, led by a chain for
-fear of thieves. For eleven years he cheered her life at Craigenputtock,
-“the loneliest nook in Britain.”
-
-Nero’s death was a tragical one. In October, 1859, while walking out
-with the maid one evening, a butcher’s cart driving furiously round a
-sharp corner ran over his throat. He was not killed on the spot,
-although his mistress says “he looked killed enough at first.” The poor
-fellow was put into a warm bath, wrapped up in flannels, and left to
-die. The morning found him better, however; he was able to wag his tail
-in response to the caresses of his mistress.
-
-Little by little he recovered the use of himself, but it was ten days
-before he could bark.
-
-He lived four months after this, docile, affectionate, loyal up to his
-last hour, but weak and full of pain. The doctor was obliged at last to
-give him prussic acid. They buried him at the top of the garden in
-Cheyne Row, and planted cowslips round his grave, and his loving
-mistress placed a stone tablet, with name and date, to mark the last
-resting place of her blessed dog.
-
-“I could not have believed,” writes Carlyle in the Memorials, “my grief
-then and since would have been the twentieth part of what it was—nay,
-that the want of him would have been to me other than a riddance. Our
-last midnight walk together—for he insisted on trying to come—January
-31st, is still painful to my thought. Little dim white speck of life, of
-love, fidelity, and feeling, girdled by the darkness of night eternal.”
-
-Is not that a delightful revelation of tenderness in the heart of the
-grand old growler, biographer, critic, historian, essayist, prophet,
-whom most people feared? I like to read it again and again.
-
-The selfish, cynical Horace Walpole sat up night after night with his
-dying Rosette. He wrote: “Poor Rosette has suffered exquisitely; you may
-believe I have too,” and honoured her with this epitaph:
-
- Sweetest roses of the year
- Strew around my Rose’s bier.
- Calmly may the dust repose
- Of my pretty, faithful Rose;
- And if yon cloud-topped hill behind
- This frame dissolved, this breath resigned,
- Some happier isle, some humbler heaven,
- Be to my trembling wishes given,
- Admitted to that equal sky
- May sweet Rose bear me company.
-
-And of the dog Touton, left him by Madame du Deffand, he said: “It is
-incredible how fond I am of it; but I have no occasion to brag of my
-_dogmanity_” (another expressive word). He said, “A dog, though a
-flatterer, is still a friend.” Byron, that egotistic, misanthropic
-genius, composed an epitaph on Boatswain, his favourite dog, whose death
-threw the moody poet into deepest melancholy. The dog’s grave is to the
-present day shown among the conspicuous objects at Newstead. The poet,
-in one of his impulsive moments, gave orders in a provision of his
-will—ultimately however, cancelled—that his own body should be buried by
-the side of Boatswain, as his truest and only friend. This noble animal
-was seized with madness, and so little was his lordship aware of the
-fact, that at the beginning of the attack he more than once, during the
-paroxysms, wiped away the dreaded saliva from his mouth. After his death
-Lord Byron wrote to his friend Mr. Hodges: “Boatswain is dead. He died
-in a state of madness on the 18th, after suffering much, yet retaining
-all the gentleness of his nature to the last, never attempting to do the
-least injury to any one near him. I have now lost everything excepting
-old Murray.” Visitors to his old estate will find a marked monument with
-this tribute:
-
- NEAR THIS SPOT
- ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF
- ONE THAT POSSESSED BEAUTY, WITHOUT VANITY,
- STRENGTH, WITHOUT INSOLENCE,
- COURAGE, WITHOUT FEROCITY,
- AND ALL THE VIRTUES OF MAN, WITHOUT HIS VICES.
- THIS PRAISE, WHICH WOULD BE
- UNMEANING FLATTERY
- IF INSCRIBED OVER HUMAN ASHES,
- IS BUT A JUST TRIBUTE
- TO THE MEMORY OF BOATSWAIN, A DOG,
- WHO WAS BORN IN NEWFOUNDLAND, MAY, 1803,
- AND DIED
- AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY, NOVEMBER 18, 1808.
-
-
- _Epitaph._
-
- When some proud son of man returns to earth
- Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
- The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
- And storied urns record who rests below;
- When all is done, upon the tomb is seen
- Not what he was, but what he should have been.
- But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
- The first to welcome, the foremost to defend.
- Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
- Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
- Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,
- Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth;
- While man, vain insect, hopes to be forgiven,
- And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
- O man, thou feeble tenant of an hour,
- Debased by slavery or corrupt by power,
- Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
- Degraded mass of animated dust.
- Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
- Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit.
- By Nature vile, ennobled but by name,
- Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
- Ye who perchance behold this simple urn
- Pass on, it honours none you wish to mourn;
- To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise:
- I never knew but one, and here he lies.
-
-Walter Scott’s dogs had an extraordinary fondness for him. Swanston
-declares that he had to stand by, when they were leaping and fawning
-about him, to beat them off lest they should knock him down. One day,
-when he and Swanston were in the armory, Maida (the dog which now lies
-at his feet in the monument at Edinburgh), being outside, had peeped in
-through the window, a beautifully painted one, and the instant she got a
-glance of her beloved master she bolted right through it and at him.
-Lady Scott, starting at the crash, exclaimed, “O gracious, shoot her!”
-But Scott, caressing her with the utmost coolness, said, “No, no, mamma,
-though she were to break every window at Abbotsford.” He was engaged for
-an important dinner party on the day his dog Camp died, but sent word
-that he could not go, “on account of the death of a dear old friend.” He
-tried early one morning to make the fire of peat burn, and after many
-efforts succeeded in some degree. At this moment one of the dogs,
-dripping from a plunge in the lake, scratched and whined at the window.
-Sir Walter let the “puir creature” in, who, coming up before the little
-fire, shook his shaggy hide, sending a perfect shower bath over the fire
-and over a great table of loose manuscripts. The tender-hearted author,
-eying the scene with his usual serenity, said slowly, “O dear, ye’ve
-done a great deal of mischief!” This equanimity is only equalled by Sir
-Isaac Newton’s exclamation, now, alas! pronounced a fiction, “O Diamond,
-Diamond, little dost thou know the injury thou hast done!”
-
-“The wisest dog I ever had,” said Scott, “was what is called the bulldog
-terrier. I taught him to understand a great many words, insomuch that I
-am positive that the communication betwixt the canine species and
-ourselves might be greatly enlarged. Camp once bit the baker who was
-bringing bread to the family. I beat him and explained the enormity of
-the offence, after which, to the last moment of his life, he never heard
-the least allusion to the story, in whatever voice or tone it was
-mentioned, without getting up and retiring to the darkest corner of the
-room with great appearance of distress. Then if you said, ‘The baker was
-well paid,’ or ‘The baker was not hurt, after all,’ Camp came forth from
-his hiding place, capered and barked and rejoiced. When he was unable,
-toward the end of his life, to attend me when on horseback, he used to
-watch for my return, and the servant would tell him ‘his master was
-coming down the hill’ or ‘through the moor,’ and, although he did not
-use any gesture to explain his meaning, Camp was never known to mistake
-him, but either went out at the front to go up the hill or at the back
-to get down to the moorside. He certainly had a singular knowledge of
-spoken language.”
-
-Once when the great novelist was sitting for his picture he exclaimed,
-“I am as tired of the operation as old Maida, who has been so often
-sketched that he got up and walked off with signs of loathing whenever
-he saw an artist unfurl his paper and handle his brushes!”
-
-It is well known that a dog instantly discerns a friend from an enemy;
-in fact, he seems to know all those who are friendly to his race. There
-are few things more touching in the life of this great man than the fact
-that, when he walked in the streets of Edinburgh, nearly every dog he
-met came and fawned on him, wagged his tail at him, and thus showed his
-recognition of the friend of his race.
-
-_Àpropos_ of understanding what is said to them, Bayard Taylor says, “I
-know of nothing more moving, indeed semi-tragic, than the yearning
-helplessness in the face of a dog who understands what is said to him
-and can not answer.”
-
-Walter Savage Landor, irascible, conceited, tempestuous, had a deep
-affection for dogs, as well as all other dumb creatures, that was
-interesting. “Of all the Louis Quatorze rhymesters I tolerate La
-Fontaine only, for I never see an animal, unless it be a parrot, a
-monkey, or a pug dog, or a serpent, that I do not converse with it
-either openly or secretly.”
-
-The story of the noble martyr Gellert, who risked his own life for his
-master’s child, only to be suspected and slain by the hand he loved so
-well, is perhaps too familiar to be repeated, and yet I can not resist
-Spenser’s version:
-
-The huntsman missed his faithful hound; he did not respond to horn or
-cry. But at last as Llewelyn “homeward hied” the dog bounded to greet
-him, smeared with gore. On entering the house he found his child’s couch
-also stained with blood, and the infant nowhere to be seen. Believing
-Gellert had devoured the boy, he plunged his sword in his side, but soon
-discovered the cherub alive and rosy, while beneath the couch, gaunt and
-tremendous, a wolf torn and killed:
-
- Ah, what was then Llewelyn’s woe!
- Best of thy kind, adieu.
- The frantic blow which laid thee low
- This heart shall ever rue.
-
- And now a gallant tomb they raise,
- With costly sculpture decked;
- And marbles storied with his praise
- Poor Gellert’s bones protect.
-
- There never could the spearman pass
- Or forester unmoved;
- There oft the tear-besprinkled grass
- Llewelyn’s sorrow proved.
-
- And there he hung his horn and spear,
- And there, as evening fell,
- In fancy’s ear he oft would hear
- Poor Gellert’s dying yell.
-
- And till great Snowdon’s rocks grow old,
- And cease the storm to brave,
- The consecrated spot shall hold
- The name of “Gellert’s Grave.”
-
-Dr. John Brown’s exquisite prose poem of Rab and his Friends is as
-lasting a memorial to that dog as any built of granite or marble. The
-dog is emphatically the central figure, the hero of the story. The
-author sat for his picture with Rab by his side, and we are told that
-his interest in a half-blind and aged pet was evinced in the very last
-hours of his life. The dog has figured as the real attraction in several
-novels, and Ouida lets Puck tell his own story. Mrs. Stowe devoted one
-volume to Stories about our Dogs, and wrote also A Dog’s Mission.
-Matthew Arnold had many pets, and not only loved them in life, but has
-given them immortality by his appreciative tributes to dogs, and cat and
-canary. Here are two dog requiems:
-
-
- GEIST’S GRAVE.
-
- Four years, and didst thou stay above
- The ground, which hides thee now, but four?
- And all that life, and all that love,
- Were crowded Geist, into no more.
-
- That loving heart, that patient soul,
- Had they indeed no longer span
- To run their course and reach their goal,
- And read their homily to man?
-
-
- KAISER DEAD. April 6, 1887.
-
- Kai’s bracelet tail, Kai’s busy feet,
- Were known to all the village street.
- “What, poor Kai dead?” say all I meet;
- “A loss indeed.”
- Oh for the croon, pathetic, sweet,
- Of Robin’s reed!
-
- Six years ago I brought him down,
- A baby dog, from London town;
- Round his small throat of black and brown
- A ribbon blue,
- And touched by glorious renown
- A dachshund true.
-
- His mother most majestic dame,
- Of blood unmixed, from Potsdam came,
- And Kaiser’s race we deemed the same—
- No lineage higher.
- And so he bore the imperial name;
- But ah, his sire!
-
- Soon, soon the day’s conviction bring:
- The collie hair, the collie swing,
- The tail’s indomitable ring,
- The eye’s unrest—
- The case was clear; a mongrel thing
- Kai stood confest.
-
- But all those virtues which commend
- The humbler sort who serve and tend,
- Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.
- What sense, what cheer,
- To us declining tow’rd our end,
- A mate how dear!
-
- Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;
- Thou hadst thine errands off and on;
- In joy thy last morn flew; anon
- A fit. All’s over;
- And thou art gone where Geist hath gone,
- And Toss and Rover.
-
- Well, fetch his graven collar fine,
- And rub the steel and make it shine,
- And leave it round thy neck to twine,
- Kai, in thy grave.
- There of thy master keep that sign
- And this plain stave.
-
-Miss Cobbe is a devoted, outspoken friend of all animals. She says: “I
-have, indeed, always felt much affection for dogs—that is to say, for
-those who exhibit the true dog character, which is far from being the
-case with every canine creature. Their sageness, their joyousness, their
-transparent little wiles, their caressing and devoted affection, are to
-me more winning—even, I may say, more really and intensely _human_ (in
-the sense in which a child is human)—than the artificial, cold, and
-selfish characters one meets too often in the guise of ladies and
-gentlemen.”
-
-She had a fluffy white dog she was extremely fond of, and has written
-several chapters on dogs, kindness to animals, the horrors of
-vivisection, etc. Read False Hearts and True, The Confessions of a Lost
-Dog, and Science in Excelsis, and you will realize how she appreciates
-the rights and the noble traits of the brute creation, and how her own
-great heart has gone out to her pets. She closes one article, Dogs whom
-I have Met, with these words: “One thing I think must be clear: until a
-man has learned to feel for all his sentient fellow-creatures, whether
-in human or in brute form, of his own class and sex and country, or of
-another, he has not yet ascended the first step toward true
-civilization, nor applied the first lesson from the love of God.”
-
-Edward Jesse, in his book, now rare and hard to obtain, on dogs, says,
-“Histories are more full of samples of the fidelity of dogs than of
-friends.” A French writer declares that, excepting women, there is
-nothing on earth so agreeable or so necessary to the comfort of man as
-the dog. Think of the shepherd, his flock collected by his indefatigable
-dog, who guards both them and his master’s cottage at night; satisfied
-with a slight caress and coarsest food. The dog performs the service of
-a horse in more northern regions, while in Cuba and other hot countries
-is the terror of the runaway negroes. In destruction of wild beasts or
-the less dangerous stag, or in attacking the bull, the dog has shown
-permanent courage. He defends his master, saves from drowning, warns of
-danger, serves faithfully in poverty and distress, leads the blind. When
-spoken to, does his best to hold conversation by tail, eyes, ears;
-drives cattle to and from pasture, keeps herds and flocks within bounds,
-points out game, brings shot birds, turns a spit, draws provision carts
-and sledges, likes or abhors music, detecting false notes instantly;
-announces strangers, sounds a note of warning in danger, is the last to
-forsake the grave of a friend, sympathizes and rejoices with every mood
-of his master. The collie is the only dog who has a reputation for
-piety, his liking to go to kirk and his proper behaviour there being
-well known. Whenever Stanislaus, the unfortunate King of Poland, wrote
-to his daughter, he always concluded with “Tristram, my companion in
-misfortune, licks your feet.” That one friend stuck by in his adversity.
-We see inherited tendencies in dogs as in children—what Paley calls “a
-propensity previous to experience and independent of instruction”—as
-Saint Bernard puppies scratching eagerly at snow, and young pointers
-standing steadily on first seeing poultry; a well-bred terrier pup will
-show ferocity. The anecdotes of achievements of pet dogs are marvellous.
-Leibnitz related to the French Academy an account of a dog he had seen
-which was taught to speak, and would call intelligibly for tea, coffee,
-chocolate, and made collections of white, shining stones.
-
-We read of dogs who know when Sunday comes; who watch for the butcher’s
-cart only at his stated time for appearance; who will beg for a penny to
-buy a pie or bun, and then go to the baker’s and purchase; who exercise
-forethought and providence, burying bones for future need. Some seem to
-have some moral sense, ashamed of stealing, sometimes making
-retribution, scolding puppies for stealing meat; others are as depraved
-as human beings, slipping their collars and undoing the collar of
-another dog to go marauding, then returning, put their heads back into
-the collar.[1]
-
-Footnote 1:
-
- Darwin said, “Since publishing The Descent of Man I have got to
- believe rather more than I did in dogs having what may be called a
- _conscience_.”
-
-Landseer’s dogs used to pose for him with more patience than many other
-sitters. Some one said of him that he had “discovered the dog.” He was
-so devoted to them that when the wittiest of divines and divinest of
-wits (of course I mean Sydney Smith) was asked to sit to him, he
-replied, “‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’” The
-artist spoke of a Newfoundland who had saved many from drowning as “a
-distinguished member of the Humane Society.” Hamerton, in his charming
-Chapters on Animals, tells us stories, almost too wonderful for belief,
-of some French poodles who came to visit him. These canine guests played
-dominoes, sulked when they had to draw from the bank, retired mortified
-when beaten; also played cards, were skilful spellers in several
-languages, and quick in arithmetic.
-
-Each breed has its own defenders and adherents. Olive Thorne Miller
-usually writes of birds or odd pets; but in Home Pets we find a most
-interesting tale of a collie, which she gives, to illustrate the
-characteristics of that family:
-
-“Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, in the early days of our nation
-and during the French and Indian War, this collie was a great pet in the
-family of a colonial soldier, and was particularly noted for his
-antipathy to Indians, whom he delighted to track. On one campaign
-against the French the dog insisted on accompanying his master, although
-his feet were in a terrible condition, having been frozen. During the
-fight, which ended in the famous Braddock’s defeat, the collie was
-beside his master, but when it was over they had become separated, and
-the soldier, concluding that his pet had been killed, went home without
-him. Some weeks after, however, the dog appeared in his old home,
-separated from the battlefield by many miles and thick forests. He was
-tired and worn, but over his feet were fastened neat moccasins, showing
-that he had been among Indians, who had been kind to him. Moreover, he
-soon showed that he had changed his mind about his former foe, for
-neither bribes nor threats could ever induce him to track an Indian. His
-generous nature could not forget a kindness, even to please those he
-loved enough to seek under so great difficulties.”
-
-This reminds me of several dog stories.
-
-The following interesting letter is published in the London Spectator:
-
-“Being accustomed to walk out before breakfast with two Skye terriers,
-it was my custom to wash their feet in a tub, kept for the purpose in
-the garden, whenever the weather was wet. One morning, when I took up
-the dog to carry him to the tub he bit me so severely that I was obliged
-to let him go. No sooner was the dog at liberty than he ran down to the
-kitchen and hid himself. For three days he refused food, declined to go
-out with any of the family, and appeared very dejected, with a
-distressed and unusual expression of countenance.
-
-“On the third morning, however, upon returning with the other dog, I
-found him sitting by the tub, and upon coming toward him he immediately
-jumped into it and sat down in the water. After pretending to wash his
-legs, he jumped out as happy as possible, and from that moment recovered
-his usual spirits.
-
-“There appears in this instance to have been a clear process of
-reasoning, accompanied by acute feeling, going on in the dog’s mind from
-the moment he bit me until he hit upon a plan of showing his regret and
-making reparation for his fault. It evidently occurred to him that I
-attached great importance to this footbath, and if he could convince me
-that his contrition was sincere, and that he was willing to submit to
-the process without a murmur, I should be satisfied. The dog, in this
-case, reasoned with perfect accuracy, and from his own premises deduced
-a legitimate conclusion which the result justified.”
-
-I like to read of the dog who waited on the town clerk of Amesbury for
-his license. “The possessor of the dog in question is red-headed George
-Morrill, and red-headed George Morrills never (hardly ever) lie, and
-from him we learn the following facts: It appears that Mr. Morrill, who
-was busy at the time, and desired to have his pet properly licensed,
-wrote on a slip of paper as follows: ‘Mr. Collins, please give me my
-license. Charlie.’ Inclosing this, with two dollars, in an envelope, he
-gave it to the dog, telling him to go to Mr. Collins and get his
-license. On arriving at the town clerk’s office he found Mr. Collins
-busy, and being a well-bred dog waited until the gentleman was at
-liberty, when he made his presence known. Mr. Collins, observing the
-envelope in his mouth, took it, and immediately the dog assumed a
-sitting posture, remaining thus until the officer made out the proper
-license, and, inclosing this in an envelope, handed it to his dogship,
-who instantly raised himself to his full length, making a bow with his
-head, and, coming down to his natural position, wagged his tail
-satisfactorily and departed for home. The dog is well known on the
-street for his sagacity and intelligence, but this has rather capped any
-of his previous performances.”
-
-
-One of the best stories about the intelligence of dogs which has been
-told for some time was repeated a few days ago by an officer of the
-Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He said that one of the men in the
-passenger department had a dog that could tell the time of day. The
-owner of the dog had a fine clock in his office, and he got into the
-habit of making the dog tap with his paw at each stroke of the clock.
-After a while the dog did so without being told, and as the clock gave a
-little cluck just before striking, the dog would get into position,
-prick up his ears, and tap out the time. If the clock had struck one and
-a little while afterward his owner imitated the preliminary cluck of the
-clock, the dog would give two taps with his paw, and so on for any hour.
-He knew just how the hours ran and how many taps to give for each one.
-
-We must of course believe a clergyman’s story of a dog, the Rev. C. J.
-Adams, in The Dog Fancier:
-
-“Not ‘Tige,’ concerning whom I have told a number of stories in this
-department. Tiger is another dog, and a fine fellow he is. His hair is
-short, and he is as black as night. I have met him but once, and that
-was at a clericus at the house of his master—the Rev. Peter Claude
-Creveling, at Cornwall, N. Y. He is probably four feet and a half long
-as to his body. He stands nearly as high as an ordinary table. He has a
-fine head—wonderfully large brain chambers. His eyes are extremely
-intelligent and expressive. His master loves him with a great,
-boisterous love characteristic of the man—who will be a great,
-attractive, lovable boy when he is eighty. I greet him, and hope that he
-may abide in the flesh till he is one hundred and eighty. But I took up
-my pen to write about the dog—not the master. The dog and the master are
-well mated. Tiger is the dog for the master, and Mr. Creveling is the
-master for the dog. We hardly ever meet but before we are through
-shaking hands Mr. Creveling begins telling me something about Tiger.
-This occurred, as usual, at a hotel where I was entertaining the clergy
-a month or so ago. The story was wonderful, and is vouched for by
-reliable witnesses.
-
-“Tiger occupies the same room with Mr. and Mrs. Creveling at night. A
-sheet is spread for him on the floor beside the bed. They think as much
-of him as they would of a child. When he is restless during the night,
-Mr. Creveling will put his hand out and pat his head, speaking to him
-soothingly. During the day the sheet on which Tiger sleeps ‘o’ nights’
-is kept under a washstand. This much, that what follows may be
-understood. Now, on a certain Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Creveling, the young
-lady, and all other members of the household were away—excepting Tiger.
-He was left locked in the house. When they returned, and Mrs. Creveling
-went to her room, she found that Tiger had spent a good portion of the
-time of his incarceration in that room and on the bed. The bed was in a
-very tumbled and not very clean condition—the condition in which the
-occupancy of such a dog would naturally leave it—a condition which any
-careful housewife can easily imagine—and which she can not imagine
-without a shudder. Mrs. Creveling cried out. Mr. Creveling came running.
-After him came Tiger. Mr. Creveling said: ‘Tiger, Tiger, see what you
-have done! You have ruined your missie’s bed. Tiger, Tiger, I feel like
-crying!’ Tiger’s head and tail both dropped. Without saying another
-word, Mr. Creveling went down stairs and into his study, threw himself
-on a large sofa, and covered his face and pretended to cry. Tiger, who
-had followed him, threw himself down on a rug beside the sofa and cried
-too. Mr. Creveling had faith in the dog’s intelligence. He believed that
-he had learned a lesson.
-
-“Within a few days the family were all away again. Again Tiger was left
-in the house alone. When the family returned, Mrs. Creveling again went
-to her room. Tiger had been there again in her absence. He had again
-been on the bed. But Tiger’s sheet—the one upon which he slept at night
-was there too. And the sheet was spread out, covering the bed. And there
-had been no one to spread out the sheet for Tiger. He had spread it out
-for himself. Is not here a display of intelligence—of intelligence in
-activity in employment—of reason? What had Tiger done? He had put his
-nose under the washstand and pulled the sheet out. He had put the sheet
-on the bed. He had spread the sheet out over the bed. What had been
-Tiger’s train of thought? This, or something very much like it: ‘I want
-to lie on that bed because it reminds me of my absent master and
-mistress. But I don’t dare to do so. I will give offence if I do so. I
-will be punished. Why am I not wanted to lie on the bed? Because I soil
-it. What shall I do? There is the sheet—my sheet. They don’t care if I
-lie on that. I will spread the sheet over the bed. What a great head I
-have!’ The reader understands, of course, that I am not claiming that
-Tiger has sufficient command of the English language to even
-subjectively express himself as I have represented him. I have only
-tried to bring as strongly as possible to the reader’s mind the fact
-that a train of thought must have passed through the dog’s mind. And a
-train of thought could not pass through his mind if he hadn’t a mind.
-Having a mind, then what? He thinks. He reasons. What else? If my mind
-is immortal why not Tiger’s? And remember that I can prove the truth of
-every detail of this story by three witnesses—Mr. Creveling, his wife,
-and his wife’s friend. No court would ask more.”
-
-
-Jules Janin’s dog made him a literary man. His favourite walk was in
-Luxembourg Garden, where he was delighted to see his dog gambol. The dog
-made another dog’s acquaintance, and they became so attached to each
-other that their masters were brought together and became friends. The
-new friend urged him to better his fortunes by writing for the
-newspapers, and introduced him to La Lorgnette, from which time he
-constantly rose. In 1828 he was appointed dramatic critic of the Journal
-des États, and his popularity there lasted undiminished for twenty
-years.
-
-London has a home for lost and starving dogs, for the benefit of which a
-concert was recently given. Had Richard Wagner been alive, he would have
-doubtless bought a box for this occasion. One of the greatest sorrows of
-his life was the temporary loss of his Newfoundland dog in London.
-
-Here is a quaint story which shows the gentle Elia in a most
-characteristic way: “Just before the Lambs quitted the metropolis,” says
-Pitman, “they came to spend a day with me at Fulham and brought with
-them a companion, who, dumb animal though he was, had for some time past
-been in the habit of giving play to one of Charles Lamb’s most amiable
-characteristics—that of sacrificing his own feelings and inclinations to
-those of others. This was a large and very handsome dog, of a rather
-curious and sagacious breed, which had belonged to Thomas Hood, and at
-the time I speak of, and to oblige both dog and master, had been
-transferred to the Lambs, who made a great pet of him, to the entire
-disturbance and discomfiture, as it appeared, of all Lamb’s habits of
-life, but especially of that most favourite and salutary of all—his long
-and heretofore solitary suburban walks; for Dash—that was the dog’s
-name—would never allow Lamb to quit the house without him, and when out,
-would never go anywhere but precisely where it pleased himself. The
-consequence was, that Lamb made himself a perfect slave to this dog, who
-was always half a mile off from his companion, either before or behind,
-scouring the fields or roads in all directions, up and down ‘all manner
-of streets,’ and keeping his attendant in a perfect fever of anxiety and
-irritation from his fear of losing him on the one hand, and his
-reluctance to put the needful restraint upon him on the other. Dash
-perfectly well knew his host’s amiable weakness in this respect, and
-took a doglike advantage of it. In the Regent’s Park, in particular,
-Dash had his _quasi_-master completely at his mercy, for the moment they
-got within the ring he used to squeeze himself through the railing and
-disappear for half an hour together in the then inclosed and thickly
-planted greensward, knowing perfectly well that Lamb did not dare to
-move from the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared, till he thought
-proper to show himself again. And they used to take this walk oftener
-than any other, precisely because Dash liked it, and Lamb did not.”
-
-Beecher said that “in evolution, the dog got up before the door was
-shut.” If there were not reason, mirthfulness, love, honour, and
-fidelity in a dog, he did not know where to look for them, And Huxley
-has devoted much attention to the study of canine ability. He once
-illustrated, by the skeleton of the animal being raised on hind legs,
-that in internal construction the only difference between man and dog
-was one of size and proportion. There was not a bone in one which did
-not exist in the other, not a single constituent in the one that was not
-to be found in the other, and by the same process he could prove that
-the dog had a mind. His own dog was certainly not a mere piece of
-animate machinery. He once possessed a dog which he frequently left
-among the thousands frequenting Regent’s Park to secrete himself behind
-a tree. So soon as the animal found that he had lost his master, he laid
-his nose to the ground and soon tracked him to his hiding place. He
-believed there was no fundamental faculty connected with the reasoning
-powers that might not be demonstrated to exist in dogs. He did not
-believe that dogs ever took any pleasure in music; but this seems not to
-be always the case. Adelaide Phillips, the famous contralto, told me
-that her splendid Newfoundland Cæsar was quite a musician. She gave him
-singing lessons regularly. “I see him now,” she said, “his fore paws
-resting on my knee. I would say: ‘Now the lesson begins. Look at me,
-sir. Do as I do.’ Then I would run down the scale in thirds, and Cæsar,
-with head thrown back and swaying from side to side, would really sing
-the scale. He would sing the air of The Brook very correctly. But it was
-the best sport to see him attempt the operatic.” Here her gestures
-became showy and impressive, as if on the stage, and her mimicking of
-the dog’s efforts to follow her were comical in the extreme. Sometimes
-(so quickly did he catch all the tricks of the profession) he would not
-sing until urged again and again. Sometimes he would be “out of voice,”
-and make most discordant sounds. He has an honoured grave at her country
-home in Marshfield, where Webster also put up a stone in memory of his
-horse Greatheart.
-
-Charlotte Cushman loved animals, especially dogs and horses; and her
-blue Skye terrier Bushie, with her human eyes and uncommon intelligence,
-has a permanent place in the memoirs of her mistress. Miss Cushman would
-say, “Play the piano, Bushie,” and Bush knew perfectly well what was
-meant, and would go through the performance, adding a few recitative
-barks with great gravity and _éclat_. The phrase “human eyes” recalls
-what Blackmore, the novelist—who has a genuine, loving appreciation of
-our dear dumb animals—says of a dog in Christowell: “No lady in the land
-has eyes more lucid, loving, eloquent, and even if she had, they would
-be as nothing without the tan spots over them.”
-
-Patti has many pets, and always takes some dog with her on her travels,
-causing great commotion at hotels. She also leaves many behind her as a
-necessity. She has an aviary at her castle in Wales, and owns several
-most loquacious parrots.
-
-Miss Mitford’s gushing eulogy upon one of her numerous dogs is too
-extravagant to be quoted at length: “There never was such a dog. His
-temper was, beyond comparison, the sweetest ever known. Nobody ever saw
-him out of humour, and his sagacity was equal to his temper.... I shall
-miss him every moment of my life. We covered his dead body with flowers;
-every flower in the garden. Everybody loved him, dear saint, as I used
-to call him, and as I do not doubt he now is. Heaven bless him, beloved
-angel!”
-
-Mr. Fields writes: “Miss Mitford used to write me long letters about
-Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had made some time before
-while on a visit to her cottage. Every virtue under heaven she
-attributed to that canine individual, and I was obliged to allow in my
-return letters that since our planet began to spin nothing comparable to
-Fanchon had ever run on four legs.”
-
-Mrs. Browning was fond of pets, especially of her dog Flush, presented
-by Miss Mitford, which she has immortalized in a sonnet and a long and
-exquisite poem:
-
-
- FLUSH OR FAUNUS.
-
- You see this dog. It was but yesterday
- I mused forgetful of his presence here;
- Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear;
- When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
- A head as hairy as Faunus’ thrust its way
- Right sudden against my face, two golden, clear,
- Great eyes astonished mine; a drooping ear
- Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray.
- I started first; as some Arcadian
- Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;
- But as the bearded vision closelier ran
- My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
- Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan
- Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.
-
-The poem is equally beautiful:
-
-
- TO FLUSH, MY DOG.
-
- Other dogs may be thy peers
- Haply in these drooping ears
- And this glossy fairness.
-
- But of _thee_ it shall be said,
- This dog watched beside a bed
- Day and night unweary;
- Watched within a curtained room,
- Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
- Round the sick and weary.
-
- Roses gathered for a vase
- In that chamber died apace,
- Beam and breeze resigning;
- This dog only waited on,
- Knowing that when light is gone
- Love remains for shining.
-
- Other dogs in thymy dew
- Tracked the hares and followed through
- Sunny moor or meadow;
- This dog only crept and crept
- Next a languid cheek that slept,
- Sharing in the shadow.
-
- Other dogs of loyal cheer
- Bounded at the whistle clear,
- Up the woodside hieing;
- This dog only watched in reach
- Of a faintly uttered speech,
- Or a louder sighing.
-
- And if one or two quick tears
- Dropped upon his glossy ears,
- Or a sigh came double,
- Up he sprang in eager haste,
- Fawning, fondling, breathing fast
- In a tender trouble.
-
- And this dog was satisfied
- If a pale, thin hand would glide
- Down his dewlaps sloping,
- Which he pushed his nose within,
- After platforming his chin
- On the palm left open.
-
- This dog, if a friendly voice
- Call him now to blither choice
- Than such chamber keeping,
- “Come out,” praying from the door,
- Presseth backward as before,
- Up against me leaping.
-
- Therefore to this dog will I,
- Tenderly, not scornfully,
- Render praise and favour;
- With my hand upon his head,
- Is my benediction said,
- Therefore and forever.
-
- · · · · ·
-
-Mrs. Browning said in a note to this poem: “This dog was the gift of my
-dear and admired friend, Miss Mitford, and belongs to the beautiful race
-she has rendered celebrated among English and American readers.”
-
-Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, addressed a long poem to his dog, ending:
-
- When my last bannock’s on the hearth,
- Of that thou canna want thy share;
- While I ha’e house or hauld on earth,
- My Hector shall ha’e shelter there.
-
-Another favourite was honoured by Dr. Holland, the essayist, lecturer,
-magazine editor, and poet:
-
-
- TO MY DOG BLANCO.
-
- My dear, dumb friend, low lying there,
- A willing vassal at my feet,
- Glad partner of my home and fare,
- My shadow in the street.
-
- I look into your great brown eyes,
- Where love and loyal homage shine,
- And wonder where the difference lies
- Between your soul and mine!
-
- For all of good that I have found
- Within myself or human kind,
- Hath royally informed and crowned
- Your gentle heart and mind.
-
- I scan the whole broad earth around
- For that one heart which, leal and true,
- Bears friendship without end or bound,
- And find the prize in you.
-
- I trust you as I trust the stars;
- Nor cruel loss, nor scoff of pride,
- Nor beggary, nor dungeon bars,
- Can move you from my side!
-
- As patient under injury
- As any Christian saint of old,
- As gentle as a lamb with me,
- But with your brothers bold;
-
- More playful than a frolic boy,
- More watchful than a sentinel,
- By day and night your constant joy
- To guard and please me well.
-
- I clasp your head upon my breast—
- The while you whine and lick my hand—
- And thus our friendship is confessed,
- And thus we understand!
-
- Ah, Blanco! did I worship God
- As truly as you worship me,
- Or follow where my Master trod
- With your humility—
-
- Did I sit fondly at his feet,
- As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine,
- And watch him with a love as sweet,
- My life would grow divine!
-
-Maria Edgeworth wrote to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, in 1819, “I see my
-little dog on your lap, and feel your hand patting his head, and hear
-your voice telling him that it is for Maria’s sake he is there.”
-
-What a pathetic friendship existed between Emily Brontë and the dog whom
-she was sure could understand every word she said to him! “She always
-fed the animals herself; the old cat; Flossy, her favourite spaniel;
-Keeper, the fierce bulldog, her own constant dear companion, whose
-portrait, drawn by her own spirited hand, is still extant. And the
-creatures on the moor were all in a sense her pets and familiar with
-her. The intense devotion of this silent woman to all manner of dumb
-creatures has something almost inexplicable. As her old father and her
-sisters followed her to the grave they were joined by another mourner,
-Keeper, Emily’s dog. He walked in front of all, first in the rank of
-mourners, and perhaps no other creature had loved the dead woman quite
-so well. When they had laid her to sleep in the dark, airless vault
-under the church, and when they had crossed the bleak churchyard and had
-entered the empty house again, Keeper went straight to the door of the
-room where his mistress used to sleep, and laid down across the
-threshold. There he howled piteously for many days, knowing not that no
-lamentations could wake her any more.”
-
-Dogs were supposed by the ancient Gaels to know of the death of a
-friend, however far they might be separated. But this is getting too
-gloomy. Do you know how the proverb originated “as cold as a dog’s
-nose”? An old verse tells us:
-
- There sprang a leak in Noah’s ark,
- Which made the dog begin to bark;
- Noah took his nose to stop the hole,
- And hence his nose is always cold.
-
-No one has expressed more appreciation of the noble qualities of dogs
-than the abstracted, philosophic Wordsworth.
-
-
- INCIDENT
-
- _Characteristic of a Favourite Dog._
-
- On his morning rounds the master
- Goes to learn how all things fare;
- Searches pasture after pasture,
- Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
- And, for silence or for talk,
- He hath comrades in his walk;
- Four dogs, each pair of different breed,
- Distinguished two for scent and two for speed.
-
- See a hare before him started!
- Off they fly in earnest chase;
- Every dog is eager-hearted,
- All the four are in the race:
- And the hare whom they pursue,
- Hath an instinct what to do;
- Her hope is near: no turn she makes;
- But, like an arrow, to the river takes.
-
- Deep the river was, and crusted
- Thinly by a one night’s frost;
- But the nimble hare hath trusted
- To the ice, and safely crost;
- She hath crossed, and without heed
- All are following at full speed,
- When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,
- Breaks—and the greyhound, Dart, is over head!
-
- Better fate have Prince and Swallow—
- See them cleaving to the sport!
- Music has no heart to follow,
- Little Music, she stops short.
- She hath neither wish nor heart,
- Hers is now another part:
- A loving creature she, and brave!
- And fondly strives her struggling friend to save.
-
- From the brink her paws she stretches,
- Very hands as you would say!
- And afflicting moans she fetches,
- As he breaks the ice away.
- For herself she hath no fears,
- Him alone she sees and hears,
- Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o’er
- Until her fellow sank, and reappeared no more.
-
-
- TRIBUTE
-
- _To the Memory of the Same Dog._
-
- Lie here, without a record of thy worth,
- Beneath a covering of the common earth!
- It is not from unwillingness to praise,
- Or want of love, that here no stone we raise;
- More thou deservest; but _this_ man gives to man,
- Brother to brother, _this_ is all we can.
- Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
- Shall find thee through all changes of the year:
- This oak points out thy grave; the silent tree
- Will gladly stand a monument of thee.
-
-Cowper, who tenderly loved all animals, did not fail to honour a dog
-with a poetical tribute in The Dog and the Water Lily, celebrating the
-devotion of “my spaniel, prettiest of his race.”
-
- It was the time when Ouse displayed
- His lilies newly blown;
- Their beauties I intent surveyed,
- And one I wished my own.
-
- With cane extended far, I sought
- To steer it close to land;
- But still the prize, though nearly caught,
- Escaped my eager hand.
-
- Beau marked my unsuccessful pains
- With fixed, considerate face,
- And puzzling set his puppy brains
- To comprehend, the case.
-
- But chief myself, I will enjoin,
- Awake at duty’s call,
- To show a love as prompt as thine
- To Him who gives us all.
-
- But with a chirrup clear and strong,
- Dispersing all his dream,
- I thence withdrew, and followed long
- The windings of the stream.
-
- My ramble finished, I returned.
- Beau, trotting far before,
- The floating wreath again discerned,
- And, plunging, left the shore.
-
- I saw him, with that lily cropped,
- Impatient swim to meet
- My quick approach, and soon he dropped
- The treasure at my feet.
-
- Charmed with this sight, the world, I cried,
- Shall hear of this, thy deed:
- My dog shall mortify the pride
- Of man’s superior breed.
-
-Forster tells us fully of Dickens’s devotion to his many dogs, quoting
-the novelist’s inimitable way of describing his favourites. In Dr.
-Marigold there is an especially good bit about “me and my dog.”
-
-“My dog knew as well as I did when she was on the turn. Before she broke
-out he would give a howl and bolt. How he knew it was a mystery to me,
-but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his
-soundest sleep, and would give a howl and bolt. At such times I wished I
-was him.” After the death of child and wife, he says: “Me and my dog was
-all the company left in the cart now, and the dog learned to give a
-short bark when they wouldn’t bid, and to give another and a nod of his
-head when I asked him ‘Who said half a crown?’ He attained to an immense
-height of popularity, and, I shall always believe, taught himself
-entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that
-bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be well on in years, and one night
-when I was convulsing York with the spectacles he took a convulsion on
-his own account, upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him.”
-
-Mr. Laurence Hutton, in the St. Nicholas, has lately expressed his
-sentiments about dogs, as follows:
-
-“It was Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, I think, who spoke in sincere
-sympathy of the man who “led a dog-less life.” It was Mr. “Josh
-Billings,” I know, who said that in the whole history of the world there
-is but one thing that money can not buy—to wit, the wag of a dog’s tail.
-And it was Prof. John C. Van Dyke who declared the other day, in
-reviewing the artistic career of Landseer, that he made his dogs too
-human. It was the great Creator himself who made dogs too human—so human
-that sometimes they put humanity to shame.
-
-“I have been the friend and confidant of three dogs, who helped to
-humanize me for the space of a quarter of a century, and who had souls
-to be saved, I am sure, and when I cross the Stygian River I expect to
-find on the other shore a trio of dogs wagging their tails almost off in
-their joy at my coming, and with honest tongues hanging out to lick my
-hands and my feet. And then I am going, with these faithful, devoted
-dogs at my heels, to talk dogs over with Dr. John Brown, Sir Edward
-Landseer, and Mr. Josh Billings.”
-
-
-Do dogs have souls—a spark of life that after death lives on elsewhere?
-
-Many have hoped so, from Wesley to the little boy who has lost his
-cherished comrade.
-
-It is certain that dogs show qualities that in a man would be called
-reason, quick apprehension, presence of mind, courage, self-abnegation,
-affection unto death.
-
-At the close of this chapter may I be allowed to tell of two of my
-special friends—one a fox terrier, owned by Mr. Howard Ticknor, of
-Boston; the other my own interesting pet—who have never failed to learn
-any trick suggested to them? Antoninus Pius, called Tony for short, goes
-through more than a score of wonderful accomplishments, such as playing
-on the piano, crossing his paws and looking extremely artistic, if not
-inspired, dancing a skirt dance, spinning on a flax wheel, performing on
-a tambourine swung by a ribbon round his neck; plays pattycake with his
-mistress. And my own intelligent Yorkshire terrier mounts a chair back
-and preaches with animation, eloquence, and forcible gestures; knocks
-down a row of books and then sits on them, as a book reviewer; stands in
-a corner with right paw uplifted, as a tableau of Liberty enlightening
-the World; rings a bell repeatedly and with increasing energy, to call
-us to the table; sings with head and eyes uplifted, to accompaniment of
-harmonica—and each is just beginning his education.
-
-I have read lately an account of a knowing dog, with a sort of sharp
-cockney ability, who used to go daily with penny in mouth and buy a
-roll. Once one right out of the oven was given to him; he dropped it,
-seized his money off the counter, and changed his baker.
-
-
-
-
- COMPLIMENTS TO CATS.
-
- You may own a cat, but cannot govern one.
-
-
- TO A KITTEN.
-
- But not alone by cottage fire
- Do rustics rude thy feats admire;
- The learnèd sage, whose thoughts explore
- The widest range of human lore;
- Or, with unfettered fancy fly
- Through airy heights of poesy;
- Pausing, smiles with altered air
- To see thee climb his elbow-chair,
- Or, struggling with the mat below,
- Hold warfare with his slippered toe.
- JOANNA BAILLIE.
-
-
-
-
- CATS.
-
-
-God made the cat in order to give to man the pleasurable sense of having
-caressed the tiger.
-
-
- MÉRY.
-
-
-Public sentiment is not so unanimously in favour of cats, yet they have
-had their warm admirers, while in Egypt they were adored as
-divine—worshipped as an emblem of the moon. When a cat died, the owners
-gave the body a showy funeral, went into mourning, and shaved off their
-eyebrows. Diodorus tells of a Roman soldier who was condemned to death
-for killing a cat. It is said that Cambyses, King of Persia, when he
-went to fight the Egyptians, fastened before every soldier’s breast a
-live cat. Their enemies dared not run the risk of hurting their sacred
-pets, and so were conquered.
-
-Artists, monarchs, poets, diplomatists, religious leaders, authors, have
-all condescended to care for cats. A mere list of their names would make
-a big book. For instance, Godefroi Mind, a German artist, was called the
-Raphael of Cats. People would hunt him up in his attic, and pay large
-prices for his pictures. In the long winter evenings he amused himself
-carving tiny cats out of chestnuts, and could not make them fast enough
-for those who wanted to buy. Mohammed was so fond of his cat Muezza that
-once, when she was sleeping on his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve rather
-than disturb her. Andrew Doria, one of the rulers of Venice, not only
-had a portrait painted of his pet cat, but after her death had her
-skeleton preserved as a treasure. Richelieu’s special favourite was a
-splendid Angora, his resting place being the table covered with state
-papers. Montaigne used to rest himself by a frolic with his cat.
-Fontenelle liked to place his “Tom” in an armchair and deliver an
-oration before him. The cat of Cardinal Wolsey sat by his side when he
-received princes. Petrarch had his pet feline embalmed and placed in his
-apartment.
-
-You see, the idea of the cat being the pet of old maids alone is far
-from true. Edward Lear, of Nonsense Verses fame, wrote of himself:
-
- He has many friends, laymen and clerical;
- Old Foss is the name of his cat;
- His body is perfectly spherical;
- He weareth a runcible hat.
-
-Wordsworth wrote about a Kitten and the Falling Leaves. A volume of two
-hundred and eighty-five pages of poems in all languages, consecrated to
-the memory of a single cat, was published at Milan in 1741. Shelley
-wrote verses to a cat.
-
-It seems unjust to assert that the cat is incapable of personal
-attachment, when she has won the affection of so many of earth’s great
-ones. The skull of Morosini’s cat is preserved among the relics of that
-Venetian worthy. Andrea Doria’s cat was painted with him. Sir Henry
-Wyat’s gratitude to the cat who saved him from starvation in the Tower
-of London by bringing him pigeons to eat, caused this remark: “You shall
-not find his picture anywhere but with a cat beside him.” Cowper often
-wrote about his cats and kittens. Horace Walpole wrote to Gray, mourning
-the loss of his handsomest cat, and Gray replied: “I know Zara and
-Zerlina, or rather I knew them both together, for I can not justly say
-which was which. Then, as to your handsomest cat, I am no less at a
-loss; as well as knowing one’s handsomest cat is always the cat one
-likes best, or, if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the
-latter that is handsomest. Besides, if the point were so clear, I hope
-you do not think me so ill bred as to forget my interest in the
-survivor—oh, no! I would rather seem to mistake, and imagine, to be
-sure, that it must be the tabby one.” It was the tabby; her death being
-sudden and pitiful, tumbling from a “lofty vase’s side” while trying to
-secure a goldfish for her dinner. Gray sent Walpole an ode inspired by
-the misfortune, in which he said:
-
- What woman’s heart can gold despise?
- What cat’s averse to fish?
-
-and thus describes the final scene:
-
- Eight times emerging from the flood,
- She mewed to every watery god
- Some speedy aid to send.
- No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
- Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard.
- A favourite has no friend.
-
-Upon Gray’s death, Walpole placed Zerlina’s vase upon a pedestal marked
-with the first stanza.
-
-Jeremy Bentham at first christened his cat Langbourne; afterward, Sir
-John Langbourne; and when very wise and dignified, the Rev. Sir John
-Langbourne, D. D. Pius IX allowed his cat to sit with him at table,
-waiting his turn to be fed in a most decorous manner. Théophile Gautier
-tells us how beautifully his cats behaved at the dinner table. A friend
-visiting Bishop Thirlwall in his retirement, thought he looked weary,
-and asked him to take the big easy-chair. “Don’t you see who is already
-there?” said the great churchman, pointing to a cat asleep on the
-cushion. “She must not be disturbed.” Helen Hunt Jackson devoted a large
-book to the praise of cats and kittens. We know that Isaac Newton was
-fond of cats, for did he not make two holes in his barn door—a big one
-for old pussy to go in and out, and a little one for the kitty?
-
-Among French authors we recall Rousseau, who has much to say in favour
-of felines. Colbert reared half a dozen cats in his study, and taught
-them many interesting tricks. The cat supplied Perrault with one of the
-most attractive subjects of his stories, and under the magical pen of
-this admirable story-teller, Puss in Boots has become an example of the
-power of work, industry, and _savoir-faire_. Gautier scoffs at storms
-raging without, as long as he has
-
- Sur mes genoux un chat qui se joue et folâtre,
- Un livre pour veiller, un fauteil pour devenir.
-
-Béranger, in his idyl The Cat, makes an intelligent cat a go-between of
-lovers. Baudelaire returned from his wanderings in the East a devotee of
-cats, and addressed to them several fine bits of verse; they are seen in
-his poetry, as dogs in the paintings of Paul Veronese. Here is a sample:
-
- Come, beauty, rest upon my loving heart,
- But cease thy paws’ sharp-nailèd play,
- And let me peer into those eyes that dart
- Mixed agate and metallic ray.
-
-Again:
-
- Grave scholars and mad lovers all admire
- And love, and each alike, at his full tide
- Those suave and puissant cats, the fireside’s pride,
- Who like the sedentary life and glow of fire.
-
-How he enjoys, nay, revels in the musical purr!—
-
- Those tones which purl and percolate
- Deep down into my shadowy soul,
- Exalt me like a fine tune’s roll,
- And yield the joy love philters make.
-
- There is no note in the world,
- Nor perfect instrument I know,
- Can lift my heart to such a glow
- And set its vibrant chord in whirl,
- As thy rich voice mysterious.
-
-Champfleury, another French writer, has recorded that, visiting Victor
-Hugo once, he found, in a room decorated with tapestries and Gothic
-furniture, a cat enthroned on a dais, and apparently receiving the
-homage of the company. Sainte-Beuve’s cat sat on his desk, and walked
-freely over his critical essays. “I value in the cat,” says
-Chateaubriand, “that indifferent and almost ungrateful temper which
-prevents itself from attaching itself to any one; the indifference with
-which it passes from the _salon_ to the housetop.” Marshal Turenne
-amused himself for hours in playing with his kittens. The great general,
-Lord Heathfield, would often appear on the walls of Gibraltar at the
-time of the famous siege, attended by his favourite cats. Montaigne
-wrote: “When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her
-more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert each other with our
-play. If I have my hour to begin or refuse, so has she.” As George Eliot
-puts it, “Who can tell what just criticisms the cat may be passing on us
-beings of wider speculation?” Chateaubriand’s cat Micette is well known.
-He used to stroke her tail, to notify Madame Récamier that he was tired
-or bored.
-
-Cats and their friendships are not spoken of in the Bible. But they are
-mentioned in Sanskrit writing two thousand years old, and, as has been
-said before, they were household pets and almost idols with the
-Egyptians, who mummied them in company with kings and princes. They were
-also favourites in India and Persia, and can claim relationship with the
-royal felines of the tropics. Simonides, in his Satire on Women, the
-earliest extant, sets it down that froward women were made from cats,
-just as most virtuous, industrious matrons were developed from beer. In
-Mills’s History of the Crusades the cat was an important personage in
-religious festivals. At Aix, in Provence, the finest he cat was wrapped
-like a child in swaddling clothes and exhibited in a magnificent shrine:
-every knee bent, every hand strewed flowers.
-
-Several cats have been immortalized by panegyrics and epitaphs from
-famous masters. Joachim de Bellay has left this pretty tribute:
-
- C’est Beland, mon petit chat gris—
- Beland, qui fut peraventure
- Le plus bel œuvre que nature
- Fit onc en matière de chats.
-
-The pensive Selima, owned by Walpole, was mourned by Gray, and from the
-Elegy we get the favourite aphorism, “A favourite has no friends.”
-Arnold mourned the great Atossa. One of Tasso’s best sonnets was
-addressed to his favourite cat. Cats figure in literature from Gammer
-Gurton’s Needle to our own day. Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four
-times—“the harmless, necessary cat,” etc. Goldsmith wrote:
-
- Around in sympathetic mirth
- Its tricks the kitten tries;
- The cricket chirrups in the hearth,
- The crackling fagot flies.
-
-Joanna Baillie wrote in the same strain.
-
-In one of Gay’s fables about animals the cat is asked what she can do to
-benefit the proposed confederation. She answers scornfully:
-
- ... These teeth, these claws,
- With vigilance shall serve the cause.
- The mouse destroyed by my pursuit
- No longer shall your feasts pollute,
- Nor eat, from nightly ambuscade
- With watchful teeth your stores invade.
-
-The story of Dick Whittington and his cat is doubtless true. All the
-pictorial and architectural relics of Whittington represent him with the
-cat—a black and white cat—at his left hand, or his hand resting on a
-cat. One of the figures that adorned the gate at Newgate represented
-Liberty with the figure of a cat lying at her feet. Whittington was a
-former founder. In the cellar of his old house at Gloucester there was
-found a stone, probably part of a chimney, showing in _basso-rilievo_
-the figure of a boy carrying in his arms a cat. Cowper has a poem on A
-Cat retired from Business. Heinrich’s verses are well known, or should
-be:
-
- The neighbours’ old cat often
- Came to pay us a visit.
- We made her a bow and a courtesy,
- Each with a compliment in it.
-
- After her health we asked,
- Our care and regard to evince;
- We have made the very same speeches
- To many an old cat since.
-
-This translation was by Mrs. Browning; many others have tried it with
-success. Alfred de Musset apostrophized his cats in verse. Paul de Koch
-frequently describes a favourite cat in his novels. Hoffman, the German
-novelist, introduces cats into his weird and fantastic tales, and Poe
-has given us The Black Cat. Keats composed a
-
-
- SONNET TO A CAT:
-
- Cat, who has passed thy grand climacteric,
- How many mice and rats hast in thy days
- Destroyed? How many tidbits stolen? Gaze
- With those bright languid segments green, and prick
- Those velvet ears, but prythee do not stick
- Thy latent talons in me, and tell me all thy frays,
- Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick;
- Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists,
- For all thy wheezy asthma, and for all
- Thy tail’s tip is nicked off, and though the fists
- Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
- Still is thy fur as when the lists
- In youth thou enteredst on glass-bottled wall.
-
-Clinton Scollard writes tenderly of his lost
-
-
- GRIMALKIN:
-
- _An Elegy on Peter, aged Twelve._
-
- In vain the kindly call; in vain
- The plate for which thou once wast fain
- At morn and noon and daylight’s wane,
- O king of mousers.
- No more I hear thee purr and purr
- As in the frolic days that were,
- When thou didst rub thy velvet fur
- Against my trousers.
-
- How empty are the places where
- Thou erst wert frankly debonair,
- Nor dreamed a dream of feline care,
- A capering kitten.
- The sunny haunts where, grown a cat,
- You pondered this, considered that,
- The cushioned chair, the rug, the mat,
- By firelight smitten.
-
- Although of few thou stood’st in dread,
- How well thou knew’st a friendly tread,
- And what upon thy back or head
- The stroking hand meant!
- A passing scent could keenly wake
- Thy eagerness for chop or steak.
- Yet, puss, how rarely didst thou break
- The eighth commandment!
-
- Though brief thy life, a little span
- Of days compared with that of man,
- The time allotted to thee ran
- In smoother meter.
- Now with the warm earth o’er thy breast,
- O wisest of thy kind and best,
- Forever mayst thou softly rest,
- _In pace_—Peter.
-
-Agnes Repplier, in her Essays in Idleness and Dozy Hours, tells us of
-Agrippina and her child. Charles Dudley Warner gave to the world a
-character sketch of his cat Calvin.
-
-A young girl who was in the house with Mr. Whittier, and of whom he was
-very fond, went to him one day with tearful eyes and a rueful face and
-said: “My dear little kitty Bathsheba is dead, and I want you to write a
-poem to put on her gravestone. I shall bury her under a rose bush!”
-Without a moment’s hesitation the poet said:
-
- Bathsheba! to whom none ever said scat!
- No worthier cat
- Ever sat on a mat
- Or caught a rat;
- _Requiescat!_
-
-Cats are made very useful. The English Government keeps cats in public
-offices, dockyards, stores, shipping, and so on. In Vienna, four cats
-are employed by town magistrates to catch mice on the premises of the
-municipality with a regular allowance, voted for their keeping, during
-active service, afterward placed on the retired list with comfortable
-pension; much better cared for than college professors or superannuated
-ministers in our country. There are a certain number of cats in the
-United States Post Office to protect mail bags from rats and mice; also,
-in the Imperial Printing Office in France, a feline staff with a keeper.
-Cats are given charge of empty corn sacks, so that they shall not be
-nibbled and devoured. Cats are invaluable to farmers in barns and
-outhouses, stables, and newly mown fields.
-
-There are many proverbs about the cat. Shakespeare says,
-
- Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
- Like the poor cat i’ the adage,
-
-meaning, expressed in another proverb,
-
- The cat loves fish, but does not like
- To wet her paws.
-
- Good liquor will make a cat speak.
-
- Not room to swing a cat.
-
-They used to swing a cat to the branch of a tree as a mark to shoot at.
-
- Honest as the cat when the meal is out of reach.
-
- Let the cat out of the bag.
-
-A cat was sometimes substituted for a sucking pig, and carried in a bag
-to market. If a greenhorn chose to buy without examination, very well;
-but if he opened the bag the trick was discovered, and he “let the cat
-out of the bag.”
-
- Sick as a cat.
-
- Touch not a cat without a glove.
-
- What can you have of a cat but her skin?
-
- To be made a cat’s paw of,
-
-referring to the fable of the monkey who took the paw of a cat to get
-some roasted chestnuts from the hot ashes.
-
- Who is to bell the cat?
-
-alluding to the cunning old mouse who suggested that they should hang a
-bell on the cat’s neck to let all mice know of her approach.
-“Excellent,” said a wise young mouse, “but who will undertake the job?”
-
-Madame Henriette Ronner has given up half of her long artistic career to
-the study of cats, producing a cat world as impressive as the cattle
-world of Potter or the stag and dog world of Landseer. Harrison Weirs is
-one of Pussy’s most devoted adherents. He originated cat shows at
-Crystal Palace, London. He says that dogs, large or small, are generally
-useless; while a cat, whether petted or not, is of service. Without her,
-rats and mice would overrun the house. If there were not millions of
-cats there would be billions of vermin. He believes that cats are more
-critical in noticing than dogs, as he has seen a cat open latched doors
-and push back bolt or bar; they will wait for the butcher, hoping for
-bits of meat, looking for him only on his stated days, and know the time
-for the luncheon bell to ring. Dogs often bite when angry; cats seldom.
-They will travel a long distance to regain home; form devoted
-attachments to other animals, as horses, cocks, collies, cows, hens,
-rabbits, squirrels, and even rats, and can be taught to respect the life
-of birds.
-
-Exactly opposite opinions are held by others, equally good and fair
-judges, and with these the cat is considered selfish, spiteful, crafty,
-treacherous, and, like a low style of politician, subservient only to
-the power that feeds them, and provides a warm berth to snuggle down in.
-And we find many anecdotes, well authenticated, proving them to be
-docile, affectionate, good-tempered, tractable, and even possessed of
-something very like intellect. In the life of Sir David Brewster, by his
-daughter, we find that a cat in the house entered his room one day and
-made friendship in the most affectionate manner; “looked straight at
-him, jumped on my father’s knee, placed a paw on each shoulder, and
-kissed him as distinctly as a cat could. From that time the philosopher
-himself provided her breakfast every morning from his own plate, till
-one day she disappeared, to the unbounded sorrow of her master. Nothing
-was heard of her for nearly two years, when Pussy walked into the house,
-neither thirsty nor footsore, made her way without hesitation to the
-study, jumped on my father’s knee, placed a paw on each shoulder and
-kissed him, exactly as on the first day.”
-
-Cats can be trained to shake hands, jump over a stick, sit up on hind
-legs, come at a whistle, beg like a dog, but we seldom take the trouble
-to find out how easily they can be taught. Madame Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale)
-tells us of Dr. Johnson’s kindness to his cat, named Hodge. When the
-creature had grown old and fastidious from illness, and could eat
-nothing but oysters, the gruff old lexicographer always went out himself
-to buy Hodge’s dinner. Boswell adds: “I recollect Hodge one day
-scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast apparently with much satisfaction,
-while my friend, smiling and half whistling, rubbed down his back and
-pulled him by the tail, and when I observed he had a fine cat, saying,
-‘Why yes, sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this,’ and
-then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘But he
-is a fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’ He once gave a ludicrous account
-of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. ‘Sir, when
-I heard of him last he was running about town shooting cats.’ And then,
-in a sort of friendly reverie, he added, ‘But Hodge sha’n’t be shot; no,
-Hodge sha’n’t be shot.’” And this from the gruff, dogmatic thunderer who
-snubbed or silenced every antagonist. Even the selfish, courtly Lord
-Chesterfield left a permanent pension for his cats and their
-descendants. Robert Southey has written a Memoir of the Cats of Greta
-Hall. He liked to see his cats look plump and healthy, and tried to make
-them comfortable and happy. When they were ill he had them carefully
-nursed by the “ladies of the kitchen,” and doctored by the Keswick
-apothecary. Indeed, cats and kittens were so petted and fondled at Greta
-Hall by old and young that Southey sometimes called the place “Cats’
-Eden.” In a letter to one of his cat-loving friends he says that “a
-house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child
-in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.” This
-memorial gives such truthful and impartial biographies of his
-rat-catching friends that he deserves to be known and admired as the
-Plutarch of Cats. The history was compiled for his daughter. He begins
-in this way: “Forasmuch, most excellent Edith May, as you must always
-feel a natural and becoming concern in whatever relates to the house
-wherein you were born, and in which the first part of your life has thus
-far so happily been spent, I have for your instruction and delight
-composed these memoirs, to the end that the memory of such worthy
-animals may not perish, but be held in deserved honour by my children
-and those who shall come after them.” The sketch is too long to be
-given, but it is sparkling with fun and at times tragic with sad
-adventures. Their names were as remarkable as their characters: Madame
-Bianchi; Pulcheria Ovid, so called because he might be presumed to be a
-master in the art of love; Virgil, because something like Ma-ro might be
-detected in his notes of courtship; Othello, black and jealous; Prester
-John, who turned out not to be of John’s gender, and therefore had the
-name altered to Pope Joan; Rumpelstilchen, a name borrowed from Grimm’s
-Tales, and Hurlyburlybuss. Rumpelstilchen lived nine years. After
-describing various cats, their adventures and misadventures, Madame
-Bianchi disappeared, and Pulcheria soon after died of a disease epidemic
-at that time among cats. “For a considerable time afterward an evil
-fortune attended all our attempts at re-establishing a cattery. Ovid
-disappeared and Virgil died of some miserable distemper. The Pope, I am
-afraid, came to a death of which other popes have died. I suspect that
-some poison which the rats had turned out of their holes proved fatal to
-their enemy. For some time I feared we were at the end of our
-cat-a-logue, but at last Fortune, as if to make amends for her late
-severity, sent us two at once, the never-to-be-enough-praised
-Rumpelstilchen, and the equally-to-be-admired Hurlyburlybuss. And ‘first
-for the first of these,’ as my huge favourite and almost namesake Robert
-South says in his sermons.” He then explains at length a German tale in
-Grimm’s collection (a most charming tale it is, too), which gave the
-former cat his strange and magi-sonant appellation. “Whence came
-Hurlyburlybuss was long a mystery. He appeared here as Manco Capac did
-in Peru and Quetzalcohuatl among the Aztecs—no one knew whence. He made
-himself acquainted with all the philofelists of the family, attaching
-himself more particularly to Mrs. Lorell; but he never attempted to
-enter the house, frequently disappeared for days, and once since my
-return for so long a time that he was actually believed to be dead and
-veritably lamented as such. The wonder was, whither did he retire at
-such times, and to whom did he belong; for neither I in my daily walks,
-nor the children, nor any of the servants, ever by chance saw him
-anywhere except in our own domain. There was something so mysterious in
-this that in old times it might have excited strong suspicion, and he
-would have been in danger of passing for a witch in disguise, or a
-familiar. The mystery, however, was solved about four weeks ago, when,
-as we were returning home from a walk up the Greta, Isabel saw him on
-his transit across the road and the wall from Shulicson in a direction
-toward the hill. But to this day we are ignorant who has the honour to
-be his owner in the eye of the law, and the owner is equally ignorant of
-the high favour in which Hurlyburlybuss is held, of the heroic name he
-has obtained, and that his fame has extended far and wide; yea, that
-with Rumpelstilchen he has been celebrated in song, and that his glory
-will go down to future generations. A strong enmity existed between
-these two cats of remarkable nomenclature, and many were their
-altercations. Some weeks ago Hurlyburlybuss was manifestly emaciated and
-enfeebled by ill health, and Rumpelstilchen with great magnanimity made
-overtures of peace. The whole progress of the treaty was seen from the
-parlour window. The caution with which Rumpel made his advances, the
-sullen dignity with which they were received, their mutual uneasiness
-when Rumpel, after a slow and wary approach seated himself whisker to
-whisker with his rival, the mutual fear which restrained not only teeth
-and claws but even all tones of defiance, the mutual agitation of their
-tails, which, though they did not expand with anger could not be kept
-still for suspense, and lastly the manner in which Hurly retreated, like
-Ajax, still keeping his face toward his old antagonist, were worthy to
-have been represented by that painter who was called the Raphael of
-Cats. The overture, I fear, was not accepted as generously as it was
-made, for no sooner had Hurlyburlybuss recovered strength than
-hostilities were recommenced with greater violence than before. Dreadful
-were the combats which ensued.... All means of reconciling them and
-making them understand how goodly a thing it is for cats to dwell
-together in peace, and what fools they are to quarrel and tear each
-other, are vain. The proceedings of the Society for the Abolition of War
-are not more utterly ineffectual and hopeless. All we can do is to act
-more impartially than the gods did between Achilles and Hector, and
-continue to treat both with equal regard.” I will only add the closing
-words: “And thus having brought down these Memoirs of the Cats of Greta
-Hall to the present day, I commit the precious memorial to your keeping.
-Most dissipated and light-heeled daughter, your most diligent and
-light-hearted father, Keswick, 18 June, 1824.” Rumpel lived nine years,
-surrounded by loving attentions, and when he died, May 18, 1833, Southey
-wrote to an old friend, Grosvenor Bedford: “Alas! Grosvenor, this day
-poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and happy a life as cat
-could wish for, if cats form wishes on that subject. There should be a
-court mourning in cat land, and if the Dragon (a cat of Mr. Bedford’s)
-wear a black ribbon around his neck, or a band of crepe, _à la
-militaire_, round one of the forepaws, it will be but a becoming mark of
-respect. As we have no catacombs here, he is to be decently interred in
-the orchard, and catnip planted on his grave.”
-
-Among modern celebrities who are fond of cats are the actress, Ellen
-Terry, who loves to play with kittens on the floor; Mr. Edmund Yates,
-the late novelist and journalist, whose cat used to sit down to dinner
-beside her master; and Julian Hawthorne, who has a faithful friend in
-his noble Tom, who invariably sits on his shoulder while he is writing.
-And when Tom thinks enough work has been done for one sitting, he gets
-down to the table and pulls away the manuscript. A cat denoted liberty,
-and was carved at the feet of the Roman Goddess of Liberty. Cats are
-seldom given credit for either intelligence or affection, but many
-trustworthy anecdotes prove that they possess both, and also that they
-seem to understand what is said, not only to them but about them. They
-are more unsophisticated than the dog; civilization to them has not yet
-become second nature.
-
-
- A CAT STORY.
-
-You may be interested in hearing of the crafty trick of a black Persian.
-Prin is a magnificent animal, but withal a most dainty one, showing
-distinct disapproval of any meat not cooked in the especial way he
-likes, viz., roast. The cook, of whom he is very fond, determined to
-break this bad habit. Stewed or boiled meat was accordingly put ready
-for him, but, as he had often done before, he turned from it in disgust.
-However, this time no fish or roast was substituted. For three days the
-saucer of meat was untouched, and no other food given. But on the fourth
-morning the cook was much rejoiced at finding the saucer empty. Prin ran
-to meet her, and the good woman told her mistress how extra affectionate
-that repentant cat was that morning. He did enjoy his dinner of roast
-that day (no doubt served with a double amount of gravy). It was not
-till the pot-board under the dresser was cleaned on Saturday that his
-artfulness was brought to light. There, in one of the stewpans back of
-the others, was the contents of the saucer of stewed meat. There was no
-other animal about the place, and the other two servants were as much
-astonished as the cook at the clever trick played on them by this
-terribly spoiled pet of the house. But the cook was mortified at the
-thought of that saucer of roast beef. I know this story to be true, and
-I have known the cat for the last nine or ten years. It lives at
-Clapham.
-
-
-I will close this catalogue of feline attractions with two conundrums:
-Why does a cat cross the road? Because it wants to get to the other
-side. What is that which never was and never will be? A mouse’s nest in
-a cat’s ear.
-
-
-
-
- ALL SORTS.
-
- God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,
- To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.
- BROWNING’S SAUL.
-
-
-
-
- ALL SORTS.
-
-
- If thy heart be right, then will every creature be to thee a mirror
- of life, and a book of holy doctrine.—THOMAS À KEMPIS.
-
-
-It would be pleasant to believe it was a proof of a good and tender
-nature to delight in pets, but men and women, notorious for cruelty and
-bad lives, have been devoted to them, lavishing tenderness, elsewhere
-denied. Catullus, the famous Roman poet, wrote a lament for Lesbia’s
-Sparrow; Lesbia, the shameless, false-hearted beauty who could weep for
-a dead bird, but poison her husband! You often see pretty plaster heads
-of Lesbia with the bird perched upon her finger, her face bent toward it
-with a look that is a caress. And the poem has not lost its grace or
-charm through all the centuries.
-
-
- ON THE DEATH OF LESBIA’S SPARROW.
-
- Mourn, all ye Loves and Graces! mourn,
- Ye wits, ye gallants, and ye gay!
- Death from my fair her bird has torn—
- Her much-loved sparrows snatched away.
-
- Her very eyes she prized not so,
- For he was fond, and knew my fair
- Well as young girls their mothers know,
- And sought her breast and nestled there.
-
- Once, fluttering round from place to place,
- He gaily chirped to her alone;
- But now that gloomy path must trace
- Whence Fate permits none to return.
-
- Accursèd shades o’er hell that lower,
- Oh, be my curses on you heard!
- Ye, that all pretty things devour,
- Have torn from me my pretty bird.
-
- Oh, evil deed! Oh, sparrow dead!
- Oh, what a wretch, if thou canst see
- My fair one’s eyes with weeping red,
- And know how much she grieves for thee.
-
-James I, of England, whom Dickens designates as “His Sowship,” to
-express his detestation of his character, had a variety of dumb
-favourites. Although a remorseless destroyer of animals in the chase, he
-had an intense pleasure in seeing them around him happy and well cared
-for in a state of domesticity. In 1623 John Bannat obtained a grant of
-the king’s interest in the leases of two gardens and a tenement in the
-Nuriones, on the condition of building and maintaining a house wherein
-to keep and rear his Majesty’s newly imported silkworms. Sir Thomas
-Dale, one of the settlers of the then newly formed colony of Virginia,
-returning to Europe on leave, brought with him many living specimens of
-American zoölogy, among them some flying squirrels. This coming to his
-Majesty’s ears, he was seized with a boyish impatience to add them to
-the private menageries in St. James’s Park. At the council table and in
-the circle of his courtiers he recurs again and again to the subject,
-wondering why Sir Thomas had not given him “the first pick” of his cargo
-of curiosities. He reminded them how the recently arrived Muscovite
-ambassador had brought him live sables, and, what he loved even better,
-splendid white gyrfalcons of Iceland; and when Buckingham suggested that
-in the whole of her reign Queen Elizabeth had never received live sables
-from the Czar, James made special inquiries if such were really the
-case. Some one of his loving subjects, desirous of ministering to his
-favourite hobby, had presented him with a cream-coloured fawn. A nurse
-was immediately hired for it, and the Earl of Shrewsbury commissioned to
-write as follows to Miles Whytakers, signifying the royal pleasure as to
-future procedure: “The king’s Majesty hath commissioned me to send this
-rare beast, a white hind calf, unto you, together with a woman, his
-nurse, that hath kept it and bred it up. His Majesty would have you see
-it be kept in every respect as this good woman doth desire, and that the
-woman be lodged and boarded by you until his Majesty come to Theobald’s
-on Monday next, and then you shall know further of his pleasure. What
-account his Majesty maketh of this fine beast you may guess, and no man
-can suppose it to be more rare than it is; therefore I know that your
-care of it will be accordingly. So in haste I bid you my hearty
-farewell. At Whitehall, this 6th of November, 1611.”
-
-About 1629 the King of Spain effected an important diversion in his own
-favour by sending the king—priceless gift—an elephant and five camels.
-Going through London after midnight, says a state paper, they could not
-pass unseen, and the clamour and outcry raised by some street loiterers
-at sight of their ponderous bulk and ungainly step, roused the sleepers
-from their beds in every street through which they passed. News of this
-unlooked-for addition to the Zoölogical Garden is conveyed to Theobald’s
-as speedily as horseflesh, whip and spur, could do their work. Then
-arose an interchange of missives to and fro betwixt the king, my lord
-treasurer, and Mr. Secretary Connay, grave, earnest, deliberate, as
-though involving the settlement or refusal of some treaty of peace. In
-muttered sentences, not loud but deep, the thrifty lord treasurer shows
-“how little he is in love with royal presents, which cost his master as
-much to maintain as could a garrison.” No matter. Warrants are issued to
-the officers of the Mews and to Buckingham, master of the horse, that
-the elephant is to be daily well dressed and fed, but that he should not
-be led forth to water, nor any admitted to see him without directions
-from his keeper. The camels are to be daily grazed in the park, but
-brought back at night with all possible precautions to secure them from
-the vulgar gaze. The elephant had two Spaniards and two Englishmen to
-take care of him, and the royal quadruped had royal fare. His keepers
-affirm that from the month of September till April he must drink not
-water but wyne; and from April to September “he must have a gallon of
-wyne the day.” His winter allowance was six bottles per diem, but
-perhaps his keepers relieved him occasionally of a portion of the
-tempting beverage which they probably thought too good to waste on an
-animal even if it be a royal elephant.
-
-When Voltaire was living near Geneva he owned a large monkey which used
-to attack and even bite both friends and enemies. This repulsive pet one
-day gave his master three wounds in the leg, obliging him for some time
-to hobble on crutches. He had named the creature Luc, and in
-conversation with intimate friends he also gave the King of Prussia the
-same name, because, said he, “Frederick is like my monkey, who bites
-those who caress him.” As a contrast, remember how the hermit, Thoreau,
-used to cultivate the acquaintance of a little mouse until it became
-really tame and would play a game of bopeep with his eccentric friend.
-
-Nothing seems too odd or disagreeable to be regarded with affection.
-Lord Erskine, who always expressed a great interest in animals, had at
-one time two leeches for favourites. Taken dangerously ill at
-Portsmouth, he fancied that they had saved his life. Every day he gave
-them fresh water and formed a friendship with them. He said he was sure
-that both knew him, and were grateful for his attentions. He named them
-Home and Cline, for two celebrated surgeons, and he affirmed that their
-dispositions were quite different; in fact, he thought he distinguished
-individuality in these black squirmers from the mire.
-
-Even pigs have had the good fortune to interest persons of genius.
-Robert Herrick had a pet pig which he fed daily with milk from a silver
-tankard, and Miss Martineau had the same odd fancy. She, too, had a pet
-pig which she had washed and scrubbed daily. When too ill to superintend
-the operation she would listen at her window for piggie’s squeal,
-advertising that the operation had commenced.
-
-John Wilson, better known as Christopher North, loved many pets, and was
-as unique in his methods with them as in all other things. His intense
-fondness for animals and birds was often a trial to the rest of the
-family, as when his daughter found he had made a nest for some young
-gamecocks in her trunk of party dresses which was stored in the attic.
-On his library table, where “fishing rods found company with Ben Jonson
-and Jeremy Taylor reposed near a box of barley-sugar,” a tame sparrow he
-had befriended hopped blithely about, master of the situation. This tiny
-pet imagined itself the most important occupant of the room. It would
-nestle in his waistcoat, hop upon his shoulder, and seemed influenced by
-constant association with a giant, for it grew in stature until it was
-alleged that the sparrow was gradually becoming an eagle.
-
-The Rev. Gilbert White, who wrote the Natural History of Selborne,
-speaks of a tortoise which he petted, saying, “I was much taken with its
-sagacity in discerning those that show it kind offices, for as soon as
-the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than
-thirty years, it hobbles toward its benefactress with awkward alacrity,
-but remains inattentive to strangers.” Thus not only “the ox knoweth his
-owner and the ass his master’s crib,” but the most abject reptile and
-torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched
-with the feelings of gratitude. Think of Jeremy Bentham growing a sort
-of vetch in his garden to cram his pockets with to feed the deer in
-Kensington Gardens! “I remember,” says his friend who tells the story,
-“his pointing it out to me and telling me the virtuous deer were fond of
-it, and ate it out of his hand.” Like Byron, he once kept a pet bear,
-but he was in Russia at the time, and the wolves got into the poor
-creature’s box on a terrible night and carried off a part of his face, a
-depredation which the philosopher never forgot nor forgave to his dying
-day. He always kept a supply of stale bread in a drawer of his dining
-table for the “mousies.”
-
-The Brownings had many pets, among them an owl, which after death was
-stuffed and given an honoured position in the poet’s library. Sydney
-Smith professed not to care for pets, especially disliking dogs; but he
-named his four oxen Tug and Lug, Haul and Crawl, and dosed them when he
-fancied they needed medicine. Miss Martineau relates that a phrenologist
-examining Sydney’s head announced, “This gentleman is a naturalist,
-always happy among his collections of birds and fishes.” “Sir,” said
-Sydney, turning upon him solemnly with wide-open eyes—“sir, I don’t know
-a fish from a bird.” But this ignorance and indifference were all
-assumed. His daughter, writing of his daily home life, says: “Dinner was
-scarcely over ere he called for his hat and stick and sallied forth for
-his evening stroll. Each cow and calf and horse and pig were in turn
-visited and fed and patted, and all seemed to welcome him; he cared for
-their comforts as he cared for the comforts of every living being around
-him.” He used to say: “I am for all cheap luxuries, even for animals;
-now, all animals have a passion for scratching their back bones; they
-break down your gates and palings to effect this. Look, this is my
-Universal Scratcher, a sharp-edged pole resting on a high and low post,
-adapted to every height, from a horse to a lamb. Even the Edinburgh
-Reviewer can take his turn; you have no idea how popular it is.” Who
-could resist repeating just here the wit’s impromptu epigram upon the
-sarcastic, diminutive Jeffrey when the caustic critic was surprised
-riding on the children’s pet donkey? “I still remember the joy-inspiring
-laughter that burst from my father at this unexpected sight, as,
-advancing toward his old friend, with a face beaming with delight, he
-exclaimed:
-
- Witty as Horatius Flaccus,
- As great a Jacobin as Gracchus,
- Short, though not as fat as Bacchus,
- Riding on a little jackass.”
-
-Before saying good-bye to the donkey I must give the appeal of Mr.
-Evarts’s little daughter at their summer home in Windsor, Vermont, to
-her learned and judicial father; so naïve and irresistible:
-
-
- “DEAR PAPA: Do come home soon. The donkey is so lonesome without
- you!”
-
-
-I once heard Mr. Evarts lamenting to Chief-Justice Chase that he had
-been badly beaten at a game of High Low Jack by Ben, the learned pig. “I
-know now,” said he, “why two pipes are called a hog’s head. It is on
-account of their great capacity!”
-
-One would fancy that a busy lawyer would have no time to give to pets,
-but this is far from true. Burnet, in his life of Sir Matthew Hale, the
-most eminent lawyer in the time of Charles I and Cromwell, says of him,
-that “his mercifulness extended even to his beasts, for when the horses
-that he had kept long grew old, he would not suffer them to be sold or
-much wrought, but ordered his man to turn them loose on his grounds and
-put them only to easy work, such as going to market and the like. He
-used old dogs also with the same care; his shepherd having one that was
-blind with age, he intended to have killed or lost him, but the judge
-coming to hear of it made one of his servants bring him home and feed
-him till he died. And he was scarce ever seen more angry than with one
-of his servants for neglecting a bird that he kept so that it died for
-want of food.”
-
-Daniel Webster’s fondness for animals is well known. When his friends
-visited him at Marshfield the first excursion they must take would be to
-his barns and pastures, where he would point out the beauties of an
-Alderney, and mention the number of quarts she gave daily, with all a
-farmer’s pride, adding, “I know, for I measured it myself.” Choate used
-to tell a story _à propos_ of this. Once, when spending the Sabbath at
-Marshfield, he went to his room after breakfast to read. Soon there came
-an authoritative knock at the door, and Mr. Webster shouted, “What are
-you doing, Choate?” He replied, “I’m reading.” “Oh,” said Webster, “come
-down and see the pigs.”
-
-He would often rout up his son Fletcher at a provokingly early hour to
-go out and hold a lantern while he fed the oxen with nubs of corn; and,
-noticing a decided lack of enthusiasm in Fletcher, would say: “You do
-not enjoy this society, my son; it’s better than I find in the Senate.”
-It was a touching scene when on the last day, when he sat in his loved
-library, he longed to look once more into the kindly faces of his honest
-oxen, and had them driven up to the window to say good-bye. Speaking of
-Choate recalls a comical story about his finding in his path, during a
-summer morning’s walk, a dozen or more dorbeetles sprawling on their
-backs in the highway enjoying the warm sunshine. With great care he
-tipped them all over into a normal position, when a friend coming along
-asked curiously, “What are you doing, Mr. Choate?” “Why, these poor
-creatures got overturned, and I am helping them to take a fresh start.”
-“But,” said the other, “they do that on purpose; they are sunning
-themselves, and will go right back as they were.” This was a new idea to
-the puzzled pleader, but with one of those rare smiles which lit up his
-sad, dark face so wonderfully, he said: “Never mind, I’ve put them
-right; if they go back, it is at their own risk.” And an interesting
-anecdote is told in his biography of his touch of human sympathy for
-inanimate objects: “When as a boy he drove his father’s cows, he says,
-more than once when he had thrown away his switch, he has returned to
-find it, and has carried it back and thrown it under the tree from which
-he took it, for he thought, ‘Perhaps there is, after all, some yearning
-of Nature between them still.’”
-
-There are enough anecdotes about birds as pets to fill another big book.
-One of Dickens’s most delightful characters was ponderous, impetuous
-Lawrence Boythorn, with his pet bird lovingly circling about him. In
-Washington, in Salmon P. Chase’s home, when he was Secretary of the
-Treasury, lived a pet canary, one of the tamest, which had a special
-liking for the grave, reserved statesman. It was allowed to fly about
-the room freely, and had an invariable habit of calmly waiting beside
-the secretary at dinner until he had used his finger-bowl; then Master
-Canary would take possession of it for a bath. In Jean Paul Richter’s
-study stood a table with a cage of canaries. Between this and his
-writing table ran a little ladder, on which the birds could hop their
-way to the poet’s shoulder, where they frequently perched.
-
-Celia Thaxter loved birds. She writes: “I can not express to you my
-distress at the destruction of the birds. You know how I love them;
-every other poem I have written has some bird for its subject, and I
-look at the ghastly horror of women’s headgear with absolute suffering.
-I remonstrate with every wearer of birds. No woman worthy of the name
-would wish to be instrumental in destroying the dear, beautiful
-creatures, and for such idle folly—to deck their heads like squaws—who
-are supposed to know no better—when a ribbon or a flower would serve
-their purpose just as well, and not involve this fearful sacrifice.” In
-a letter she describes a night visit from birds.
-
-“Two or three of the earlier were down in the big bay window, and
-between two and three o’clock in the morning it began softly to rain,
-and all at once the room filled with birds: song sparrows, flycatchers,
-wrens, nuthatches, yellow birds, thrushes, all kinds of lovely feathered
-creatures fluttered in and sat on picture frames and gas fixtures, or
-whirled, agitated, in mid air, while troops of others beat their heads
-against the glass outside, vainly striving to get in. The light seemed
-to attract them as it does the moths. We had no peace, there was such a
-crowd, such cries and chirps and flutterings. I never heard of such a
-thing; did you?
-
-“Oh, the birds! I do believe few people enjoy them as you and I do. The
-song sparrows and white-throats follow after me like chickens when they
-see me planting. The martins almost light on my head; the humming birds
-_do_, and tangle their little claws in my hair; so do the sparrows. I
-wish somebody were here to tell me the different birds, and recognise
-these different voices. There are more birds than usual this year, I am
-happy to say. The women have not assassinated them all for the funeral
-pyres they carry on their heads.... What between the shrikes and owls
-and cats and weasels and women—worst of all—I wonder there’s a bird left
-on this planet.
-
-“In the yard of the house at Newton, where we used to live, I was in the
-habit of fastening bones (from cooked meat) to a cherry tree which grew
-close to my sitting-room window; and when the snow lay thick upon the
-ground that tree would be alive with blue jays and chickadees, and
-woodpeckers, red-headed and others, and sparrows (not English), and
-various other delightful creatures. I was never tired watching them and
-listening to them. The sweet housekeeping of the martins in the little
-boxes on my piazza roof is more enchanting to me than the most
-fascinating opera, and I worship music. I think I must have begun a
-conscious existence as some kind of a bird in æons past. I love them so!
-I am always up at four, and I hear everything every bird has to say on
-any subject whatever. Tell me, have you ever tied mutton and beef bones
-to the trees immediately around the house where you live for the birds?”
-
-Matthew Arnold wrote of his canary and cat in a most loving way.
-
-
- POOR MATTHIAS.
-
- Poor Matthias! Found him lying
- Fallen beneath his perch and dying?
- Found him stiff, you say, though warm,
- All convulsed his little form?
- Poor canary, many a year
- Well he knew his mistress dear;
- Now in vain you call his name,
- Vainly raise his rigid frame.
-
- Vainly warm him in your heart,
- Vainly kiss his golden crest,
- Smooth his ruffled plumage fine,
- Touch his trembling beak with wine.
- One more gasp, it is the end,
- Dead and mute our tiny friend.
-
- Poor Matthias, wouldst thou have
- More than pity? Claim’st a stave?
- Friends more near us than a bird
- We dismissed without a word.
- Rover with the good brown head,
- Great Attossa, they are dead;
- Dead, and neither prose nor rhyme
- Tells the praises of their prime.
-
- · · · · ·
-
- Thou hast seen Attossa sage
- Sit for hours beside thy cage;
- Thou wouldst chirp, thou foolish bird,
- Flutter, chirp, she never stirred.
- What were now these toys to her?
- Down she sank amid her fur;
- Eyed thee with a soul resigned,
- And thou deemedst cats were kind.
- Cruel, but composed and bland,
- Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
- So Tiberius might have sat
- Had Tiberius been a cat.
-
- Fare thee well, companion dear,
- Fare forever well, nor fear,
- Tiny though thou art, to stray
- Down the uncompanioned way.
- We without thee, little friend,
- Many years have yet to spend;
- What are left will hardly be
- Better than we spent with thee.
-
-Maclise was one of the intimate associates, if we may use the
-expression, of Dickens’s celebrated Raven. The letter in which the
-bereaved owners announced to Maclise the death of this interesting bird
-has been published, but the reply of the artist is now printed for the
-first time:
-
-
- “_March 13, 1841._
-
- “MY DEAR DICKENS: I received the mournful intelligence of our
- friend’s decease last night at eleven, and the shock was great
- indeed. I have just dispatched the announcement to poor Forster, who
- will, I am sure, sympathize deeply with our bereavement.
-
- “I know not what to think is the probable cause of his death—I
- reject the idea of the Butcher Boy, for the orders he must have in
- his (the Raven’s) lifetime received on acct. of the Raven himself
- must have been considerable—I rather cling to the notion of _felo de
- se_, but this will no doubt come out upon the post mortem. How blest
- we are to have such an intelligent coroner in Mr. Wakely! I think he
- was just of those grave, melancholic habits which are the noticeable
- signs of your intended suicide—his solitary life—those gloomy tones,
- when he did speak—which was always to the purpose, witness his last
- dying speech—‘Hallo, old girl!’ which breathes of cheerfulness and
- triumphant resignation—his solemn suit of raven black which never
- grew rusty—altogether his character was the very prototype of a
- Byron Hero and even of a Scott—a master of Ravenswood——We ought to
- be glad he had his family, I suppose; he seems to have intended it,
- however, for his solicitude to deposit in those Banks in the Garden
- his savings, were always very touching—I suppose his obsequies will
- take place immediately—It is beautiful—the idea of his return soon
- after death to the scene of his early youth and all his joyful
- associations, to lie with kindred dusts amid his own ancestral
- groves, after having come out and made such a noise in the world,
- having clearly booked his place in that immortality coach driven by
- Dickens.
-
- “Yes, he committed suicide, he felt he had done it and done with
- life—the hundreds of years!! What were they to him? There was
- nothing near to live for—and he committed the rash act.
-
- “Sympathizingly yours,
- “D. MACLISE.”
-
-
-The pet dove of Thurlow Weed seemed inconsolable after his death. When
-any gentleman called at the house the bird would alight on his shoulder,
-coo, and peer into his face. Then finding it was not his dear friend, he
-would sadly seek some other perch. Miss Weed writes: “Since the day that
-father’s remains were carried away, the affectionate creature has been
-seeking for his master. He flies through every room in the house, and
-fairly haunts the library. Many times every day the mourning bird comes
-and takes a survey of the room. He will tread over every inch of space
-on the lounge, and then go to the rug, over which he will walk
-repeatedly, as if in expectation of his dead master’s coming. Does not
-this seem akin to human grief?”
-
-Whittier wrote a good deal about his pet parrot. Read his poem called
-“The Bird’s Question.” After his tragic end, the Quaker bard wrote of
-him: “I have met with a real loss. Poor Charlie is dead. He has gone
-where the good parrots go. He has been ailing and silent for some time,
-and he finally died. Do not laugh at me, but I am sorry enough to cry if
-it would do any good. He was an old friend. Lizzie liked him. And he was
-the heartiest, jolliest, pleasantest old fellow I ever saw.” He used to
-perch upon the back of his master’s chair at meal time; at times
-disgracefully profane, especially when in moments of extreme excitement
-he would climb to the steeple by way of the lightning rod, and there he
-would dance and sing and swear on a Sunday morning, amusing the
-passer-by and shocking his owner. At last he fell down the chimney, and
-was not discovered for two days. He was rescued in the middle of the
-night, and, although he partially recovered, he soon died. Whittier
-said: “We buried poor Charlie decently. If there is a parrot’s paradise
-he ought to go there.” He also had a pet Bantam rooster which would
-perch on his shoulder, and liked to be buttoned up in his coat. Grace
-Greenwood in Heads or Tails speaks of a diplomatic parrot belonging to
-Seward, at Washington, taking part in political discussion, trying to
-scream Sumner down, and so sympathetic that when his master had a cough
-he had symptoms of bronchitis.
-
-In a trustworthy collection of epitaphs may be found this quaint tribute
-with old-fashioned formality to a pet bird:
-
-“Here lieth, aged three months, the body of Richard Acanthus, a young
-person of unblemished character. He was taken in his callow infancy from
-the wing of a tender parent by the rough and pitiless hand of a
-two-legged animal without feathers.
-
-“Though born with the most aspiring disposition and unbending love of
-freedom he was closely confined in a grated prison, and scarcely
-permitted to view those fields of which he had an undoubted charter.
-
-“Deeply sensible of this infringement of his natural rights, he was
-often heard to petition for redress in the most plaintive notes of
-harmonious sorrow. At length his imprisoned soul burst the prison which
-his body could not, and left a lifeless heap of beauteous feathers.
-
-“If suffering innocence can hope for retribution, deny not to the gentle
-shade of this unfortunate captive the humble though uncertain hope of
-animating some happier form; or trying his new-fledged pinions in some
-happy Elysium, beyond the reach of MAN, the tyrant of this lower world.”
-
-Few women are so fond of pets as Sarah Bernhardt. She carries five or
-six with her in all her travels. When in New York the French actress has
-apartments at the Hoffman House. When the writer last visited her there
-he was received, upon entering the sitting room, by half a dozen dogs,
-ranging in size and species from the massive St. Bernard to the tiny,
-shivering black and tan.
-
-The actress rose from a low divan and extended one hand to her guest
-while she pressed two very small snakes to her bosom with the other.
-After she had resumed her seat upon the divan, and while conversing, she
-fondled the snakes or allowed them to squirm at will over her person.
-
-In reply to questions, Madame Bernhardt said that the snakes were used
-in the famous scene where Cleopatra presses the asp to her bosom and
-dies. The actress explained that the snakes with which she was playing
-were presented to her by a gentleman in Philadelphia. She spoke
-regretfully of the death of the snakes which she had brought with her
-from France, and which had succumbed to the hardships of the ocean
-voyage.
-
-Emily Crawford tells some good stories about “The Elder Dumas,” the most
-dashingly picturesque character, surely, in the whole range of
-literature. We quote a paragraph showing Dumas’s fondness for animals:
-
-“At his architectural folly of Monte Cristo, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
-which he built at a cost of upward of seven hundred thousand francs, and
-sold for thirty-six thousand francs in 1848, Dumas had uninclosed
-grounds and gardens, which, with the house, afforded lodgings and
-entertainment not only to a host of Bohemian ‘sponges,’ but to all the
-dogs, cats, and donkeys that chose to quarter themselves in the place.
-It was called by the neighbours ‘_la Maison de Bon Dieu_.’ There was a
-menagerie in the park, peopled by three apes; Jugurtha, the vulture,
-whose transport from Africa, whence Dumas fetched him, cost forty
-thousand francs (it would be too long to tell why); a big parrot called
-Duval; a macaw named Papa, and another christened Everard; Lucullus, the
-golden pheasant; Cæsar, the game-cock; a pea-fowl and a guinea-fowl;
-Myeouf II, the Angora cat, and the Scotch pointer, Pritchard. This dog
-was a character. He was fond of canine society, and used to sit in the
-road looking out for other dogs to invite them to keep him company at
-Monte Cristo. He was taken by his master to Ham to visit Louis Napoleon
-when a prisoner there. The latter wished to keep Pritchard, but counted
-without the intelligence of the animal in asking Dumas before his face
-to leave him behind. The pointer set up a howl so piteous that the
-governor of the prison withdrew the authorization he had given his
-captive to retain him.”
-
-It is difficult to think of any created thing that has not been found
-sufficiently interesting to be petted by some one!
-
-Pliny tells us of a cow that followed a Pythagorean philosopher on all
-his travels. Proud Wolsey was on familiar terms with a venerable carp.
-St. Anthony had a fondness for pigs. Frank Buckland took to rats.
-Buffon’s toad has become historical. Clive owned a pet tortoise. Gautier
-wrote of his lizards, magpie, and chameleon. Butterflies and crickets
-have been domesticated and found responsive. Rosa Bonheur used to be
-always escorted by two great dogs, one on either side, while in her home
-a favourite monkey played upon her staircase, and amused visitors with
-its gambols and pranks. Cowper doffed his melancholy to play with hares,
-and immortalized his rather ungrateful pensioners in verse:
-
- Well—one at least is safe. One sheltered hare
- Has never heard the sanguinary yell
- Of cruel man, exulting in her woes,
- Innocent partner of my peaceful home,
- Whom ten long years’ experience of my care
- Has made at last familiar; she has lost
- Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,
- Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.
- Yes—thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand
- That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor
- At ev’ning, and at night retire secure
- To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed;
- For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged
- All that is human in me, to protect
- Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
- If I survive thee, I will dig thy grave;
- And, when I place thee in it, sighing say,
- I knew at least one hare that had a friend.
-
-James M. Hoppin, in his Old England, tells of his visit to Olney, where
-Cowper lived. He went to the rooms where he kept his hares, Puss, Bess,
-and Tiny; of the veteran survivor of this famous trio he says Cowper
-wrote:
-
- Though duly from my hand he took
- His pittance every night,
- He did it with a jealous look,
- And when he could, would bite.
-
-Dr. John Hall was seen trudging through Central Park last winter,
-followed by a troop of frisky little gay squirrels. He had been feeding
-nuts to them, and they scattered the snow in clouds as they scampered
-along hoping to get more.
-
-It would be interesting to quote from very many distinguished persons
-who believe in the immortality of the lower animals.
-
-Lord Shaftesbury says: “I have ever believed in a happy future for
-animals. I can not say or conjecture how or where, but sure I am that
-the love so manifested, by dogs especially, is an emanation from the
-Divine essence, and as such it can, or rather it will, never be
-extinguished.”
-
-Frances Power Cobbe wrote: “I entirely believe in a higher existence
-hereafter, both for myself and for those whose less happy lives on earth
-entitle them far more to expect it, from eternal love and justice.”
-
-Mr. Somerville said: “The dear animals I believe we shall meet. They
-suffer so often here they must live again! Pain seems a poor proof of
-immortality, but it is used by theologians, and we find many great souls
-who believe and hope that animals may also have another life. Agassiz
-believed in this firmly. Bishop Butler saw no reason why the latent
-powers and capacities of the lower animals should not be developed in
-the future, and in his Analogy of Religion he endeavoured to carry out
-this train of thought, and to show that the lower animals do possess
-those mental and moral characteristics which we admit in ourselves to
-belong to the immortal spirit and not to the perishable body.”
-
-The Rev. J. G. Wood has written a most interesting book on Man and
-Beast: Here and Hereafter, with the especial aim of proving the
-immortality of the brute creation, showing that they share with man the
-attributes of reason, language, memory, a sense of moral responsibility,
-unselfishness, and love, all of which belong to the spirit and not to
-the body.
-
-Bayard Taylor says, “If one should surmise a lower form of spiritual
-being yet equally indestructible, who need take alarm?” “Yea, they have
-all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for
-all is vanity,” said the Preacher, more than two thousand years ago. In
-Taylor’s poem to an old horse, Ben Equus, which died on the farm when he
-was a young man, he uses the same idea:
-
- For I may dream fidelity like thine,
- May save some essence in thee from decay,
- That, not neglected by the Soul Divine,
- Thy being rises on some unknown way.
-
- Some intermediate heaven, where fields are fresh,
- And golden stables littered deep with fern;
- Where fade the wrongs that horses knew in flesh,
- And all the joys that horses felt return.
-
-Mrs. Charles writes:
-
- Is all this lost in nothingness,
- Such gladness, love, and hope, and trust,
- Such busy thought our thoughts to guess,
- All trampled into common dust?
-
- Or is there something yet to come
- From all our science all concealed,
- About the patient creatures dumb
- A secret yet to be revealed?
-
-Writing of the death of a favourite spaniel, Southey expresses the same
-faith:
-
- ... Mine is no narrow creed,
- And he that gave thee being did not frame
- The mystery of life to be the sport
- Of merciless man. There is another world
- For all that live and move—a better one,
- Where the proud bipeds who would fain confine
- Infinite Goodness to the little bounds
- Of their own charity, may envy thee.
-
-Mrs. Mary Somerville wrote these words at the age of eighty-nine: “If
-animals have no future, the existence of many is most wretched.
-Multitudes are starved, cruelly beaten, and loaded during life; many die
-under a barbarous vivisection. I can not believe that any creature was
-created for uncompensated misery; it would be contrary to the attributes
-of God’s mercy and justice. I am sincerely happy to find that I am not
-the only believer in the immortality of the lower animals.” Lamartine
-has the same thought in an address to his dog, and many other wise men
-have hoped that such a future was a reality.
-
-The Rev. Henry Storrs says it is wisest to treat animals kindly,
-because, if we are ever to meet them again, it will be pleasanter to
-have them on our side.
-
-Henry Ward Beecher many times owned his love for horses, as in his one
-novel, Norwood:
-
-“I tell you,” said Hiram, turning slightly toward the doctor, “these
-horses are jest as near human as is good for ’em. A good horse has sense
-jest as much as a man has; and he’s proud, too, and he loves to be
-praised, and he knows when you treat him with respect. A good horse has
-the best p’ints of a man without his failin’s.”
-
-“What do you think becomes of horses, Hiram, when they die?” said Rose.
-
-“Wal, Miss Rose, it’s my opinion that there’s use for horses hereafter,
-and that you’ll find there’s a horse-heaven. There’s Scripture for that,
-too.”
-
-“Ah!” said Rose, a little surprised at these confident assertions. “What
-Scripture do you mean?”
-
-“Why, in the Book of Revelation! Don’t it give an account of a white
-horse, and a red horse, and black horses, and gray horses? I’ve allers
-s’posed that when it said Death rode on a pale horse, it must have been
-gray, ’cause it had mentioned white once already. In the ninth chapter,
-too, it says there was an army of two hundred thousand horsemen. Now, I
-should like to know where they got so many horses in heaven, if none of
-’em that die off here go there? It’s my opinion that a good horse’s a
-darned sight likelier to go to heaven than a bad man!”
-
-When we see the superiority of a noble horse to his brutal or drunken
-driver, it seems at least possible, and most of us have lost some pet
-that we would rather meet again than the majority of our acquaintances.
-
-Helen Barron Bostwick, after “burying her pretty brown mare under the
-cherry tree,” inquires:
-
- Is this the end?
- Do you know?
-
-and closes her poem as follows:
-
- Is there aught of harm believing,
- That, some newer form receiving,
- They may find a wider sphere,
- Live a larger life than here?
- That the meek, appealing eyes,
- Haunted by strange mysteries,
- Find a more extended field,
- To new destinies unsealed;
- Or, that in the ripened prime
- Of some far-off summer time,
- Ranging that unknown domain,
- We may find our pets again.
-
-Sir Edwin Arnold has translated much that is touching about those who
-are devoted to animals. A sinful woman led out to die by stoning was
-pardoned by the king, because of her pity, even at that terrible crisis,
-for a dying dog:
-
- Glaring upon the water out of reach,
- And praying succor in a silent speech,
- So piteous were its eyes which, when she saw,
- This woman from her foot her shoe did draw,
- Albeit death-sorrowful, and looping up
- The long silk of her girdle, made a cup
- Of the heel’s hollow, and thus let it sink
- Until it touched the cool, black water’s brink,
- So filled the embroidered shoe and gave a draught
- To the spent beast.
-
- This brute beast
- Testifies for thee, sister! whose weak breast
- Death could not make ungentle. I hold rule
- In Allah’s stead, who is the merciful,
- And hope for mercy; therefore go thou free—
- I dare not show less pity unto thee!
-
-We send missionaries to the East to teach those who in some respects are
-well fitted by their pure lives, exalted aims, and mercy toward the
-brute creation to instruct us. How exquisite the story of the man who
-would not enter heaven and leave his dog behind!
-
- But the king answered: “O thou Wisest One,
- Who knowest what was, and is, and is to be,
- Still one more grace: this hound hath ate with me,
- Followed me, loved me: must I leave him now?”
-
- “Monarch,” spake Indra, “thou art now as we—
- Deathless, divine—thou art become a god;
- Glory and power and gifts celestial,
- And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye.
- What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound.”
- Yet Yudhishthira answered: “O Most High,
- O thousand-eyed and wisest; can it be
- That one exalted should seem pitiless?
- Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake
- I would not leave one living thing I loved.”
-
- Then sternly Indra spake: “He is unclean,
- And into Swarga such shall enter not.
- The Krodhavasha’s hand destroys the fruits
- Of sacrifice, if dogs defile the fire.
- Bethink thee, Dharmaraj, quit now this beast;
- That which is seemly is not hard of heart.”
-
- Still he replied: “’Tis written that to spurn
- A suppliant equals in offence to slay
- A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga’s bliss
- Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog.
- So without any hope or friend save me,
- So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness,
- So agonized to die, unless I help
- Who among men was called steadfast and just.”
-
- Quoth Indra: “Nay, the altar flame is foul
- Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep
- The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits
- Of offering, and the merit of the prayer
- Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here;
- He that will enter heaven must enter pure.
- Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way,
- And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,
- Attaining firm and glorious, to this mount
- Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?
- Hath Yudhishthira vanquished self, to melt
- With one poor passion at the door of bliss?
- Stay’st thou for this, who didst not stay for them—
- Draupadi, Bhima?”
-
- But the king yet spake:
- “’Tis known that none can hurt or help the dead.
- They, the delightful ones, who sank and died,
- Following my footsteps, could not live again
- Though I had turned, therefore I did not turn;
- But could help profit, I had turned to help.
- There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins:
- The first is making suppliants despair,
- The second is to slay a nursing wife,
- The third is spoiling Brahmans’ goods by force,
- The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.
- These four I deem but equal to one sin,
- If one, in coming forth from woe to weal,
- Abandon any meanest comrade then.”
-
- Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled;
- Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there
- The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma’s self.
- Sweet were the words that fell from those dread lips,
- Precious the lovely praise: “O thou true king,
- Thou that dost bring to harvest the true seed
- Of Pandu’s righteousness; thou that hast ruth
- As he before, on all which lives! O son,
- I tried thee in the Dwaita wood, what time
- They smote thy brothers, bringing water; then
- Thou prayed’st for Nakula’s life, tender and just,
- Not Bhima’s nor Arjuna’s, true to both,
- To Madri as to Kunti, to both queens.
- Hear thou my word: Because thou didst not mount
- This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent
- Who looked to thee—lo! there is none in heaven
- Shall sit above thee, King Bharata’s son!
- Enter thou now to the eternal joys,
- Living and in thy form. Justice and love
- Welcome thee, monarch; thou shalt throne with them.”
-
-As a farmer and butter-maker I want to condense a dissertation on The
-Intellectual Cow, taken from the London Spectator:
-
-The writer resents the general impression that the cow is merely a food
-machine, and proves that she never yet has had justice done to her
-mental qualities, and is entitled to more respectful consideration.
-
-Cows certainly possess decided individuality, and in every herd will be
-found a master mind which leads and domineers over the rest or acts as
-ringleader in mischief. They soon learn their own names, and will answer
-to them, and seldom make mistakes as to their own stalls. They are also
-undoubtedly influenced by affection, and will give down milk more freely
-to a friend than to one who is brutal in his manner.
-
-Moreover, they enjoy petting just as much as humans, and will greet with
-delight those who bring offerings of potatoes or apple-parings or bits
-of bread, or who will give their heads and necks the luxury of a good
-rub.
-
-Charles Dudley Warner, in Being a Boy, pays a glowing tribute to the
-Martial Turkey:
-
-“Perhaps it is not generally known that we get the idea of some of our
-best military manœuvres from the turkey. The deploying of the skirmish
-line in advance of an army is one of them. The drum major of our holiday
-militia companies is copied exactly from the turkey gobbler: he has the
-same splendid appearance, the same proud step, and the same martial
-aspect. The gobbler does not lead his forces in the field, but goes
-behind them, like the colonel of a regiment, so that he can see every
-part of the line and direct its movements. This resemblance is one of
-the most singular things in natural history. I like to watch the gobbler
-manœuvring his forces in a grasshopper field. He throws out his company
-of two dozen turkeys in a crescent-shaped skirmish line, the number
-disposed at equal distances, while he walks majestically in the rear.
-They advance rapidly, picking right and left, with military precision,
-killing the foe and disposing of the dead bodies with the same peck.
-Nobody has yet discovered how many grasshoppers a turkey will hold; but
-he is very much like a boy at a Thanksgiving dinner—he keeps on eating
-as long as the supplies last. The gobbler, in one of these raids, does
-not condescend to grab a single grasshopper—at least, not while anybody
-is watching him. But I suppose he makes up for it when his dignity can
-not be injured by having spectators of his voracity; perhaps he falls
-upon the grasshoppers when they are driven into a corner of the field.
-But he is only fattening himself for destruction; like all greedy
-persons, he comes to a bad end. And if the turkeys had any Sunday
-school, they would be taught this.”
-
-Josh Billings, in his Animile Statistix, proved that he had been a close
-observer. He says in this comical medley:
-
-“Kats are affectionate, they luv young chickens, sweet kream, and the
-best place in front of the fireplace.
-
-“Dogs are faithful; they will stick to a bone after everybody haz
-deserted it.
-
-“The ox knoweth hiz master’s krib, and that iz all he duz kno or care
-about hiz master.
-
-“Munkeys are imitatiff, but if they kan’t imitate some deviltry they
-ain’t happy.
-
-“The goose is like all other phools—alwuss seems anxious to prove it.
-
-“Ducks are only cunning about one thing: they lay their eggs in sitch
-sly places that sumtimes they kan’t find them again themselfs.
-
-“The mushrat kan foresee a hard winter and provide for it, but he kan’t
-keep from gittin ketched in the sylliest kind ov a trap.
-
-“Hens know when it is a going to rain, and shelter themselfs, but they
-will try to hatch out a glass egg just az honest az they will one ov
-their own.
-
-“The cuckcoo iz the greatest ekonemist among the birds, she lays her
-eggs in other birds’ nests, and lets them hatch them out at their
-leizure.
-
-“Rats hav fewer friends and more enemies than anything ov the
-four-legged purswashun on the face ov the earth, and yet rats are az
-plenty now az in the palmyest days ov the Roman Empire.
-
-“The horse alwuss gits up from the ground on his fore legs first, the
-kow on her hind ones, and the dog turns round 3 times before he lies
-down.
-
-“The kangaroo he jumps when he walks, the coon paces when he trots, the
-lobster travels backwards az fast az he does forward.
-
-“The elephant has the least, and the rabbit the most eye for their size,
-and a rat’s tale is just the length ov hiz boddy.”
-
-The very latest item of interest to dog-lovers is the announcement that
-Bismarck has purchased a two-pound King Charles spaniel from the dog
-show in Boston.
-
-My collection is now as complete as the limitations of time and the
-publishers will allow. As proprietor, I beg leave to announce my
-Literary Zoo as now open at all hours (for a moderate fee) to those
-interested in what we call, with conceit and possibly ignorance, the
-inferior orders of creation, and the dumb brutes.
-
-
- THE END.
-
-
-
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- New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
- TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
-
- 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
- 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
- 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Literary Zoo, by Kate Sanborn
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Literary Zoo, by Kate Sanborn
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: My Literary Zoo
-
-Author: Kate Sanborn
-
-Release Date: April 8, 2020 [EBook #61790]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LITERARY ZOO ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Richard Tonsing, Sonya Schermann, and the
-Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-(This file was produced from images generously made
-available by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class='tnotes covernote'>
-
-<p class='c000'><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='section ph1'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>MY LITERARY ZOO</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='box'>
-
-<p class='c002'>KATE SANBORN’S BOOKS.</p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><b>Abandoning an Adopted Farm.</b>
-12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>“Every page is rich with its amusing and entertaining stories
-and references.”—<cite>Boston Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Can not fail to be of the utmost interest to any and all who
-have spent any time in the country and observed the ways of
-country people. Miss Sanborn is simply inimitable in her ability
-to catch the humorous in what is passing about her, and in setting
-it down so that others can enjoy it.”—<cite>Cleveland World.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><b>Adopting an Abandoned Farm.</b>
-16mo. Boards, 50 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>“‘Adopting an Abandoned Farm’ has as much laugh to the
-square inch as any book we have read this many a day.”—<cite>Boston
-Sunday Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Miss Kate Sanborn has made a name and place for herself
-beside the immortal Sam Slick, and has made Gooseville, Connecticut,
-as illustrious as Slickville in Onion County, of the same
-State.”—<cite>The Critic.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“If any one wants an hour’s entertainment for a warm sunny
-day on the piazza, or a cold wet day by a log fire, this is the
-book that will furnish it.”—<cite>New York Observer.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><b>A Truthful Woman in Southern
-California.</b> 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>“Miss Sanborn is certainly a very bright writer, and when a
-book bears her name it is safe to buy it and put it aside for delectation
-when a leisure hour comes along. This bit of a volume
-is enticing in every page, and the weather seemed not to be so
-intolerably hot while we were reading it.”—<cite>New York Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Her descriptions are inimitable, and their brilliancy is enhanced
-with quaint and witty observations and brief historical
-allusions.... Valuable information and richly entertaining descriptions
-are admirably blended in this book.”—<cite>Boston Home
-Journal.</cite></p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>New York: D. APPLETON &amp; CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='titlepage'>
-
-<div>
- <h1 class='c006'>My Literary Zoo</h1>
-</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/titlea.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>By</div>
- <div class='c007'><span class='large'>Kate Sanborn</span></div>
- <div class='c007'><span class='small'>Author of Adopting an Abandoned Farm, Abandoning an Adopted Farm, A Truthful Woman in Southern California, Etc.</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id002'>
-<img src='images/titleb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
- <div class='nf-center'>
- <div>New York</div>
- <div>D. Appleton and Company</div>
- <div>1896</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div><span class='sc'>Copyright, 1896,</span></div>
- <div><span class='sc'>By</span> D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c007' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
- <h2 class='c008'>CONTENTS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>
- <tr>
- <th class='c009'></th>
- <th class='c010'>PAGE</th>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Everybody’s pets</span></td>
- <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Devoted to dogs</span></td>
- <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cats</span></td>
- <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>All sorts</span></td>
- <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_105'>105</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class='section ph1'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>MY LITERARY ZOO.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
- <h2 class='c008'>EVERYBODY’S PETS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>The world’s not seen him yet,</div>
- <div class='line'>Who has not loved a pet.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c002'>Not the human pets of noted persons,
-such as Walter Scott’s Pet Marjorie,
-that winsome, precocious little
-witch, so loved by the “Wizard of the
-North,” or Bettina von Arnim, the
-eccentric, brilliant girl, whose rhapsodic
-idolatry was placidly encouraged
-by the great Goethe, but the
-dumb favourites of distinguished men
-and women.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>I must devote a few pages to the
-various tributes to insects, birds, and
-animals, written about with love, pity,
-or admiration, yet not as pets, as Burns’s
-address to the Mousie:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>I’m truly sorry man’s dominion</div>
- <div class='line'>Has broken Nature’s social union,</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>And justifies that ill opinion,</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Which makes thee startle</div>
- <div class='line'>At me, thy poor earth-born companion</div>
- <div class='line in4'>And fellow-mortal;</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>and another to an unspeakable insect
-that rhymes with mouse. We remember,
-too, his essay on Inhuman Man,
-as he saw a wounded hare limp by.
-The fly has often been honoured in
-prose or verse, but we all like best the
-benevolent speech of dear Uncle Toby
-in Tristram Shandy to the overgrown
-bluebottle, which had buzzed about
-his nose and tormented him cruelly
-during dinner, and which, after infinite
-attempts, he had caught at last.
-“I’ll not hurt thee,” said Uncle Toby;
-“I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head.
-Go,” said he, lifting up the window—“go,
-poor devil, get thee gone. Why
-should I hurt thee? This world surely
-is wide enough to hold both thee
-and me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Tristram adds, “The lesson then imprinted
-has never since been an hour
-out of mind, and I often think that I
-owe one half of my philanthropy to
-that one accidental impression.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The Greek grasshopper must have
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>been a wonderful creature, a sacred
-object, and spoken of as a charming
-songster. When Socrates and Phædrus
-came to the fountain shaded by
-the palm tree, where they had their
-famous discourse, Socrates spoke of
-“the choir of grasshoppers.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Another makes the insect say to a
-rustic who had captured him:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Me, the Nymphs’ wayside minstrel, whose sweet note</div>
- <div class='line'>O’er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Still another sings how a grasshopper
-took the place of a broken string
-on his lyre and “filled the cadence
-due.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>This Pindaric grasshopper seems
-quite unlike the ravaging locust of
-the West. Burroughs suggests that
-he should be brought to our country,
-as some one is trying to introduce the
-English lark.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Emerson devotes a poem to the
-burly dozing bumblebee, a genuine
-optimist:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Wiser far than human seer,</div>
- <div class='line'>Yellow-breeched philosopher;</div>
- <div class='line'>Seeing only what is fair,</div>
- <div class='line'>Sipping only what is sweet.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>A delightful volume could be compiled
-on the literature of bird life,
-from the cuckoo, the earliest songster
-honoured by the poets, to Matthew
-Arnold’s canary. Passing on to animals,
-the Lake poets were interested
-to a noticeable degree in these humble
-companions. In Peter Bell, a poem
-that proved Wordsworth’s theories
-about poetry to be untenable, the ass
-is the hero, a veritable preacher, as in
-the days of Balaam. And Coleridge,
-greatly to the amusement of his critics,
-addressed some lines To a Young
-Ass, its Mother being tethered near it:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>How askingly its footsteps hither tend!</div>
- <div class='line'>It seems to say, And have I then one friend?</div>
- <div class='line'>Innocent foal! thou poor despised forlorn!</div>
- <div class='line'>I hail thee brother, spite of the fool’s scorn!</div>
- <div class='line'>And fain would take thee with me, in the dell</div>
- <div class='line'>Of peace and mild equality to dwell.</div>
- <div class='line'>Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride,</div>
- <div class='line'>And Laughter tickle Plenty’s ribless side!</div>
- <div class='line'>How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,</div>
- <div class='line'>And frisk about as lamb or kitten gay!</div>
- <div class='line'>Yea! and more musically sweet to me</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,</div>
- <div class='line'>Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest</div>
- <div class='line'>The aching of pale fashion’s vacant breast.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>Wordsworth also wrote on The
-White Doe of Rylstone and The
-Pet Lamb.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Southey paid his respects to The
-Pig and a Dancing Bear:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Alas, poor Bruin! How he foots the pole,</div>
- <div class='line'>And waddles round it with unwieldy steps</div>
- <div class='line'>Swaying from side to side. The dancing master</div>
- <div class='line'>Hath had as profitless a pupil in him</div>
- <div class='line'>As when he tortured my poor toes</div>
- <div class='line'>To minuet grace, and made them move like clock-work</div>
- <div class='line'>In musical obedience.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>After sympathizing with his “piteous
-plight” he draws a moral for the advocates
-of the slave trade.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>He also addressed poems to The Bee
-and A Spider; the latter must be given
-entire, it is so strong and original in its
-comparisons:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Spider! thou needst not run in fear about</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To shun my curious eyes;</div>
- <div class='line'>I won’t humanely crush thy bowels out</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Lest thou should eat the flies;</div>
- <div class='line'>Nor will I roast thee with a damned delight,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see,</div>
- <div class='line'>For there is One who might</div>
- <div class='line in2'>One day roast me.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Of Satan, sire of lies;</div>
- <div class='line'>Hell’s huge black spider, for mankind he lays</div>
- <div class='line in2'>His toils, as thou for flies.</div>
- <div class='line'>When Betty’s busy eye runs round the room,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Woe to that nice geometry, if seen!</div>
- <div class='line'>But where is he whose broom</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The earth shall clean?</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Thou busy labourer! one resemblance more</div>
- <div class='line in2'>May yet the verse prolong,</div>
- <div class='line'>For, spider, thou art like the poet poor,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Whom thou hast helped in song.</div>
- <div class='line'>Both busily our needful food to win</div>
- <div class='line in2'>We work as Nature taught, with ceaseless pains,</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy bowels thou dost spin,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>I spin my brains.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>You remember that the pertinacity
-with which a spider renewed his exertions
-after failing six times to fix his
-net, roused Bruce to perseverance and
-success.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cackling geese saved Rome, and Caligula
-shod his favourite horse with gold
-and nominated him for vice consul, as
-he considered him vastly superior to
-the men who aspired to that honourable
-position. Virgil amused his leisure
-hours with a gnat. Homer made
-pets of frogs and mice.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>The horse has been dearly loved by
-many famous people who have not
-been ashamed to own it.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mr. Everett once told a pathetic anecdote
-of Edmund Burke, that “in the
-decline of his life, when living in retirement
-on his farm at Beaconsfield,
-the rumour went up to London that
-he had gone mad and went round his
-park kissing his cows and horses. His
-only son had died not long before,
-leaving a petted horse which had been
-turned into the park and treated as a
-privileged favourite. Mr. Burke in his
-morning walks would often stop to
-caress the favourite animal. On one
-occasion the horse recognised Mr.
-Burke from a distance, and coming
-nearer and nearer, eyed him with the
-most pleading look of recognition, and
-said as plainly as words could have
-said, ‘I have lost him too!’ and then
-the poor dumb beast deliberately laid
-his head upon Mr. Burke’s bosom.
-Overwhelmed by the tenderness of
-the animal, expressed in the mute eloquence
-of holy Nature’s universal language,
-the illustrious statesman for a
-moment lost his self-possession and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>clasping his arms around his son’s favourite
-animal, lifted up that voice
-which had caused the arches of Westminster
-Hall to echo the noblest strains
-that sounded within them, and wept
-aloud. Burke is gone; but, sir, so
-hold me Heaven, if I were called
-upon to designate the event or the
-period in Burke’s life that would best
-sustain a charge of insanity, it would
-not be when, in a gush of the holiest
-and purest feeling that ever stirred
-the human heart, he wept aloud on the
-neck of a dead son’s favourite horse.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Lord Erskine composed some lines
-to the memory of a beloved pony,
-Jack, who had carried him on the
-home circuit when he was first called
-to the bar, and could not afford any
-more sumptuous mode of travelling:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Poor Jack! thy master’s friend when he was poor,</div>
- <div class='line'>Whose heart was faithful and whose step was sure!</div>
- <div class='line'>Should prosperous life debauch my erring heart,</div>
- <div class='line'>And whispering pride repel the patriot’s part;</div>
- <div class='line'>Should my foot falter at ambition’s shrine</div>
- <div class='line'>And for mean lucre quit the path divine,</div>
- <div class='line'>Then may I think of thee—when I was poor—</div>
- <div class='line'>Whose heart was faithful and whose step was sure.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>The following address of an Arab
-to his horse is translated from the
-Arabic by Bayard Taylor:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Come, my beauty! come, my desert darling!</div>
- <div class='line in2'>On my shoulder lay thy glossy head.</div>
- <div class='line'>Fear not, though the barley sack be empty,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Here’s the half of Hassan’s scanty bread.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Bend thy forehead now to take my kisses,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye.</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Thou art proud he owns thee; so am I.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And the splendour of the pashas there;</div>
- <div class='line'>What’s their pomp and riches? Why, I would not</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Take them for a handful of thy hair!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And thou know’st my water skin is free.</div>
- <div class='line'>Drink, and welcome; for the springs are distant,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And my strength and safety are in thee.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Bayard Taylor loved and appreciated
-animals, and in an article in the
-Atlantic Monthly of February, 1877,
-on Studies of Animal Nature, he says:
-“If Darwin’s theory should be true,
-it will not degrade man; it will simply
-raise the whole animal world into
-dignity, leaving man as far in advance
-as he is at present.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>He adds: “I have always had a
-great respect for animals, and have
-endeavoured to treat them with the
-consideration which I think they deserve.
-They have quick perceptions,
-and know when to be confiding or
-reticent. I have learned no better
-way to gain their confidence than to
-ask myself, If I were such or such an
-animal, how should I wish to be treated
-by man? and to act upon that suggestion.
-Since the key to the separate
-languages has been lost on both sides,
-the higher intelligence must condescend
-to open some means of communication
-with the lower.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The zoölogists unfortunately rarely
-trouble themselves to do this; they
-are more interested in the skull of an
-elephant, the thigh-bone of a bird, or
-the dorsal fin of a fish, than in the intelligence
-or rudimentary moral sense
-of the creature. But the former field
-is open to all laymen, and nothing but
-a stubborn traditional contempt for
-our slaves or our hunted enemies in
-the animal world has held us back
-from a truer knowledge of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“In the first place, animals have much
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>more capacity to understand human
-speech than is generally supposed.
-Some years ago, seeing the hippopotamus
-in Barnum’s Museum looking
-very stolid and dejected, I spoke
-to him in English, but he did not even
-move his eyes. Then I went to the
-opposite corner of the cage and said
-in Arabic: ‘I know you; come here
-to me.’ He instantly turned his head
-toward me. I repeated the words,
-and thereupon he came to the corner
-where I was standing, pressed his
-huge, ungainly head against the bars
-of the cage, and looked in my face
-with a touching delight while I
-stroked his muzzle. I have two or
-three times found a lion who recognised
-the same language, and the expression
-of his eyes for an instant
-seemed positively human.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>He also tells his experience with a
-tame lioness in Africa. “In a short
-time we were very good friends. She
-knew me, and always seemed glad to
-see me, though I sometimes teased
-her a little by getting astride of her
-back, or sitting upon her when she
-was lying down. When she was in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>a playful mood she would come to
-meet me as far as the rope would
-let her, get her forepaws around my
-leg and then take it in her mouth, as
-if she were going to eat me up. I was
-a little alarmed when she did this for
-the first time; but I soon saw that she
-was merely in play, and had no thought
-of hurting me, so I took her by the
-ears and slapped her sides, until at last
-she lay down and licked my hand.
-Her tongue was as coarse as a nutmeg
-grater, and my hand felt as if the
-skin was being rasped off.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“There was also a leopard in the
-garden with which I used to play a
-great deal, but which I never loved
-so well as the lioness. He was smaller
-and more active, and soon learned to
-jump upon my shoulders when I
-stooped down, or to climb up the
-tree to which he was tied, whenever
-I commanded him. But he was not
-so affectionate as the lioness, and
-sometimes forgot to draw in his claws
-when he played, so that he not only
-tore my clothing, but scratched my
-hands. I still have the marks of one of
-his teeth on the back of my right hand.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>“My old lioness was never rough,
-and I have frequently, when she had
-stretched out to take a nap, sat upon
-her back for half an hour at a time,
-smoking my pipe or reading.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“I assure you I was very sorry to
-part with her, and when I saw her for
-the last time one moonlight night, I
-gave her a good hug and an affectionate
-kiss. She would have kissed me
-back if her mouth had not been too
-large; but she licked my hand to
-show that she loved me, then laid her
-big head upon the ground and went
-to sleep.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Dear old lioness! I wonder if
-you ever think of me. I wonder if
-you would know me, should we ever
-see each other again.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>If our late minister to Berlin, the
-accomplished poet, linguist, and cosmopolitan,
-could give his attention to
-animals as friends and companions,
-there can be nothing belittling in
-reading their praises as said or sung
-by those whom we all delight to
-honour.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Hamerton, indeed, makes a comparison
-in which we come out but
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>second best. He says: “How much
-weariness has there been in the human
-race during the last fifty years,
-because the human race can not stop
-politically where it was, and, finding
-no rest, is pushed to a strange future
-that the wisest look forward to gravely,
-as certainly very dark and probably
-very dangerous! Meanwhile,
-have the bees suffered any political
-uneasiness? have they doubted the
-use of royalty or begrudged the cost
-of their queen? Have those industrious
-republicans, the ants, gone about
-uneasily seeking after a sovereign?
-Has the eagle grown weary of his
-isolation and sought strength in the
-practice of socialism? Has the dog
-become too enlightened to endure
-any longer his position as man’s humble
-friend, and contemplated a canine
-union for mutual protection against
-masters? No; the great principles
-of these existences are superior to
-change, and that which man is perpetually
-seeking—a political order in
-perfect harmony with his condition—the
-brute has inherited with his instincts.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>Cowper, in The Task, devotes several
-pages to the proper treatment of
-animals, and expresses his admiration
-for their many noble qualities:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Distinguished much by reason, and still more</div>
- <div class='line'>By our capacity of grace divine,</div>
- <div class='line'>From creatures, that exist but for our sake,</div>
- <div class='line'>Which, having served us, perish, we are held</div>
- <div class='line'>Accountable; and God some future day,</div>
- <div class='line'>Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse</div>
- <div class='line'>Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust.</div>
- <div class='line'>Superior as we are, they yet depend</div>
- <div class='line'>Not more on human help than we on theirs.</div>
- <div class='line'>Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given</div>
- <div class='line'>In aid of our defects. In some are found</div>
- <div class='line'>Such teachable and apprehensive parts,</div>
- <div class='line'>That man’s attainments in his own concerns,</div>
- <div class='line'>Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs,</div>
- <div class='line'>Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.</div>
- <div class='line'>Some show that nice sagacity of smell,</div>
- <div class='line'>And read with such discernment, in the port</div>
- <div class='line'>And figure of the man, his secret aim,</div>
- <div class='line'>That oft we owe our safety to a skill</div>
- <div class='line'>We could not teach, and must despair to learn.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Bryant, in his well-known Lines to
-a Waterfowl, has a striking thought:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>... He who from zone to zone</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,</div>
- <div class='line'>In the long way that I must tread alone,</div>
- <div class='line in8'>Will lead my steps aright.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span></div>
-<div class='section ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>BOW-WOW-WOW!</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c014'>The dogge forsaketh not his master; no, not when
-he is starcke dead.—<span class='sc'>Dr. Caius.</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Dog with the pensive hazel eyes,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Shaggy coat, or feet of tan,</div>
- <div class='line'>What do you think when you look so wise</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Into the face of your fellow, man?</div>
- <div class='line in24'>—<span class='sc'>W. C. Olmsted.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>
- <h2 class='c008'>DEVOTED TO DOGS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c014'>We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our
-faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical
-canine attachment.—<span class='sc'>George Eliot.</span></p>
-
-<p class='c002'>Literature, history, and biography
-are full to overflowing of instances
-of affection between dogs and
-their owners. Remember the dog
-Argus, which died of joy on the return
-of his master Ulysses after twenty
-years’ absence. The story is touchingly
-told in Homer’s Odyssey:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“As he draws near the gates of his
-own palace, he espies, dying of old
-age, disease, and neglect, his dog Argus—the
-companion of many a long
-chase in happier days. His instinct
-at once detects his old master, even
-through the disguise lent by the goddess
-of wisdom. Before he sees him
-he knows his voice and step, and raises
-his ears—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>And when he marked Odysseus in the way,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And could no longer to his lord come near,</div>
- <div class='line'>Fawned with his tail and drooped in feeble play</div>
- <div class='line in2'>His ears. Odysseus, turning, wiped a tear.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>It is poor Argus’s last effort, and the
-old hound turns and dies—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Just having seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Egyptians held the dog in adoration
-as the representative of one of
-the celestial signs, and the Indians
-considered him one of the sacred
-forms of their deities. The dog is
-placed at the feet of women in monuments,
-to symbolize affection and fidelity;
-and many of the Crusaders are
-represented with their feet on a dog,
-to show that they followed the standard
-of the Lord as a dog follows the
-footsteps of his master. “Man,” said
-Burns, “is the god of the dog”—knows
-nothing higher to reverence
-and obey. Kings and queens have
-found their most faithful friends
-among dogs. Frederick the Great
-allowed his elegant furniture at Potsdam
-to be nearly ruined by his dogs,
-who jumped upon the satin chairs and
-slept cosily on the luxurious sofas, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>quite a cemetery may still be seen devoted
-to his pets. The pretty spaniel
-belonging to Mary Queen of Scots deserves
-honourable mention. He loved
-his ill-starred mistress when her human
-friends had forsaken her; nestled
-close by her side at the execution,
-and had to be forced away from her
-bleeding body. One of the prettiest
-pictures of the Princess of Wales is
-taken with a tiny spaniel in her arms.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Before going further, just recall
-some of the most famous dogs of
-mythology, literature, and life, simply
-giving their names for want of
-space:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Arthur’s dog Cavall.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Dog of Catherine de’ Medicis, Phœbê,
-a lapdog.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cuthullin’s dog Luath, a swift-footed
-hound.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Dora’s dog Jip.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Douglas’s dog Luffra, from The
-Lady of the Lake.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Fingal’s dog Bran.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Landseer’s dog Brutus, painted as
-The Invader of the Larder.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Llewellyn’s dog Gelert.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Lord Lurgan’s dog Master McGrath:
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>presented at court by the express
-desire of Queen Victoria.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Maria’s dog Silvio, in Sterne’s Sentimental
-Journey.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Punch’s dog Toby.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Sir Walter Scott’s dogs Maida,
-Camp, Hamlet.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Dog of the Seven Sleepers, Katmir.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The famous Mount St. Bernard dog,
-which saved forty human beings, was
-named Barry. His stuffed skin is preserved
-in the museum at Berne.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Sir Isaac Newton’s dog, who by
-overturning a candle destroyed much
-precious manuscript, was named Diamond.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The ancient Xantippus caused his
-dog to be interred on an eminence
-near the sea, which has ever since retained
-his name, Cynossema. There
-are even legends of nations that have
-had a dog for their king. It is said
-that barking is not a natural faculty,
-but is acquired through the dog’s desire
-to talk with man. In a state of
-nature, dogs simply whine and howl.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>When Alexander encountered Diogĕnês
-the cynic, the young Macedonian
-king introduced himself with the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>words, “I am Alexander, surnamed
-‘the Great.’” To which the philosopher
-replied, “And I am Diogĕnês,
-surnamed ‘the Dog.’” The Athenians
-raised to his memory a pillar of Parian
-marble, surmounted with a dog, and
-bearing the following inscription:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in2'>“Say, dog, what guard you in that tomb?”</div>
- <div class='line'>A dog. “His name?” Diogĕnês. “From far?”</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Sinopé. “He who made a tub his home?”</div>
- <div class='line'>The same; now dead, among the stars a star.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>What man or woman worth remembering
-but has loved at least one dog?
-Hamerton, in speaking of the one dog—the
- special pet and dear companion
-of every boy and many a girl, from
-Ulysses to Bismarck—observes that
-“the comparative shortness of the
-lives of dogs is the only imperfection
-in the relation between them and
-us. If they had lived to threescore
-and ten, man and dog might have travelled
-through life together; but as it
-is, we must have either a succession
-of affections, or else, when the first is
-buried in its early grave, live in a chill
-condition of dog-lessness.” I thank
-him for coining that compound word.
-Almost every one might, like Grace
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>Greenwood and Gautier, write a History
-of my Pets, and make a most
-readable book. Bismarck honoured
-one of his dogs, Nero, with a formal
-funeral. The body was borne on the
-shoulders of eight workmen dressed
-in black to a grave in the park. He
-had been poisoned, and a large reward
-was offered for the discovery of
-the assassin. The prince, statesman,
-diplomatist, does not believe in dog-lessness,
-and gives to another hound,
-equally devoted, the same intense affection.
-“My dog—where is my
-dog?” are his first words on alighting
-from a railway, as Sultan must
-travel second class. He even mixes
-the food for his dogs with his own
-hands, believing it will make them
-love him the more.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Another Nero was the special companion
-of Mrs. Carlyle, a little white
-dog, who had for his playmate a black
-cat, whose name was Columbine, and
-Carlyle says that during breakfast,
-whenever the dining-room door was
-opened, Nero and Columbine would
-come waltzing into the room in the
-height of joy. He went with his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>mistress everywhere, led by a chain
-for fear of thieves. For eleven years
-he cheered her life at Craigenputtock,
-“the loneliest nook in Britain.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Nero’s death was a tragical one. In
-October, 1859, while walking out with
-the maid one evening, a butcher’s cart
-driving furiously round a sharp corner
-ran over his throat. He was not killed
-on the spot, although his mistress says
-“he looked killed enough at first.” The
-poor fellow was put into a warm bath,
-wrapped up in flannels, and left to die.
-The morning found him better, however;
-he was able to wag his tail
-in response to the caresses of his mistress.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Little by little he recovered the use
-of himself, but it was ten days before
-he could bark.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>He lived four months after this,
-docile, affectionate, loyal up to his
-last hour, but weak and full of pain.
-The doctor was obliged at last to give
-him prussic acid. They buried him at
-the top of the garden in Cheyne Row,
-and planted cowslips round his grave,
-and his loving mistress placed a stone
-tablet, with name and date, to mark
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>the last resting place of her blessed
-dog.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“I could not have believed,” writes
-Carlyle in the Memorials, “my grief
-then and since would have been the
-twentieth part of what it was—nay,
-that the want of him would have been
-to me other than a riddance. Our last
-midnight walk together—for he insisted
-on trying to come—January 31st, is
-still painful to my thought. Little dim
-white speck of life, of love, fidelity, and
-feeling, girdled by the darkness of night
-eternal.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Is not that a delightful revelation of
-tenderness in the heart of the grand old
-growler, biographer, critic, historian,
-essayist, prophet, whom most people
-feared? I like to read it again and again.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The selfish, cynical Horace Walpole
-sat up night after night with his dying
-Rosette. He wrote: “Poor Rosette
-has suffered exquisitely; you may believe
-I have too,” and honoured her
-with this epitaph:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Sweetest roses of the year</div>
- <div class='line'>Strew around my Rose’s bier.</div>
- <div class='line'>Calmly may the dust repose</div>
- <div class='line'>Of my pretty, faithful Rose;</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>And if yon cloud-topped hill behind</div>
- <div class='line'>This frame dissolved, this breath resigned,</div>
- <div class='line'>Some happier isle, some humbler heaven,</div>
- <div class='line'>Be to my trembling wishes given,</div>
- <div class='line'>Admitted to that equal sky</div>
- <div class='line'>May sweet Rose bear me company.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>And of the dog Touton, left him by
-Madame du Deffand, he said: “It is
-incredible how fond I am of it; but I
-have no occasion to brag of my <em>dogmanity</em>”
-(another expressive word). He
-said, “A dog, though a flatterer, is still
-a friend.” Byron, that egotistic, misanthropic
-genius, composed an epitaph
-on Boatswain, his favourite dog, whose
-death threw the moody poet into deepest
-melancholy. The dog’s grave is to
-the present day shown among the conspicuous
-objects at Newstead. The
-poet, in one of his impulsive moments,
-gave orders in a provision of his will—ultimately
-however, cancelled—that
-his own body should be buried by the
-side of Boatswain, as his truest and
-only friend. This noble animal was
-seized with madness, and so little was
-his lordship aware of the fact, that at
-the beginning of the attack he more
-than once, during the paroxysms,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>wiped away the dreaded saliva from
-his mouth. After his death Lord Byron
-wrote to his friend Mr. Hodges:
-“Boatswain is dead. He died in a
-state of madness on the 18th, after suffering
-much, yet retaining all the gentleness
-of his nature to the last, never
-attempting to do the least injury to
-any one near him. I have now lost
-everything excepting old Murray.”
-Visitors to his old estate will find a
-marked monument with this tribute:</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c015'>
- <div>NEAR THIS SPOT</div>
- <div>ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF</div>
- <div>ONE THAT POSSESSED BEAUTY, WITHOUT VANITY,</div>
- <div>STRENGTH, WITHOUT INSOLENCE,</div>
- <div>COURAGE, WITHOUT FEROCITY,</div>
- <div>AND ALL THE VIRTUES OF MAN, WITHOUT HIS VICES.</div>
- <div>THIS PRAISE, WHICH WOULD BE</div>
- <div>UNMEANING FLATTERY</div>
- <div>IF INSCRIBED OVER HUMAN ASHES,</div>
- <div>IS BUT A JUST TRIBUTE</div>
- <div>TO THE MEMORY OF BOATSWAIN, A DOG,</div>
- <div>WHO WAS BORN IN NEWFOUNDLAND, MAY, 1803,</div>
- <div>AND DIED</div>
- <div>AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY, NOVEMBER 18, 1808.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><em>Epitaph.</em></h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>When some proud son of man returns to earth</div>
- <div class='line'>Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,</div>
- <div class='line'>The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,</div>
- <div class='line'>And storied urns record who rests below;</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>When all is done, upon the tomb is seen</div>
- <div class='line'>Not what he was, but what he should have been.</div>
- <div class='line'>But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,</div>
- <div class='line'>The first to welcome, the foremost to defend.</div>
- <div class='line'>Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,</div>
- <div class='line'>Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,</div>
- <div class='line'>Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,</div>
- <div class='line'>Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth;</div>
- <div class='line'>While man, vain insect, hopes to be forgiven,</div>
- <div class='line'>And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.</div>
- <div class='line'>O man, thou feeble tenant of an hour,</div>
- <div class='line'>Debased by slavery or corrupt by power,</div>
- <div class='line'>Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,</div>
- <div class='line'>Degraded mass of animated dust.</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit.</div>
- <div class='line'>By Nature vile, ennobled but by name,</div>
- <div class='line'>Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.</div>
- <div class='line'>Ye who perchance behold this simple urn</div>
- <div class='line'>Pass on, it honours none you wish to mourn;</div>
- <div class='line'>To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise:</div>
- <div class='line'>I never knew but one, and here he lies.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Walter Scott’s dogs had an extraordinary
-fondness for him. Swanston
-declares that he had to stand by, when
-they were leaping and fawning about
-him, to beat them off lest they should
-knock him down. One day, when he
-and Swanston were in the armory,
-Maida (the dog which now lies at
-his feet in the monument at Edinburgh),
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>being outside, had peeped in
-through the window, a beautifully
-painted one, and the instant she got
-a glance of her beloved master she
-bolted right through it and at him.
-Lady Scott, starting at the crash, exclaimed,
-“O gracious, shoot her!”
-But Scott, caressing her with the utmost
-coolness, said, “No, no, mamma,
-though she were to break every window
-at Abbotsford.” He was engaged
-for an important dinner party
-on the day his dog Camp died, but
-sent word that he could not go, “on
-account of the death of a dear old
-friend.” He tried early one morning
-to make the fire of peat burn,
-and after many efforts succeeded in
-some degree. At this moment one of
-the dogs, dripping from a plunge in
-the lake, scratched and whined at the
-window. Sir Walter let the “puir
-creature” in, who, coming up before
-the little fire, shook his shaggy hide,
-sending a perfect shower bath over
-the fire and over a great table of loose
-manuscripts. The tender-hearted author,
-eying the scene with his usual
-serenity, said slowly, “O dear, ye’ve
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>done a great deal of mischief!” This
-equanimity is only equalled by Sir
-Isaac Newton’s exclamation, now,
-alas! pronounced a fiction, “O Diamond,
-Diamond, little dost thou know
-the injury thou hast done!”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The wisest dog I ever had,” said
-Scott, “was what is called the bulldog
-terrier. I taught him to understand
-a great many words, insomuch
-that I am positive that the communication
-betwixt the canine species
-and ourselves might be greatly enlarged.
-Camp once bit the baker who
-was bringing bread to the family. I
-beat him and explained the enormity
-of the offence, after which, to the last
-moment of his life, he never heard the
-least allusion to the story, in whatever
-voice or tone it was mentioned, without
-getting up and retiring to the
-darkest corner of the room with great
-appearance of distress. Then if you
-said, ‘The baker was well paid,’ or ‘The
-baker was not hurt, after all,’ Camp
-came forth from his hiding place, capered
-and barked and rejoiced. When
-he was unable, toward the end of his
-life, to attend me when on horseback,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>he used to watch for my return, and
-the servant would tell him ‘his master
-was coming down the hill’ or
-‘through the moor,’ and, although he
-did not use any gesture to explain his
-meaning, Camp was never known to
-mistake him, but either went out at
-the front to go up the hill or at the
-back to get down to the moorside.
-He certainly had a singular knowledge
-of spoken language.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Once when the great novelist was
-sitting for his picture he exclaimed,
-“I am as tired of the operation as old
-Maida, who has been so often sketched
-that he got up and walked off with
-signs of loathing whenever he saw an
-artist unfurl his paper and handle his
-brushes!”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>It is well known that a dog instantly
-discerns a friend from an enemy; in
-fact, he seems to know all those who
-are friendly to his race. There are
-few things more touching in the life
-of this great man than the fact that,
-when he walked in the streets of
-Edinburgh, nearly every dog he met
-came and fawned on him, wagged
-his tail at him, and thus showed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>his recognition of the friend of his
-race.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><em>Àpropos</em> of understanding what is
-said to them, Bayard Taylor says,
-“I know of nothing more moving,
-indeed semi-tragic, than the yearning
-helplessness in the face of a dog who
-understands what is said to him and
-can not answer.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Walter Savage Landor, irascible,
-conceited, tempestuous, had a deep
-affection for dogs, as well as all other
-dumb creatures, that was interesting.
-“Of all the Louis Quatorze rhymesters
-I tolerate La Fontaine only, for
-I never see an animal, unless it be a
-parrot, a monkey, or a pug dog, or a
-serpent, that I do not converse with
-it either openly or secretly.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The story of the noble martyr Gellert,
-who risked his own life for his
-master’s child, only to be suspected
-and slain by the hand he loved so
-well, is perhaps too familiar to be repeated,
-and yet I can not resist Spenser’s
-version:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The huntsman missed his faithful
-hound; he did not respond to horn or
-cry. But at last as Llewelyn “homeward
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>hied” the dog bounded to greet
-him, smeared with gore. On entering
-the house he found his child’s couch
-also stained with blood, and the infant
-nowhere to be seen. Believing Gellert
-had devoured the boy, he plunged
-his sword in his side, but soon discovered
-the cherub alive and rosy, while
-beneath the couch, gaunt and tremendous,
-a wolf torn and killed:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Ah, what was then Llewelyn’s woe!</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Best of thy kind, adieu.</div>
- <div class='line'>The frantic blow which laid thee low</div>
- <div class='line in2'>This heart shall ever rue.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>And now a gallant tomb they raise,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>With costly sculpture decked;</div>
- <div class='line'>And marbles storied with his praise</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Poor Gellert’s bones protect.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>There never could the spearman pass</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Or forester unmoved;</div>
- <div class='line'>There oft the tear-besprinkled grass</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Llewelyn’s sorrow proved.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>And there he hung his horn and spear,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And there, as evening fell,</div>
- <div class='line'>In fancy’s ear he oft would hear</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Poor Gellert’s dying yell.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>And till great Snowdon’s rocks grow old,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And cease the storm to brave,</div>
- <div class='line'>The consecrated spot shall hold</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The name of “Gellert’s Grave.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Dr. John Brown’s exquisite prose
-poem of Rab and his Friends is as
-lasting a memorial to that dog as any
-built of granite or marble. The dog
-is emphatically the central figure, the
-hero of the story. The author sat for
-his picture with Rab by his side, and
-we are told that his interest in a half-blind
-and aged pet was evinced in the
-very last hours of his life. The dog
-has figured as the real attraction in
-several novels, and Ouida lets Puck
-tell his own story. Mrs. Stowe devoted
-one volume to Stories about our
-Dogs, and wrote also A Dog’s Mission.
-Matthew Arnold had many pets,
-and not only loved them in life, but
-has given them immortality by his appreciative
-tributes to dogs, and cat and
-canary. Here are two dog requiems:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Geist’s Grave.</span></h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Four years, and didst thou stay above</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The ground, which hides thee now, but four?</div>
- <div class='line'>And all that life, and all that love,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Were crowded Geist, into no more.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>That loving heart, that patient soul,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Had they indeed no longer span</div>
- <div class='line'>To run their course and reach their goal,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And read their homily to man?</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>
- <h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Kaiser Dead.</span> April 6, 1887.</h3>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Kai’s bracelet tail, Kai’s busy feet,</div>
- <div class='line'>Were known to all the village street.</div>
- <div class='line'>“What, poor Kai dead?” say all I meet;</div>
- <div class='line in6'>“A loss indeed.”</div>
- <div class='line'>Oh for the croon, pathetic, sweet,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Of Robin’s reed!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Six years ago I brought him down,</div>
- <div class='line'>A baby dog, from London town;</div>
- <div class='line'>Round his small throat of black and brown</div>
- <div class='line in6'>A ribbon blue,</div>
- <div class='line'>And touched by glorious renown</div>
- <div class='line in6'>A dachshund true.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>His mother most majestic dame,</div>
- <div class='line'>Of blood unmixed, from Potsdam came,</div>
- <div class='line'>And Kaiser’s race we deemed the same—</div>
- <div class='line in6'>No lineage higher.</div>
- <div class='line'>And so he bore the imperial name;</div>
- <div class='line in6'>But ah, his sire!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Soon, soon the day’s conviction bring:</div>
- <div class='line'>The collie hair, the collie swing,</div>
- <div class='line'>The tail’s indomitable ring,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>The eye’s unrest—</div>
- <div class='line'>The case was clear; a mongrel thing</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Kai stood confest.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But all those virtues which commend</div>
- <div class='line'>The humbler sort who serve and tend,</div>
- <div class='line'>Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.</div>
- <div class='line in6'>What sense, what cheer,</div>
- <div class='line'>To us declining tow’rd our end,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>A mate how dear!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou hadst thine errands off and on;</div>
- <div class='line'>In joy thy last morn flew; anon</div>
- <div class='line in10'>A fit. All’s over;</div>
- <div class='line'>And thou art gone where Geist hath gone,</div>
- <div class='line in10'>And Toss and Rover.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Well, fetch his graven collar fine,</div>
- <div class='line'>And rub the steel and make it shine,</div>
- <div class='line'>And leave it round thy neck to twine,</div>
- <div class='line in10'>Kai, in thy grave.</div>
- <div class='line'>There of thy master keep that sign</div>
- <div class='line in10'>And this plain stave.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Miss Cobbe is a devoted, outspoken
-friend of all animals. She says: “I
-have, indeed, always felt much affection
-for dogs—that is to say, for those
-who exhibit the true dog character,
-which is far from being the case with
-every canine creature. Their sageness,
-their joyousness, their transparent
-little wiles, their caressing and devoted
-affection, are to me more winning—even,
-I may say, more really
-and intensely <em>human</em> (in the sense in
-which a child is human)—than the
-artificial, cold, and selfish characters
-one meets too often in the guise of
-ladies and gentlemen.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>She had a fluffy white dog she was
-extremely fond of, and has written several
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>chapters on dogs, kindness to animals,
-the horrors of vivisection, etc.
-Read False Hearts and True, The
-Confessions of a Lost Dog, and Science
-in Excelsis, and you will realize
-how she appreciates the rights and the
-noble traits of the brute creation, and
-how her own great heart has gone out
-to her pets. She closes one article,
-Dogs whom I have Met, with these
-words: “One thing I think must be
-clear: until a man has learned to feel
-for all his sentient fellow-creatures,
-whether in human or in brute form,
-of his own class and sex and country,
-or of another, he has not yet ascended
-the first step toward true civilization,
-nor applied the first lesson from the
-love of God.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Edward Jesse, in his book, now rare
-and hard to obtain, on dogs, says,
-“Histories are more full of samples
-of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
-A French writer declares that, excepting
-women, there is nothing on earth
-so agreeable or so necessary to the
-comfort of man as the dog. Think of
-the shepherd, his flock collected by
-his indefatigable dog, who guards
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>both them and his master’s cottage
-at night; satisfied with a slight caress
-and coarsest food. The dog performs
-the service of a horse in more northern
-regions, while in Cuba and other
-hot countries is the terror of the runaway
-negroes. In destruction of wild
-beasts or the less dangerous stag, or
-in attacking the bull, the dog has
-shown permanent courage. He defends
-his master, saves from drowning,
-warns of danger, serves faithfully
-in poverty and distress, leads the blind.
-When spoken to, does his best to hold
-conversation by tail, eyes, ears; drives
-cattle to and from pasture, keeps herds
-and flocks within bounds, points out
-game, brings shot birds, turns a spit,
-draws provision carts and sledges,
-likes or abhors music, detecting false
-notes instantly; announces strangers,
-sounds a note of warning in danger,
-is the last to forsake the grave of a
-friend, sympathizes and rejoices with
-every mood of his master. The collie
-is the only dog who has a reputation
-for piety, his liking to go to kirk
-and his proper behaviour there being
-well known. Whenever Stanislaus, the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>unfortunate King of Poland, wrote to
-his daughter, he always concluded
-with “Tristram, my companion in
-misfortune, licks your feet.” That
-one friend stuck by in his adversity.
-We see inherited tendencies in dogs
-as in children—what Paley calls “a
-propensity previous to experience and
-independent of instruction”—as Saint
-Bernard puppies scratching eagerly
-at snow, and young pointers standing
-steadily on first seeing poultry; a
-well-bred terrier pup will show ferocity.
-The anecdotes of achievements
-of pet dogs are marvellous.
-Leibnitz related to the French Academy
-an account of a dog he had seen
-which was taught to speak, and would
-call intelligibly for tea, coffee, chocolate,
-and made collections of white,
-shining stones.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>We read of dogs who know when
-Sunday comes; who watch for the
-butcher’s cart only at his stated time
-for appearance; who will beg for a
-penny to buy a pie or bun, and then
-go to the baker’s and purchase; who
-exercise forethought and providence,
-burying bones for future need. Some
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>seem to have some moral sense,
-ashamed of stealing, sometimes making
-retribution, scolding puppies for
-stealing meat; others are as depraved
-as human beings, slipping their collars
-and undoing the collar of another dog
-to go marauding, then returning, put
-their heads back into the collar.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c017'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
-<p class='c004'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Darwin said, “Since publishing The Descent of
-Man I have got to believe rather more than I did in
-dogs having what may be called a <em>conscience</em>.”</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Landseer’s dogs used to pose for
-him with more patience than many
-other sitters. Some one said of him
-that he had “discovered the dog.”
-He was so devoted to them that when
-the wittiest of divines and divinest of
-wits (of course I mean Sydney Smith)
-was asked to sit to him, he replied,
-“‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should
-do this thing?’” The artist spoke of
-a Newfoundland who had saved many
-from drowning as “a distinguished
-member of the Humane Society.”
-Hamerton, in his charming Chapters
-on Animals, tells us stories, almost too
-wonderful for belief, of some French
-poodles who came to visit him. These
-canine guests played dominoes, sulked
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>when they had to draw from the bank,
-retired mortified when beaten; also
-played cards, were skilful spellers in
-several languages, and quick in arithmetic.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Each breed has its own defenders
-and adherents. Olive Thorne Miller
-usually writes of birds or odd pets;
-but in Home Pets we find a most interesting
-tale of a collie, which she
-gives, to illustrate the characteristics
-of that family:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Nearly one hundred and fifty years
-ago, in the early days of our nation
-and during the French and Indian
-War, this collie was a great pet in
-the family of a colonial soldier, and
-was particularly noted for his antipathy
-to Indians, whom he delighted to
-track. On one campaign against the
-French the dog insisted on accompanying
-his master, although his feet
-were in a terrible condition, having
-been frozen. During the fight, which
-ended in the famous Braddock’s defeat,
-the collie was beside his master,
-but when it was over they had become
-separated, and the soldier, concluding
-that his pet had been killed,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>went home without him. Some weeks
-after, however, the dog appeared in
-his old home, separated from the battlefield
-by many miles and thick forests.
-He was tired and worn, but
-over his feet were fastened neat moccasins,
-showing that he had been
-among Indians, who had been kind
-to him. Moreover, he soon showed
-that he had changed his mind about
-his former foe, for neither bribes nor
-threats could ever induce him to track
-an Indian. His generous nature could
-not forget a kindness, even to please
-those he loved enough to seek under
-so great difficulties.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>This reminds me of several dog
-stories.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The following interesting letter is
-published in the London Spectator:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Being accustomed to walk out before
-breakfast with two Skye terriers,
-it was my custom to wash their feet
-in a tub, kept for the purpose in the
-garden, whenever the weather was
-wet. One morning, when I took up
-the dog to carry him to the tub he bit
-me so severely that I was obliged to
-let him go. No sooner was the dog
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>at liberty than he ran down to the
-kitchen and hid himself. For three
-days he refused food, declined to go
-out with any of the family, and appeared
-very dejected, with a distressed
-and unusual expression of
-countenance.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“On the third morning, however,
-upon returning with the other dog, I
-found him sitting by the tub, and
-upon coming toward him he immediately
-jumped into it and sat down in
-the water. After pretending to wash
-his legs, he jumped out as happy as
-possible, and from that moment recovered
-his usual spirits.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“There appears in this instance to
-have been a clear process of reasoning,
-accompanied by acute feeling,
-going on in the dog’s mind from the
-moment he bit me until he hit upon
-a plan of showing his regret and
-making reparation for his fault. It
-evidently occurred to him that I
-attached great importance to this
-footbath, and if he could convince
-me that his contrition was sincere,
-and that he was willing to submit to
-the process without a murmur, I
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>should be satisfied. The dog, in this
-case, reasoned with perfect accuracy,
-and from his own premises deduced a
-legitimate conclusion which the result
-justified.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>I like to read of the dog who waited
-on the town clerk of Amesbury for
-his license. “The possessor of the dog
-in question is red-headed George
-Morrill, and red-headed George Morrills
-never (hardly ever) lie, and from
-him we learn the following facts: It
-appears that Mr. Morrill, who was
-busy at the time, and desired to have
-his pet properly licensed, wrote on
-a slip of paper as follows: ‘Mr. Collins,
-please give me my license.
-Charlie.’ Inclosing this, with two
-dollars, in an envelope, he gave it
-to the dog, telling him to go to Mr.
-Collins and get his license. On arriving
-at the town clerk’s office he
-found Mr. Collins busy, and being a
-well-bred dog waited until the gentleman
-was at liberty, when he made his
-presence known. Mr. Collins, observing
-the envelope in his mouth, took it,
-and immediately the dog assumed a
-sitting posture, remaining thus until
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>the officer made out the proper
-license, and, inclosing this in an envelope,
-handed it to his dogship, who
-instantly raised himself to his full
-length, making a bow with his head,
-and, coming down to his natural position,
-wagged his tail satisfactorily
-and departed for home. The dog is
-well known on the street for his sagacity
-and intelligence, but this has
-rather capped any of his previous
-performances.”</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>One of the best stories about the intelligence
-of dogs which has been told
-for some time was repeated a few days
-ago by an officer of the Pennsylvania
-Railroad Company. He said that one
-of the men in the passenger department
-had a dog that could tell the
-time of day. The owner of the dog
-had a fine clock in his office, and he
-got into the habit of making the dog
-tap with his paw at each stroke of the
-clock. After a while the dog did so
-without being told, and as the clock
-gave a little cluck just before striking,
-the dog would get into position, prick
-up his ears, and tap out the time. If
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>the clock had struck one and a little
-while afterward his owner imitated
-the preliminary cluck of the clock,
-the dog would give two taps with his
-paw, and so on for any hour. He
-knew just how the hours ran and how
-many taps to give for each one.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>We must of course believe a clergyman’s
-story of a dog, the Rev. C. J.
-Adams, in The Dog Fancier:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Not ‘Tige,’ concerning whom I
-have told a number of stories in this
-department. Tiger is another dog,
-and a fine fellow he is. His hair is
-short, and he is as black as night. I
-have met him but once, and that was
-at a clericus at the house of his master—the
-Rev. Peter Claude Creveling,
-at Cornwall, N. Y. He is probably
-four feet and a half long as to his
-body. He stands nearly as high as
-an ordinary table. He has a fine
-head—wonderfully large brain chambers.
-His eyes are extremely intelligent
-and expressive. His master
-loves him with a great, boisterous
-love characteristic of the man—who
-will be a great, attractive, lovable
-boy when he is eighty. I greet him,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>and hope that he may abide in the
-flesh till he is one hundred and
-eighty. But I took up my pen to
-write about the dog—not the master.
-The dog and the master are well
-mated. Tiger is the dog for the master,
-and Mr. Creveling is the master
-for the dog. We hardly ever meet
-but before we are through shaking
-hands Mr. Creveling begins telling
-me something about Tiger. This occurred,
-as usual, at a hotel where I
-was entertaining the clergy a month
-or so ago. The story was wonderful,
-and is vouched for by reliable witnesses.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Tiger occupies the same room with
-Mr. and Mrs. Creveling at night. A
-sheet is spread for him on the floor
-beside the bed. They think as much
-of him as they would of a child.
-When he is restless during the night,
-Mr. Creveling will put his hand out
-and pat his head, speaking to him
-soothingly. During the day the sheet
-on which Tiger sleeps ‘o’ nights’ is
-kept under a washstand. This much,
-that what follows may be understood.
-Now, on a certain Sunday Mr. and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>Mrs. Creveling, the young lady, and
-all other members of the household
-were away—excepting Tiger. He
-was left locked in the house. When
-they returned, and Mrs. Creveling
-went to her room, she found that
-Tiger had spent a good portion of
-the time of his incarceration in that
-room and on the bed. The bed was
-in a very tumbled and not very clean
-condition—the condition in which the
-occupancy of such a dog would naturally
-leave it—a condition which any
-careful housewife can easily imagine—and
-which she can not imagine
-without a shudder. Mrs. Creveling
-cried out. Mr. Creveling came running.
-After him came Tiger. Mr.
-Creveling said: ‘Tiger, Tiger, see
-what you have done! You have
-ruined your missie’s bed. Tiger,
-Tiger, I feel like crying!’ Tiger’s
-head and tail both dropped. Without
-saying another word, Mr. Creveling
-went down stairs and into his
-study, threw himself on a large sofa,
-and covered his face and pretended
-to cry. Tiger, who had followed
-him, threw himself down on a rug
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>beside the sofa and cried too. Mr.
-Creveling had faith in the dog’s intelligence.
-He believed that he had
-learned a lesson.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Within a few days the family were
-all away again. Again Tiger was left
-in the house alone. When the family
-returned, Mrs. Creveling again went
-to her room. Tiger had been there
-again in her absence. He had again
-been on the bed. But Tiger’s sheet—the
-one upon which he slept at night
-was there too. And the sheet was
-spread out, covering the bed. And
-there had been no one to spread out
-the sheet for Tiger. He had spread
-it out for himself. Is not here a display
-of intelligence—of intelligence in
-activity in employment—of reason?
-What had Tiger done? He had put
-his nose under the washstand and
-pulled the sheet out. He had put
-the sheet on the bed. He had spread
-the sheet out over the bed. What had
-been Tiger’s train of thought? This,
-or something very much like it: ‘I
-want to lie on that bed because it reminds
-me of my absent master and
-mistress. But I don’t dare to do so.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>I will give offence if I do so. I will
-be punished. Why am I not wanted
-to lie on the bed? Because I soil it.
-What shall I do? There is the sheet—my
-sheet. They don’t care if I lie
-on that. I will spread the sheet over
-the bed. What a great head I have!’
-The reader understands, of course,
-that I am not claiming that Tiger has
-sufficient command of the English language
-to even subjectively express
-himself as I have represented him. I
-have only tried to bring as strongly as
-possible to the reader’s mind the fact
-that a train of thought must have
-passed through the dog’s mind. And
-a train of thought could not pass
-through his mind if he hadn’t a mind.
-Having a mind, then what? He thinks.
-He reasons. What else? If my mind
-is immortal why not Tiger’s? And remember
-that I can prove the truth of
-every detail of this story by three
-witnesses—Mr. Creveling, his wife,
-and his wife’s friend. No court
-would ask more.”</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>Jules Janin’s dog made him a literary
-man. His favourite walk was
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>in Luxembourg Garden, where he
-was delighted to see his dog gambol.
-The dog made another dog’s acquaintance,
-and they became so attached
-to each other that their masters
-were brought together and became
-friends. The new friend urged him
-to better his fortunes by writing for
-the newspapers, and introduced him
-to La Lorgnette, from which time he
-constantly rose. In 1828 he was appointed
-dramatic critic of the Journal
-des États, and his popularity there
-lasted undiminished for twenty years.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>London has a home for lost and
-starving dogs, for the benefit of which
-a concert was recently given. Had
-Richard Wagner been alive, he would
-have doubtless bought a box for this
-occasion. One of the greatest sorrows
-of his life was the temporary
-loss of his Newfoundland dog in London.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Here is a quaint story which shows
-the gentle Elia in a most characteristic
-way: “Just before the Lambs quitted
-the metropolis,” says Pitman, “they
-came to spend a day with me at Fulham
-and brought with them a companion,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>who, dumb animal though he
-was, had for some time past been in
-the habit of giving play to one of
-Charles Lamb’s most amiable characteristics—that
-of sacrificing his own
-feelings and inclinations to those of
-others. This was a large and very
-handsome dog, of a rather curious
-and sagacious breed, which had belonged
-to Thomas Hood, and at the
-time I speak of, and to oblige both
-dog and master, had been transferred
-to the Lambs, who made a great pet
-of him, to the entire disturbance and
-discomfiture, as it appeared, of all
-Lamb’s habits of life, but especially
-of that most favourite and salutary of
-all—his long and heretofore solitary
-suburban walks; for Dash—that was
-the dog’s name—would never allow
-Lamb to quit the house without him,
-and when out, would never go anywhere
-but precisely where it pleased
-himself. The consequence was, that
-Lamb made himself a perfect slave to
-this dog, who was always half a mile
-off from his companion, either before
-or behind, scouring the fields or roads
-in all directions, up and down ‘all
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>manner of streets,’ and keeping his
-attendant in a perfect fever of anxiety
-and irritation from his fear of losing
-him on the one hand, and his reluctance
-to put the needful restraint
-upon him on the other. Dash perfectly
-well knew his host’s amiable
-weakness in this respect, and took a
-doglike advantage of it. In the Regent’s
-Park, in particular, Dash had
-his <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">quasi</span></i>-master completely at his
-mercy, for the moment they got within
-the ring he used to squeeze himself
-through the railing and disappear
-for half an hour together in the then
-inclosed and thickly planted greensward,
-knowing perfectly well that
-Lamb did not dare to move from
-the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared,
-till he thought proper to show
-himself again. And they used to take
-this walk oftener than any other, precisely
-because Dash liked it, and
-Lamb did not.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Beecher said that “in evolution, the
-dog got up before the door was shut.”
-If there were not reason, mirthfulness,
-love, honour, and fidelity in a dog, he
-did not know where to look for them,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>And Huxley has devoted much attention
-to the study of canine ability. He
-once illustrated, by the skeleton of the
-animal being raised on hind legs, that
-in internal construction the only difference
-between man and dog was one
-of size and proportion. There was
-not a bone in one which did not exist
-in the other, not a single constituent
-in the one that was not to be found in
-the other, and by the same process he
-could prove that the dog had a mind.
-His own dog was certainly not a mere
-piece of animate machinery. He once
-possessed a dog which he frequently
-left among the thousands frequenting
-Regent’s Park to secrete himself behind
-a tree. So soon as the animal
-found that he had lost his master, he
-laid his nose to the ground and soon
-tracked him to his hiding place. He
-believed there was no fundamental faculty
-connected with the reasoning powers
-that might not be demonstrated to
-exist in dogs. He did not believe that
-dogs ever took any pleasure in music;
-but this seems not to be always the
-case. Adelaide Phillips, the famous
-contralto, told me that her splendid
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>Newfoundland Cæsar was quite a musician.
-She gave him singing lessons
-regularly. “I see him now,” she said,
-“his fore paws resting on my knee.
-I would say: ‘Now the lesson begins.
-Look at me, sir. Do as I do.’ Then
-I would run down the scale in thirds,
-and Cæsar, with head thrown back
-and swaying from side to side, would
-really sing the scale. He would sing
-the air of The Brook very correctly.
-But it was the best sport to see him
-attempt the operatic.” Here her
-gestures became showy and impressive,
-as if on the stage, and her mimicking
-of the dog’s efforts to follow
-her were comical in the extreme.
-Sometimes (so quickly did he catch
-all the tricks of the profession) he
-would not sing until urged again and
-again. Sometimes he would be “out
-of voice,” and make most discordant
-sounds. He has an honoured grave
-at her country home in Marshfield,
-where Webster also put up a
-stone in memory of his horse Greatheart.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Charlotte Cushman loved animals, especially
-dogs and horses; and her blue
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>Skye terrier Bushie, with her human
-eyes and uncommon intelligence, has a
-permanent place in the memoirs of her
-mistress. Miss Cushman would say,
-“Play the piano, Bushie,” and Bush
-knew perfectly well what was meant,
-and would go through the performance,
-adding a few recitative barks
-with great gravity and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">éclat</span></i>. The
-phrase “human eyes” recalls what
-Blackmore, the novelist—who has a
-genuine, loving appreciation of our
-dear dumb animals—says of a dog
-in Christowell: “No lady in the land
-has eyes more lucid, loving, eloquent,
-and even if she had, they would be as
-nothing without the tan spots over
-them.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Patti has many pets, and always
-takes some dog with her on her travels,
-causing great commotion at hotels.
-She also leaves many behind
-her as a necessity. She has an aviary
-at her castle in Wales, and owns several
-most loquacious parrots.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Miss Mitford’s gushing eulogy upon
-one of her numerous dogs is too extravagant
-to be quoted at length:
-“There never was such a dog. His
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>temper was, beyond comparison, the
-sweetest ever known. Nobody ever
-saw him out of humour, and his sagacity
-was equal to his temper....
-I shall miss him every moment of my
-life. We covered his dead body with
-flowers; every flower in the garden.
-Everybody loved him, dear saint, as
-I used to call him, and as I do not
-doubt he now is. Heaven bless him,
-beloved angel!”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mr. Fields writes: “Miss Mitford
-used to write me long letters about
-Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance
-I had made some time
-before while on a visit to her cottage.
-Every virtue under heaven she attributed
-to that canine individual,
-and I was obliged to allow in my
-return letters that since our planet
-began to spin nothing comparable
-to Fanchon had ever run on four
-legs.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mrs. Browning was fond of pets,
-especially of her dog Flush, presented
-by Miss Mitford, which she has immortalized
-in a sonnet and a long and
-exquisite poem:</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>
- <h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Flush or Faunus.</span></h3>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>You see this dog. It was but yesterday</div>
- <div class='line'>I mused forgetful of his presence here;</div>
- <div class='line'>Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear;</div>
- <div class='line'>When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,</div>
- <div class='line'>A head as hairy as Faunus’ thrust its way</div>
- <div class='line'>Right sudden against my face, two golden, clear,</div>
- <div class='line'>Great eyes astonished mine; a drooping ear</div>
- <div class='line'>Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray.</div>
- <div class='line'>I started first; as some Arcadian</div>
- <div class='line'>Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;</div>
- <div class='line'>But as the bearded vision closelier ran</div>
- <div class='line'>My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above</div>
- <div class='line'>Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan</div>
- <div class='line'>Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>The poem is equally beautiful:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>To Flush, my Dog.</span></h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Other dogs may be thy peers</div>
- <div class='line'>Haply in these drooping ears</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And this glossy fairness.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But of <em>thee</em> it shall be said,</div>
- <div class='line'>This dog watched beside a bed</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Day and night unweary;</div>
- <div class='line'>Watched within a curtained room,</div>
- <div class='line'>Where no sunbeam brake the gloom</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Round the sick and weary.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Roses gathered for a vase</div>
- <div class='line'>In that chamber died apace,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Beam and breeze resigning;</div>
- <div class='line'>This dog only waited on,</div>
- <div class='line'>Knowing that when light is gone</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Love remains for shining.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Other dogs in thymy dew</div>
- <div class='line'>Tracked the hares and followed through</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Sunny moor or meadow;</div>
- <div class='line'>This dog only crept and crept</div>
- <div class='line'>Next a languid cheek that slept,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Sharing in the shadow.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Other dogs of loyal cheer</div>
- <div class='line'>Bounded at the whistle clear,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Up the woodside hieing;</div>
- <div class='line'>This dog only watched in reach</div>
- <div class='line'>Of a faintly uttered speech,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Or a louder sighing.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>And if one or two quick tears</div>
- <div class='line'>Dropped upon his glossy ears,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Or a sigh came double,</div>
- <div class='line'>Up he sprang in eager haste,</div>
- <div class='line'>Fawning, fondling, breathing fast</div>
- <div class='line in2'>In a tender trouble.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>And this dog was satisfied</div>
- <div class='line'>If a pale, thin hand would glide</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Down his dewlaps sloping,</div>
- <div class='line'>Which he pushed his nose within,</div>
- <div class='line'>After platforming his chin</div>
- <div class='line in2'>On the palm left open.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>This dog, if a friendly voice</div>
- <div class='line'>Call him now to blither choice</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Than such chamber keeping,</div>
- <div class='line'>“Come out,” praying from the door,</div>
- <div class='line'>Presseth backward as before,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Up against me leaping.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Therefore to this dog will I,</div>
- <div class='line'>Tenderly, not scornfully,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Render praise and favour;</div>
- <div class='line'>With my hand upon his head,</div>
- <div class='line'>Is my benediction said,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Therefore and forever.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><hr class='dotted' /></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mrs. Browning said in a note to this
-poem: “This dog was the gift of my
-dear and admired friend, Miss Mitford,
-and belongs to the beautiful race
-she has rendered celebrated among
-English and American readers.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, addressed
-a long poem to his dog, ending:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>When my last bannock’s on the hearth,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Of that thou canna want thy share;</div>
- <div class='line'>While I ha’e house or hauld on earth,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>My Hector shall ha’e shelter there.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Another favourite was honoured
-by Dr. Holland, the essayist, lecturer,
-magazine editor, and poet:</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>
- <h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>To my Dog Blanco.</span></h3>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>My dear, dumb friend, low lying there,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>A willing vassal at my feet,</div>
- <div class='line'>Glad partner of my home and fare,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>My shadow in the street.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>I look into your great brown eyes,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Where love and loyal homage shine,</div>
- <div class='line'>And wonder where the difference lies</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Between your soul and mine!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>For all of good that I have found</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Within myself or human kind,</div>
- <div class='line'>Hath royally informed and crowned</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Your gentle heart and mind.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>I scan the whole broad earth around</div>
- <div class='line in2'>For that one heart which, leal and true,</div>
- <div class='line'>Bears friendship without end or bound,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And find the prize in you.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>I trust you as I trust the stars;</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Nor cruel loss, nor scoff of pride,</div>
- <div class='line'>Nor beggary, nor dungeon bars,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Can move you from my side!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>As patient under injury</div>
- <div class='line in2'>As any Christian saint of old,</div>
- <div class='line'>As gentle as a lamb with me,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>But with your brothers bold;</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>More playful than a frolic boy,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>More watchful than a sentinel,</div>
- <div class='line'>By day and night your constant joy</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To guard and please me well.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>I clasp your head upon my breast—</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The while you whine and lick my hand—</div>
- <div class='line'>And thus our friendship is confessed,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And thus we understand!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Ah, Blanco! did I worship God</div>
- <div class='line in2'>As truly as you worship me,</div>
- <div class='line'>Or follow where my Master trod</div>
- <div class='line in2'>With your humility—</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Did I sit fondly at his feet,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine,</div>
- <div class='line'>And watch him with a love as sweet,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>My life would grow divine!</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Maria Edgeworth wrote to her aunt,
-Mrs. Ruxton, in 1819, “I see my little
-dog on your lap, and feel your hand
-patting his head, and hear your voice
-telling him that it is for Maria’s sake
-he is there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>What a pathetic friendship existed
-between Emily Brontë and the dog
-whom she was sure could understand
-every word she said to him! “She always
-fed the animals herself; the old
-cat; Flossy, her favourite spaniel;
-Keeper, the fierce bulldog, her own
-constant dear companion, whose portrait,
-drawn by her own spirited hand,
-is still extant. And the creatures on
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>the moor were all in a sense her pets
-and familiar with her. The intense
-devotion of this silent woman to all
-manner of dumb creatures has something
-almost inexplicable. As her old
-father and her sisters followed her to
-the grave they were joined by another
-mourner, Keeper, Emily’s dog. He
-walked in front of all, first in the rank
-of mourners, and perhaps no other
-creature had loved the dead woman
-quite so well. When they had laid
-her to sleep in the dark, airless vault
-under the church, and when they had
-crossed the bleak churchyard and had
-entered the empty house again, Keeper
-went straight to the door of the room
-where his mistress used to sleep, and
-laid down across the threshold. There
-he howled piteously for many days,
-knowing not that no lamentations
-could wake her any more.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Dogs were supposed by the ancient
-Gaels to know of the death of a friend,
-however far they might be separated.
-But this is getting too gloomy. Do
-you know how the proverb originated
-“as cold as a dog’s nose”? An old
-verse tells us:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>There sprang a leak in Noah’s ark,</div>
- <div class='line'>Which made the dog begin to bark;</div>
- <div class='line'>Noah took his nose to stop the hole,</div>
- <div class='line'>And hence his nose is always cold.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>No one has expressed more appreciation
-of the noble qualities of dogs than
-the abstracted, philosophic Wordsworth.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Incident</span></h3>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c007'>
- <div><em>Characteristic of a Favourite Dog.</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>On his morning rounds the master</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Goes to learn how all things fare;</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Searches pasture after pasture,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Sheep and cattle eyes with care;</div>
- <div class='line in4'>And, for silence or for talk,</div>
- <div class='line in4'>He hath comrades in his walk;</div>
- <div class='line'>Four dogs, each pair of different breed,</div>
- <div class='line'>Distinguished two for scent and two for speed.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>See a hare before him started!</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Off they fly in earnest chase;</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Every dog is eager-hearted,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>All the four are in the race:</div>
- <div class='line in4'>And the hare whom they pursue,</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Hath an instinct what to do;</div>
- <div class='line'>Her hope is near: no turn she makes;</div>
- <div class='line'>But, like an arrow, to the river takes.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>Deep the river was, and crusted</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Thinly by a one night’s frost;</div>
- <div class='line in4'>But the nimble hare hath trusted</div>
- <div class='line in6'>To the ice, and safely crost;</div>
- <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>She hath crossed, and without heed</div>
- <div class='line in4'>All are following at full speed,</div>
- <div class='line'>When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,</div>
- <div class='line'>Breaks—and the greyhound, Dart, is over head!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>Better fate have Prince and Swallow—</div>
- <div class='line in6'>See them cleaving to the sport!</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Music has no heart to follow,</div>
- <div class='line in7'>Little Music, she stops short.</div>
- <div class='line in4'>She hath neither wish nor heart,</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Hers is now another part:</div>
- <div class='line'>A loving creature she, and brave!</div>
- <div class='line'>And fondly strives her struggling friend to save.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>From the brink her paws she stretches,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>Very hands as you would say!</div>
- <div class='line in4'>And afflicting moans she fetches,</div>
- <div class='line in6'>As he breaks the ice away.</div>
- <div class='line in4'>For herself she hath no fears,</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Him alone she sees and hears,</div>
- <div class='line'>Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o’er</div>
- <div class='line'>Until her fellow sank, and reappeared no more.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Tribute</span></h3>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c007'>
- <div><em>To the Memory of the Same Dog.</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Lie here, without a record of thy worth,</div>
- <div class='line'>Beneath a covering of the common earth!</div>
- <div class='line'>It is not from unwillingness to praise,</div>
- <div class='line'>Or want of love, that here no stone we raise;</div>
- <div class='line'>More thou deservest; but <em>this</em> man gives to man,</div>
- <div class='line'>Brother to brother, <em>this</em> is all we can.</div>
- <div class='line'>Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear</div>
- <div class='line'>Shall find thee through all changes of the year:</div>
- <div class='line'>This oak points out thy grave; the silent tree</div>
- <div class='line'>Will gladly stand a monument of thee.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>Cowper, who tenderly loved all animals,
-did not fail to honour a dog with
-a poetical tribute in The Dog and the
-Water Lily, celebrating the devotion
-of “my spaniel, prettiest of his race.”</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>It was the time when Ouse displayed</div>
- <div class='line in2'>His lilies newly blown;</div>
- <div class='line'>Their beauties I intent surveyed,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And one I wished my own.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>With cane extended far, I sought</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To steer it close to land;</div>
- <div class='line'>But still the prize, though nearly caught,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Escaped my eager hand.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Beau marked my unsuccessful pains</div>
- <div class='line in2'>With fixed, considerate face,</div>
- <div class='line'>And puzzling set his puppy brains</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To comprehend, the case.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But chief myself, I will enjoin,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Awake at duty’s call,</div>
- <div class='line'>To show a love as prompt as thine</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To Him who gives us all.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But with a chirrup clear and strong,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Dispersing all his dream,</div>
- <div class='line'>I thence withdrew, and followed long</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The windings of the stream.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>My ramble finished, I returned.</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Beau, trotting far before,</div>
- <div class='line'>The floating wreath again discerned,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And, plunging, left the shore.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>I saw him, with that lily cropped,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Impatient swim to meet</div>
- <div class='line'>My quick approach, and soon he dropped</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The treasure at my feet.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Charmed with this sight, the world, I cried,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Shall hear of this, thy deed:</div>
- <div class='line'>My dog shall mortify the pride</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Of man’s superior breed.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Forster tells us fully of Dickens’s
-devotion to his many dogs, quoting
-the novelist’s inimitable way of describing
-his favourites. In Dr. Marigold
-there is an especially good bit
-about “me and my dog.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“My dog knew as well as I did when
-she was on the turn. Before she broke
-out he would give a howl and bolt.
-How he knew it was a mystery to
-me, but the sure and certain knowledge
-of it would wake him up out of
-his soundest sleep, and would give a
-howl and bolt. At such times I wished
-I was him.” After the death of child
-and wife, he says: “Me and my dog
-was all the company left in the cart
-now, and the dog learned to give a
-short bark when they wouldn’t bid,
-and to give another and a nod of his
-head when I asked him ‘Who said
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>half a crown?’ He attained to an
-immense height of popularity, and, I
-shall always believe, taught himself
-entirely out of his own head to growl
-at any person in the crowd that bid
-as low as sixpence. But he got to be
-well on in years, and one night when
-I was convulsing York with the spectacles
-he took a convulsion on his own
-account, upon the very footboard by
-me, and it finished him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mr. Laurence Hutton, in the St.
-Nicholas, has lately expressed his sentiments
-about dogs, as follows:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“It was Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh,
-I think, who spoke in sincere
-sympathy of the man who “led a dog-less
-life.” It was Mr. “Josh Billings,”
-I know, who said that in the whole
-history of the world there is but one
-thing that money can not buy—to wit,
-the wag of a dog’s tail. And it was
-Prof. John C. Van Dyke who declared
-the other day, in reviewing the artistic
-career of Landseer, that he made his
-dogs too human. It was the great
-Creator himself who made dogs too
-human—so human that sometimes
-they put humanity to shame.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>“I have been the friend and confidant
-of three dogs, who helped to humanize
-me for the space of a quarter of a
-century, and who had souls to be
-saved, I am sure, and when I cross
-the Stygian River I expect to find on
-the other shore a trio of dogs wagging
-their tails almost off in their joy
-at my coming, and with honest tongues
-hanging out to lick my hands and my
-feet. And then I am going, with these
-faithful, devoted dogs at my heels, to
-talk dogs over with Dr. John Brown,
-Sir Edward Landseer, and Mr. Josh
-Billings.”</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>Do dogs have souls—a spark of
-life that after death lives on elsewhere?</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Many have hoped so, from Wesley
-to the little boy who has lost his cherished
-comrade.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>It is certain that dogs show qualities
-that in a man would be called reason,
-quick apprehension, presence of mind,
-courage, self-abnegation, affection unto
-death.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>At the close of this chapter may I
-be allowed to tell of two of my special
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>friends—one a fox terrier, owned by
-Mr. Howard Ticknor, of Boston; the
-other my own interesting pet—who
-have never failed to learn any trick
-suggested to them? Antoninus Pius,
-called Tony for short, goes through
-more than a score of wonderful accomplishments,
-such as playing on
-the piano, crossing his paws and looking
-extremely artistic, if not inspired,
-dancing a skirt dance, spinning on a
-flax wheel, performing on a tambourine
-swung by a ribbon round his
-neck; plays pattycake with his mistress.
-And my own intelligent Yorkshire
-terrier mounts a chair back and
-preaches with animation, eloquence,
-and forcible gestures; knocks down
-a row of books and then sits on them,
-as a book reviewer; stands in a corner
-with right paw uplifted, as a tableau
-of Liberty enlightening the
-World; rings a bell repeatedly and
-with increasing energy, to call us to
-the table; sings with head and eyes
-uplifted, to accompaniment of harmonica—and
-each is just beginning
-his education.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>I have read lately an account of a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>knowing dog, with a sort of sharp
-cockney ability, who used to go daily
-with penny in mouth and buy a roll.
-Once one right out of the oven was
-given to him; he dropped it, seized
-his money off the counter, and changed
-his baker.</p>
-
-<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span></div>
-<div class='section ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>COMPLIMENTS TO CATS.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
- <div class='nf-center'>
- <div>You may own a cat, but cannot govern one.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='ph3'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>TO A KITTEN.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But not alone by cottage fire</div>
- <div class='line'>Do rustics rude thy feats admire;</div>
- <div class='line'>The learnèd sage, whose thoughts explore</div>
- <div class='line'>The widest range of human lore;</div>
- <div class='line'>Or, with unfettered fancy fly</div>
- <div class='line'>Through airy heights of poesy;</div>
- <div class='line'>Pausing, smiles with altered air</div>
- <div class='line'>To see thee climb his elbow-chair,</div>
- <div class='line'>Or, struggling with the mat below,</div>
- <div class='line'>Hold warfare with his slippered toe.</div>
- <div class='line in26'><span class='sc'>Joanna Baillie.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>
- <h2 class='c008'>CATS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c002'>God made the cat in order to give to man the
-pleasurable sense of having caressed the tiger.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Méry.</span></h3>
-
-<p class='c002'>Public sentiment is not so unanimously
-in favour of cats, yet they
-have had their warm admirers, while
-in Egypt they were adored as divine—worshipped
-as an emblem of the
-moon. When a cat died, the owners
-gave the body a showy funeral, went
-into mourning, and shaved off their
-eyebrows. Diodorus tells of a Roman
-soldier who was condemned to
-death for killing a cat. It is said that
-Cambyses, King of Persia, when he
-went to fight the Egyptians, fastened
-before every soldier’s breast a live cat.
-Their enemies dared not run the risk
-of hurting their sacred pets, and so
-were conquered.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Artists, monarchs, poets, diplomatists,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>religious leaders, authors, have
-all condescended to care for cats. A
-mere list of their names would make
-a big book. For instance, Godefroi
-Mind, a German artist, was called the
-Raphael of Cats. People would hunt
-him up in his attic, and pay large
-prices for his pictures. In the long
-winter evenings he amused himself
-carving tiny cats out of chestnuts,
-and could not make them fast enough
-for those who wanted to buy. Mohammed
-was so fond of his cat Muezza
-that once, when she was sleeping
-on his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve
-rather than disturb her. Andrew Doria,
-one of the rulers of Venice, not
-only had a portrait painted of his pet
-cat, but after her death had her skeleton
-preserved as a treasure. Richelieu’s
-special favourite was a splendid
-Angora, his resting place being the
-table covered with state papers. Montaigne
-used to rest himself by a frolic
-with his cat. Fontenelle liked to
-place his “Tom” in an armchair and
-deliver an oration before him. The
-cat of Cardinal Wolsey sat by his side
-when he received princes. Petrarch
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>had his pet feline embalmed and
-placed in his apartment.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>You see, the idea of the cat being
-the pet of old maids alone is far from
-true. Edward Lear, of Nonsense
-Verses fame, wrote of himself:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>He has many friends, laymen and clerical;</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Old Foss is the name of his cat;</div>
- <div class='line'>His body is perfectly spherical;</div>
- <div class='line in2'>He weareth a runcible hat.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Wordsworth wrote about a Kitten
-and the Falling Leaves. A volume
-of two hundred and eighty-five pages
-of poems in all languages, consecrated
-to the memory of a single cat, was
-published at Milan in 1741. Shelley
-wrote verses to a cat.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>It seems unjust to assert that the cat
-is incapable of personal attachment,
-when she has won the affection of so
-many of earth’s great ones. The skull
-of Morosini’s cat is preserved among
-the relics of that Venetian worthy.
-Andrea Doria’s cat was painted with
-him. Sir Henry Wyat’s gratitude to
-the cat who saved him from starvation
-in the Tower of London by bringing
-him pigeons to eat, caused this remark:
-“You shall not find his picture
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>anywhere but with a cat beside him.”
-Cowper often wrote about his cats
-and kittens. Horace Walpole wrote to
-Gray, mourning the loss of his handsomest
-cat, and Gray replied: “I
-know Zara and Zerlina, or rather I
-knew them both together, for I can
-not justly say which was which.
-Then, as to your handsomest cat, I
-am no less at a loss; as well as knowing
-one’s handsomest cat is always the
-cat one likes best, or, if one be alive
-and the other dead, it is usually the
-latter that is handsomest. Besides, if
-the point were so clear, I hope you
-do not think me so ill bred as to forget
-my interest in the survivor—oh,
-no! I would rather seem to mistake,
-and imagine, to be sure, that it must
-be the tabby one.” It was the tabby;
-her death being sudden and pitiful,
-tumbling from a “lofty vase’s side”
-while trying to secure a goldfish for
-her dinner. Gray sent Walpole an
-ode inspired by the misfortune, in
-which he said:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>What woman’s heart can gold despise?</div>
- <div class='line in2'>What cat’s averse to fish?</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>and thus describes the final scene:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Eight times emerging from the flood,</div>
- <div class='line'>She mewed to every watery god</div>
- <div class='line in4'>Some speedy aid to send.</div>
- <div class='line'>No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,</div>
- <div class='line'>Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard.</div>
- <div class='line in4'>A favourite has no friend.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Upon Gray’s death, Walpole placed
-Zerlina’s vase upon a pedestal marked
-with the first stanza.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Jeremy Bentham at first christened
-his cat Langbourne; afterward, Sir
-John Langbourne; and when very
-wise and dignified, the Rev. Sir John
-Langbourne, D. D. Pius IX allowed
-his cat to sit with him at table, waiting
-his turn to be fed in a most decorous
-manner. Théophile Gautier
-tells us how beautifully his cats behaved
-at the dinner table. A friend
-visiting Bishop Thirlwall in his retirement,
-thought he looked weary, and
-asked him to take the big easy-chair.
-“Don’t you see who is already there?”
-said the great churchman, pointing to
-a cat asleep on the cushion. “She
-must not be disturbed.” Helen Hunt
-Jackson devoted a large book to the
-praise of cats and kittens. We know
-that Isaac Newton was fond of cats,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>for did he not make two holes in his
-barn door—a big one for old pussy to
-go in and out, and a little one for the
-kitty?</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Among French authors we recall
-Rousseau, who has much to say in
-favour of felines. Colbert reared half
-a dozen cats in his study, and taught
-them many interesting tricks. The
-cat supplied Perrault with one of the
-most attractive subjects of his stories,
-and under the magical pen of this admirable
-story-teller, Puss in Boots has
-become an example of the power of
-work, industry, and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">savoir-faire</span></i>. Gautier
-scoffs at storms raging without,
-as long as he has</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Sur mes genoux un chat qui se joue et folâtre,</span></div>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Un livre pour veiller, un fauteil pour devenir.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Béranger, in his idyl The Cat, makes
-an intelligent cat a go-between of lovers.
-Baudelaire returned from his
-wanderings in the East a devotee of
-cats, and addressed to them several
-fine bits of verse; they are seen in
-his poetry, as dogs in the paintings
-of Paul Veronese. Here is a sample:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>Come, beauty, rest upon my loving heart,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>But cease thy paws’ sharp-nailèd play,</div>
- <div class='line'>And let me peer into those eyes that dart</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Mixed agate and metallic ray.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Again:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Grave scholars and mad lovers all admire</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And love, and each alike, at his full tide</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Those suave and puissant cats, the fireside’s pride,</div>
- <div class='line'>Who like the sedentary life and glow of fire.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>How he enjoys, nay, revels in the
-musical purr!—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Those tones which purl and percolate</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Deep down into my shadowy soul,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Exalt me like a fine tune’s roll,</div>
- <div class='line'>And yield the joy love philters make.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>There is no note in the world,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Nor perfect instrument I know,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Can lift my heart to such a glow</div>
- <div class='line'>And set its vibrant chord in whirl,</div>
- <div class='line'>As thy rich voice mysterious.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Champfleury, another French writer,
-has recorded that, visiting Victor Hugo
-once, he found, in a room decorated
-with tapestries and Gothic furniture, a
-cat enthroned on a dais, and apparently
-receiving the homage of the company.
-Sainte-Beuve’s cat sat on his
-desk, and walked freely over his critical
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>essays. “I value in the cat,” says
-Chateaubriand, “that indifferent and
-almost ungrateful temper which prevents
-itself from attaching itself to
-any one; the indifference with which
-it passes from the <em>salon</em> to the housetop.”
-Marshal Turenne amused himself
-for hours in playing with his kittens.
-The great general, Lord Heathfield,
-would often appear on the walls
-of Gibraltar at the time of the famous
-siege, attended by his favourite cats.
-Montaigne wrote: “When I play with
-my cat, who knows whether I do not
-make her more sport than she makes
-me? We mutually divert each other
-with our play. If I have my hour to
-begin or refuse, so has she.” As
-George Eliot puts it, “Who can tell
-what just criticisms the cat may be
-passing on us beings of wider speculation?”
-Chateaubriand’s cat Micette
-is well known. He used to stroke her
-tail, to notify Madame Récamier that
-he was tired or bored.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cats and their friendships are not
-spoken of in the Bible. But they are
-mentioned in Sanskrit writing two
-thousand years old, and, as has been
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>said before, they were household pets
-and almost idols with the Egyptians,
-who mummied them in company with
-kings and princes. They were also
-favourites in India and Persia, and
-can claim relationship with the royal
-felines of the tropics. Simonides, in
-his Satire on Women, the earliest extant,
-sets it down that froward women
-were made from cats, just as most virtuous,
-industrious matrons were developed
-from beer. In Mills’s History
-of the Crusades the cat was an
-important personage in religious festivals.
-At Aix, in Provence, the finest
-he cat was wrapped like a child in
-swaddling clothes and exhibited in a
-magnificent shrine: every knee bent,
-every hand strewed flowers.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Several cats have been immortalized
-by panegyrics and epitaphs from famous
-masters. Joachim de Bellay has
-left this pretty tribute:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est Beland, mon petit chat gris—</span></div>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Beland, qui fut peraventure</span></div>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le plus bel œuvre que nature</span></div>
- <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fit onc en matière de chats.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>The pensive Selima, owned by Walpole,
-was mourned by Gray, and from
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>the Elegy we get the favourite aphorism,
-“A favourite has no friends.”
-Arnold mourned the great Atossa.
-One of Tasso’s best sonnets was addressed
-to his favourite cat. Cats
-figure in literature from Gammer
-Gurton’s Needle to our own day.
-Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four
-times—“the harmless, necessary
-cat,” etc. Goldsmith wrote:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Around in sympathetic mirth</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Its tricks the kitten tries;</div>
- <div class='line'>The cricket chirrups in the hearth,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>The crackling fagot flies.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Joanna Baillie wrote in the same
-strain.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>In one of Gay’s fables about animals
-the cat is asked what she can
-do to benefit the proposed confederation.
-She answers scornfully:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in4'>... These teeth, these claws,</div>
- <div class='line'>With vigilance shall serve the cause.</div>
- <div class='line'>The mouse destroyed by my pursuit</div>
- <div class='line'>No longer shall your feasts pollute,</div>
- <div class='line'>Nor eat, from nightly ambuscade</div>
- <div class='line'>With watchful teeth your stores invade.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>The story of Dick Whittington and
-his cat is doubtless true. All the pictorial
-and architectural relics of Whittington
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>represent him with the cat—a
-black and white cat—at his left hand,
-or his hand resting on a cat. One of
-the figures that adorned the gate at
-Newgate represented Liberty with the
-figure of a cat lying at her feet. Whittington
-was a former founder. In the
-cellar of his old house at Gloucester
-there was found a stone, probably part
-of a chimney, showing in <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">basso-rilievo</span></i>
-the figure of a boy carrying in his
-arms a cat. Cowper has a poem on A
-Cat retired from Business. Heinrich’s
-verses are well known, or should be:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>The neighbours’ old cat often</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Came to pay us a visit.</div>
- <div class='line'>We made her a bow and a courtesy,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Each with a compliment in it.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>After her health we asked,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Our care and regard to evince;</div>
- <div class='line'>We have made the very same speeches</div>
- <div class='line in2'>To many an old cat since.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>This translation was by Mrs. Browning;
-many others have tried it with
-success. Alfred de Musset apostrophized
-his cats in verse. Paul de
-Koch frequently describes a favourite
-cat in his novels. Hoffman, the
-German novelist, introduces cats into
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>his weird and fantastic tales, and Poe
-has given us The Black Cat. Keats
-composed a</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Sonnet to a Cat</span>:</h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Cat, who has passed thy grand climacteric,</div>
- <div class='line'>How many mice and rats hast in thy days</div>
- <div class='line'>Destroyed? How many tidbits stolen? Gaze</div>
- <div class='line'>With those bright languid segments green, and prick</div>
- <div class='line'>Those velvet ears, but prythee do not stick</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy latent talons in me, and tell me all thy frays,</div>
- <div class='line'>Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick;</div>
- <div class='line'>Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists,</div>
- <div class='line'>For all thy wheezy asthma, and for all</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy tail’s tip is nicked off, and though the fists</div>
- <div class='line'>Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,</div>
- <div class='line'>Still is thy fur as when the lists</div>
- <div class='line'>In youth thou enteredst on glass-bottled wall.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Clinton Scollard writes tenderly of
-his lost</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Grimalkin</span>:</h3>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c007'>
- <div><em>An Elegy on Peter, aged Twelve.</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>In vain the kindly call; in vain</div>
- <div class='line'>The plate for which thou once wast fain</div>
- <div class='line'>At morn and noon and daylight’s wane,</div>
- <div class='line in8'>O king of mousers.</div>
- <div class='line'>No more I hear thee purr and purr</div>
- <div class='line'>As in the frolic days that were,</div>
- <div class='line'>When thou didst rub thy velvet fur</div>
- <div class='line in8'>Against my trousers.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>How empty are the places where</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou erst wert frankly debonair,</div>
- <div class='line'>Nor dreamed a dream of feline care,</div>
- <div class='line in8'>A capering kitten.</div>
- <div class='line'>The sunny haunts where, grown a cat,</div>
- <div class='line'>You pondered this, considered that,</div>
- <div class='line'>The cushioned chair, the rug, the mat,</div>
- <div class='line in8'>By firelight smitten.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Although of few thou stood’st in dread,</div>
- <div class='line'>How well thou knew’st a friendly tread,</div>
- <div class='line'>And what upon thy back or head</div>
- <div class='line in8'>The stroking hand meant!</div>
- <div class='line'>A passing scent could keenly wake</div>
- <div class='line'>Thy eagerness for chop or steak.</div>
- <div class='line'>Yet, puss, how rarely didst thou break</div>
- <div class='line in8'>The eighth commandment!</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Though brief thy life, a little span</div>
- <div class='line'>Of days compared with that of man,</div>
- <div class='line'>The time allotted to thee ran</div>
- <div class='line in8'>In smoother meter.</div>
- <div class='line'>Now with the warm earth o’er thy breast,</div>
- <div class='line'>O wisest of thy kind and best,</div>
- <div class='line'>Forever mayst thou softly rest,</div>
- <div class='line in8'><i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">In pace</span></i>—Peter.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Agnes Repplier, in her Essays in
-Idleness and Dozy Hours, tells us of
-Agrippina and her child. Charles
-Dudley Warner gave to the world a
-character sketch of his cat Calvin.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>A young girl who was in the house
-with Mr. Whittier, and of whom he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>was very fond, went to him one day
-with tearful eyes and a rueful face and
-said: “My dear little kitty Bathsheba
-is dead, and I want you to write a
-poem to put on her gravestone. I
-shall bury her under a rose bush!”
-Without a moment’s hesitation the
-poet said:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Bathsheba! to whom none ever said scat!</div>
- <div class='line in10'>No worthier cat</div>
- <div class='line in10'>Ever sat on a mat</div>
- <div class='line in10'>Or caught a rat;</div>
- <div class='line in10'><i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Requiescat!</span></i></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cats are made very useful. The
-English Government keeps cats in
-public offices, dockyards, stores, shipping,
-and so on. In Vienna, four cats
-are employed by town magistrates to
-catch mice on the premises of the municipality
-with a regular allowance,
-voted for their keeping, during active
-service, afterward placed on the retired
-list with comfortable pension;
-much better cared for than college
-professors or superannuated ministers
-in our country. There are a certain
-number of cats in the United States
-Post Office to protect mail bags from
-rats and mice; also, in the Imperial
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>Printing Office in France, a feline staff
-with a keeper. Cats are given charge
-of empty corn sacks, so that they shall
-not be nibbled and devoured. Cats
-are invaluable to farmers in barns and
-outhouses, stables, and newly mown
-fields.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>There are many proverbs about the
-cat. Shakespeare says,</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Letting I dare not wait upon I would,</div>
- <div class='line'>Like the poor cat i’ the adage,</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>meaning, expressed in another proverb,</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>The cat loves fish, but does not like</div>
- <div class='line'>To wet her paws.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Good liquor will make a cat speak.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Not room to swing a cat.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>They used to swing a cat to the branch
-of a tree as a mark to shoot at.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Honest as the cat when the meal is out of reach.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Let the cat out of the bag.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>A cat was sometimes substituted for a
-sucking pig, and carried in a bag to
-market. If a greenhorn chose to buy
-without examination, very well; but if
-he opened the bag the trick was discovered,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>and he “let the cat out of
-the bag.”</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Sick as a cat.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Touch not a cat without a glove.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>What can you have of a cat but her skin?</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>To be made a cat’s paw of,</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>referring to the fable of the monkey
-who took the paw of a cat to get some
-roasted chestnuts from the hot ashes.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Who is to bell the cat?</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>alluding to the cunning old mouse who
-suggested that they should hang a bell
-on the cat’s neck to let all mice know
-of her approach. “Excellent,” said a
-wise young mouse, “but who will undertake
-the job?”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Madame Henriette Ronner has given
-up half of her long artistic career to the
-study of cats, producing a cat world as
-impressive as the cattle world of Potter
-or the stag and dog world of Landseer.
-Harrison Weirs is one of Pussy’s most
-devoted adherents. He originated cat
-shows at Crystal Palace, London. He
-says that dogs, large or small, are generally
-useless; while a cat, whether
-petted or not, is of service. Without
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>her, rats and mice would overrun the
-house. If there were not millions of
-cats there would be billions of vermin.
-He believes that cats are more critical
-in noticing than dogs, as he has seen a
-cat open latched doors and push back
-bolt or bar; they will wait for the
-butcher, hoping for bits of meat, looking
-for him only on his stated days,
-and know the time for the luncheon
-bell to ring. Dogs often bite when
-angry; cats seldom. They will travel
-a long distance to regain home; form
-devoted attachments to other animals,
-as horses, cocks, collies, cows, hens,
-rabbits, squirrels, and even rats, and
-can be taught to respect the life of
-birds.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Exactly opposite opinions are held
-by others, equally good and fair judges,
-and with these the cat is considered selfish,
-spiteful, crafty, treacherous, and,
-like a low style of politician, subservient
-only to the power that feeds them,
-and provides a warm berth to snuggle
-down in. And we find many anecdotes,
-well authenticated, proving them to
-be docile, affectionate, good-tempered,
-tractable, and even possessed of something
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>very like intellect. In the life of
-Sir David Brewster, by his daughter,
-we find that a cat in the house entered
-his room one day and made friendship
-in the most affectionate manner;
-“looked straight at him, jumped on
-my father’s knee, placed a paw on
-each shoulder, and kissed him as distinctly
-as a cat could. From that time
-the philosopher himself provided her
-breakfast every morning from his own
-plate, till one day she disappeared, to
-the unbounded sorrow of her master.
-Nothing was heard of her for nearly
-two years, when Pussy walked into
-the house, neither thirsty nor footsore,
-made her way without hesitation to
-the study, jumped on my father’s knee,
-placed a paw on each shoulder and
-kissed him, exactly as on the first
-day.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cats can be trained to shake hands,
-jump over a stick, sit up on hind legs,
-come at a whistle, beg like a dog, but
-we seldom take the trouble to find out
-how easily they can be taught. Madame
-Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale) tells us
-of Dr. Johnson’s kindness to his cat,
-named Hodge. When the creature
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>had grown old and fastidious from illness,
-and could eat nothing but oysters,
-the gruff old lexicographer always
-went out himself to buy Hodge’s dinner.
-Boswell adds: “I recollect Hodge
-one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s
-breast apparently with much satisfaction,
-while my friend, smiling and half
-whistling, rubbed down his back and
-pulled him by the tail, and when I observed
-he had a fine cat, saying, ‘Why
-yes, sir, but I have had cats whom I
-liked better than this,’ and then, as if
-perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance,
-adding, ‘But he is a fine cat,
-a very fine cat indeed.’ He once gave
-a ludicrous account of the despicable
-state of a young gentleman of good
-family. ‘Sir, when I heard of him last
-he was running about town shooting
-cats.’ And then, in a sort of friendly
-reverie, he added, ‘But Hodge sha’n’t
-be shot; no, Hodge sha’n’t be shot.’”
-And this from the gruff, dogmatic thunderer
-who snubbed or silenced every
-antagonist. Even the selfish, courtly
-Lord Chesterfield left a permanent pension
-for his cats and their descendants.
-Robert Southey has written a Memoir
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>of the Cats of Greta Hall. He liked
-to see his cats look plump and healthy,
-and tried to make them comfortable
-and happy. When they were ill he
-had them carefully nursed by the
-“ladies of the kitchen,” and doctored
-by the Keswick apothecary. Indeed,
-cats and kittens were so petted and
-fondled at Greta Hall by old and
-young that Southey sometimes called
-the place “Cats’ Eden.” In a letter
-to one of his cat-loving friends he says
-that “a house is never perfectly furnished
-for enjoyment unless there is a
-child in it rising three years old, and
-a kitten rising three weeks.” This
-memorial gives such truthful and impartial
-biographies of his rat-catching
-friends that he deserves to be known
-and admired as the Plutarch of Cats.
-The history was compiled for his
-daughter. He begins in this way:
-“Forasmuch, most excellent Edith
-May, as you must always feel a natural
-and becoming concern in whatever
-relates to the house wherein you
-were born, and in which the first part
-of your life has thus far so happily
-been spent, I have for your instruction
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>and delight composed these memoirs,
-to the end that the memory of
-such worthy animals may not perish,
-but be held in deserved honour by my
-children and those who shall come
-after them.” The sketch is too long
-to be given, but it is sparkling with
-fun and at times tragic with sad adventures.
-Their names were as remarkable
-as their characters: Madame
-Bianchi; Pulcheria Ovid, so called
-because he might be presumed to be
-a master in the art of love; Virgil, because
-something like Ma-ro might be
-detected in his notes of courtship;
-Othello, black and jealous; Prester
-John, who turned out not to be of
-John’s gender, and therefore had the
-name altered to Pope Joan; Rumpelstilchen,
-a name borrowed from
-Grimm’s Tales, and Hurlyburlybuss.
-Rumpelstilchen lived nine years. After
-describing various cats, their adventures
-and misadventures, Madame Bianchi
-disappeared, and Pulcheria soon
-after died of a disease epidemic at that
-time among cats. “For a considerable
-time afterward an evil fortune attended
-all our attempts at re-establishing
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>a cattery. Ovid disappeared and
-Virgil died of some miserable distemper.
-The Pope, I am afraid, came to a
-death of which other popes have died.
-I suspect that some poison which the
-rats had turned out of their holes
-proved fatal to their enemy. For
-some time I feared we were at the
-end of our cat-a-logue, but at last Fortune,
-as if to make amends for her late
-severity, sent us two at once, the never-to-be-enough-praised
-Rumpelstilchen,
-and the equally-to-be-admired Hurlyburlybuss.
-And ‘first for the first of
-these,’ as my huge favourite and almost
-namesake Robert South says in
-his sermons.” He then explains at
-length a German tale in Grimm’s collection
-(a most charming tale it is, too),
-which gave the former cat his strange
-and magi-sonant appellation. “Whence
-came Hurlyburlybuss was long a mystery.
-He appeared here as Manco
-Capac did in Peru and Quetzalcohuatl
-among the Aztecs—no one knew
-whence. He made himself acquainted
-with all the philofelists of the family,
-attaching himself more particularly to
-Mrs. Lorell; but he never attempted
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>to enter the house, frequently disappeared
-for days, and once since my
-return for so long a time that he was
-actually believed to be dead and veritably
-lamented as such. The wonder
-was, whither did he retire at such
-times, and to whom did he belong;
-for neither I in my daily walks, nor
-the children, nor any of the servants,
-ever by chance saw him anywhere except
-in our own domain. There was
-something so mysterious in this that
-in old times it might have excited
-strong suspicion, and he would have
-been in danger of passing for a witch
-in disguise, or a familiar. The mystery,
-however, was solved about four
-weeks ago, when, as we were returning
-home from a walk up the Greta,
-Isabel saw him on his transit across
-the road and the wall from Shulicson
-in a direction toward the hill. But to
-this day we are ignorant who has the
-honour to be his owner in the eye of
-the law, and the owner is equally ignorant
-of the high favour in which Hurlyburlybuss
-is held, of the heroic name
-he has obtained, and that his fame has
-extended far and wide; yea, that with
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>Rumpelstilchen he has been celebrated
-in song, and that his glory will go down
-to future generations. A strong enmity
-existed between these two cats
-of remarkable nomenclature, and many
-were their altercations. Some weeks
-ago Hurlyburlybuss was manifestly
-emaciated and enfeebled by ill health,
-and Rumpelstilchen with great magnanimity
-made overtures of peace.
-The whole progress of the treaty was
-seen from the parlour window. The
-caution with which Rumpel made his
-advances, the sullen dignity with which
-they were received, their mutual uneasiness
-when Rumpel, after a slow and
-wary approach seated himself whisker
-to whisker with his rival, the mutual
-fear which restrained not only teeth
-and claws but even all tones of defiance,
-the mutual agitation of their
-tails, which, though they did not expand
-with anger could not be kept
-still for suspense, and lastly the manner
-in which Hurly retreated, like
-Ajax, still keeping his face toward his
-old antagonist, were worthy to have
-been represented by that painter who
-was called the Raphael of Cats. The
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>overture, I fear, was not accepted as
-generously as it was made, for no
-sooner had Hurlyburlybuss recovered
-strength than hostilities were recommenced
-with greater violence than
-before. Dreadful were the combats
-which ensued.... All means of reconciling
-them and making them understand
-how goodly a thing it is for cats
-to dwell together in peace, and what
-fools they are to quarrel and tear each
-other, are vain. The proceedings of
-the Society for the Abolition of War
-are not more utterly ineffectual and
-hopeless. All we can do is to act
-more impartially than the gods did
-between Achilles and Hector, and
-continue to treat both with equal regard.”
-I will only add the closing
-words: “And thus having brought
-down these Memoirs of the Cats of
-Greta Hall to the present day, I commit
-the precious memorial to your
-keeping. Most dissipated and light-heeled
-daughter, your most diligent
-and light-hearted father, Keswick, 18
-June, 1824.” Rumpel lived nine years,
-surrounded by loving attentions, and
-when he died, May 18, 1833, Southey
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>wrote to an old friend, Grosvenor
-Bedford: “Alas! Grosvenor, this day
-poor old Rumpel was found dead, after
-as long and happy a life as cat could
-wish for, if cats form wishes on that subject.
-There should be a court mourning
-in cat land, and if the Dragon (a
-cat of Mr. Bedford’s) wear a black ribbon
-around his neck, or a band of crepe,
-<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la militaire</span></i>, round one of the forepaws,
-it will be but a becoming mark
-of respect. As we have no catacombs
-here, he is to be decently interred in
-the orchard, and catnip planted on his
-grave.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Among modern celebrities who are
-fond of cats are the actress, Ellen
-Terry, who loves to play with kittens
-on the floor; Mr. Edmund Yates, the
-late novelist and journalist, whose cat
-used to sit down to dinner beside her
-master; and Julian Hawthorne, who
-has a faithful friend in his noble Tom,
-who invariably sits on his shoulder
-while he is writing. And when Tom
-thinks enough work has been done for
-one sitting, he gets down to the table
-and pulls away the manuscript. A cat
-denoted liberty, and was carved at the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>feet of the Roman Goddess of Liberty.
-Cats are seldom given credit for either
-intelligence or affection, but many
-trustworthy anecdotes prove that they
-possess both, and also that they seem
-to understand what is said, not only
-to them but about them. They are
-more unsophisticated than the dog;
-civilization to them has not yet become
-second nature.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>A Cat Story.</span></h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>You may be interested in hearing of
-the crafty trick of a black Persian.
-Prin is a magnificent animal, but
-withal a most dainty one, showing
-distinct disapproval of any meat not
-cooked in the especial way he likes,
-viz., roast. The cook, of whom he is
-very fond, determined to break this
-bad habit. Stewed or boiled meat was
-accordingly put ready for him, but, as
-he had often done before, he turned
-from it in disgust. However, this time
-no fish or roast was substituted. For
-three days the saucer of meat was untouched,
-and no other food given. But
-on the fourth morning the cook was
-much rejoiced at finding the saucer
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>empty. Prin ran to meet her, and the
-good woman told her mistress how extra
-affectionate that repentant cat was
-that morning. He did enjoy his dinner
-of roast that day (no doubt served with
-a double amount of gravy). It was not
-till the pot-board under the dresser was
-cleaned on Saturday that his artfulness
-was brought to light. There, in one
-of the stewpans back of the others, was
-the contents of the saucer of stewed
-meat. There was no other animal
-about the place, and the other two
-servants were as much astonished as
-the cook at the clever trick played on
-them by this terribly spoiled pet of
-the house. But the cook was mortified
-at the thought of that saucer of roast
-beef. I know this story to be true, and
-I have known the cat for the last nine
-or ten years. It lives at Clapham.</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>I will close this catalogue of feline
-attractions with two conundrums:
-Why does a cat cross the road? Because
-it wants to get to the other
-side. What is that which never was
-and never will be? A mouse’s nest in
-a cat’s ear.</p>
-
-<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span></div>
-<div class='section ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>ALL SORTS.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,</div>
- <div class='line'>To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.</div>
- <div class='line in28'><span class='sc'>Browning’s Saul.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>
- <h2 class='c008'>ALL SORTS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c014'>If thy heart be right, then will every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine.—<span class='sc'>Thomas À Kempis.</span></p>
-
-<p class='c002'>It would be pleasant to believe it
-was a proof of a good and tender nature
-to delight in pets, but men and
-women, notorious for cruelty and bad
-lives, have been devoted to them, lavishing
-tenderness, elsewhere denied.
-Catullus, the famous Roman poet,
-wrote a lament for Lesbia’s Sparrow;
-Lesbia, the shameless, false-hearted
-beauty who could weep for a dead
-bird, but poison her husband! You
-often see pretty plaster heads of Lesbia
-with the bird perched upon her
-finger, her face bent toward it with a
-look that is a caress. And the poem
-has not lost its grace or charm through
-all the centuries.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>
- <h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>On the Death of Lesbia’s Sparrow.</span></h3>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Mourn, all ye Loves and Graces! mourn,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Ye wits, ye gallants, and ye gay!</div>
- <div class='line'>Death from my fair her bird has torn—</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Her much-loved sparrows snatched away.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Her very eyes she prized not so,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>For he was fond, and knew my fair</div>
- <div class='line'>Well as young girls their mothers know,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And sought her breast and nestled there.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Once, fluttering round from place to place,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>He gaily chirped to her alone;</div>
- <div class='line'>But now that gloomy path must trace</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Whence Fate permits none to return.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Accursèd shades o’er hell that lower,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Oh, be my curses on you heard!</div>
- <div class='line'>Ye, that all pretty things devour,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Have torn from me my pretty bird.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Oh, evil deed! Oh, sparrow dead!</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Oh, what a wretch, if thou canst see</div>
- <div class='line'>My fair one’s eyes with weeping red,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And know how much she grieves for thee.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>James I, of England, whom Dickens
-designates as “His Sowship,” to
-express his detestation of his character,
-had a variety of dumb favourites.
-Although a remorseless destroyer
-of animals in the chase, he had an intense
-pleasure in seeing them around
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>him happy and well cared for in a state
-of domesticity. In 1623 John Bannat
-obtained a grant of the king’s interest
-in the leases of two gardens and a
-tenement in the Nuriones, on the condition
-of building and maintaining a
-house wherein to keep and rear his
-Majesty’s newly imported silkworms.
-Sir Thomas Dale, one of the settlers of
-the then newly formed colony of Virginia,
-returning to Europe on leave,
-brought with him many living specimens
-of American zoölogy, among
-them some flying squirrels. This
-coming to his Majesty’s ears, he was
-seized with a boyish impatience to
-add them to the private menageries
-in St. James’s Park. At the council
-table and in the circle of his courtiers
-he recurs again and again to the subject,
-wondering why Sir Thomas had
-not given him “the first pick” of his
-cargo of curiosities. He reminded
-them how the recently arrived Muscovite
-ambassador had brought him
-live sables, and, what he loved even
-better, splendid white gyrfalcons of
-Iceland; and when Buckingham suggested
-that in the whole of her reign
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Queen Elizabeth had never received
-live sables from the Czar, James made
-special inquiries if such were really
-the case. Some one of his loving subjects,
-desirous of ministering to his
-favourite hobby, had presented him
-with a cream-coloured fawn. A nurse
-was immediately hired for it, and the
-Earl of Shrewsbury commissioned to
-write as follows to Miles Whytakers,
-signifying the royal pleasure as to future
-procedure: “The king’s Majesty
-hath commissioned me to send this
-rare beast, a white hind calf, unto
-you, together with a woman, his nurse,
-that hath kept it and bred it up. His
-Majesty would have you see it be
-kept in every respect as this good
-woman doth desire, and that the
-woman be lodged and boarded by
-you until his Majesty come to Theobald’s
-on Monday next, and then
-you shall know further of his pleasure.
-What account his Majesty maketh of
-this fine beast you may guess, and
-no man can suppose it to be more
-rare than it is; therefore I know that
-your care of it will be accordingly.
-So in haste I bid you my hearty farewell.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>At Whitehall, this 6th of November,
-1611.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>About 1629 the King of Spain effected
-an important diversion in his own
-favour by sending the king—priceless
-gift—an elephant and five camels. Going
-through London after midnight,
-says a state paper, they could not pass
-unseen, and the clamour and outcry
-raised by some street loiterers at sight
-of their ponderous bulk and ungainly
-step, roused the sleepers from their
-beds in every street through which
-they passed. News of this unlooked-for
-addition to the Zoölogical Garden
-is conveyed to Theobald’s as speedily
-as horseflesh, whip and spur, could
-do their work. Then arose an interchange
-of missives to and fro betwixt
-the king, my lord treasurer, and Mr.
-Secretary Connay, grave, earnest, deliberate,
-as though involving the settlement
-or refusal of some treaty of
-peace. In muttered sentences, not
-loud but deep, the thrifty lord treasurer
-shows “how little he is in love
-with royal presents, which cost his
-master as much to maintain as could
-a garrison.” No matter. Warrants
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>are issued to the officers of the Mews
-and to Buckingham, master of the
-horse, that the elephant is to be daily
-well dressed and fed, but that he
-should not be led forth to water, nor
-any admitted to see him without directions
-from his keeper. The camels
-are to be daily grazed in the park, but
-brought back at night with all possible
-precautions to secure them from
-the vulgar gaze. The elephant had
-two Spaniards and two Englishmen to
-take care of him, and the royal quadruped
-had royal fare. His keepers
-affirm that from the month of September
-till April he must drink not
-water but wyne; and from April to
-September “he must have a gallon of
-wyne the day.” His winter allowance
-was six bottles per diem, but perhaps
-his keepers relieved him occasionally
-of a portion of the tempting beverage
-which they probably thought too good
-to waste on an animal even if it be a
-royal elephant.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>When Voltaire was living near Geneva
-he owned a large monkey which
-used to attack and even bite both
-friends and enemies. This repulsive
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>pet one day gave his master three
-wounds in the leg, obliging him for
-some time to hobble on crutches. He
-had named the creature Luc, and in
-conversation with intimate friends he
-also gave the King of Prussia the same
-name, because, said he, “Frederick is
-like my monkey, who bites those who
-caress him.” As a contrast, remember
-how the hermit, Thoreau, used to cultivate
-the acquaintance of a little mouse
-until it became really tame and would
-play a game of bopeep with his eccentric
-friend.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Nothing seems too odd or disagreeable
-to be regarded with affection.
-Lord Erskine, who always expressed
-a great interest in animals, had at
-one time two leeches for favourites.
-Taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth,
-he fancied that they had saved his life.
-Every day he gave them fresh water
-and formed a friendship with them.
-He said he was sure that both knew
-him, and were grateful for his attentions.
-He named them Home and
-Cline, for two celebrated surgeons,
-and he affirmed that their dispositions
-were quite different; in fact, he thought
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>he distinguished individuality in these
-black squirmers from the mire.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Even pigs have had the good fortune
-to interest persons of genius.
-Robert Herrick had a pet pig which
-he fed daily with milk from a silver
-tankard, and Miss Martineau had the
-same odd fancy. She, too, had a pet
-pig which she had washed and scrubbed
-daily. When too ill to superintend the
-operation she would listen at her window
-for piggie’s squeal, advertising
-that the operation had commenced.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>John Wilson, better known as Christopher
-North, loved many pets, and
-was as unique in his methods with
-them as in all other things. His intense
-fondness for animals and birds
-was often a trial to the rest of the
-family, as when his daughter found
-he had made a nest for some young
-gamecocks in her trunk of party
-dresses which was stored in the attic.
-On his library table, where “fishing
-rods found company with Ben Jonson
-and Jeremy Taylor reposed near a
-box of barley-sugar,” a tame sparrow
-he had befriended hopped blithely
-about, master of the situation. This
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>tiny pet imagined itself the most important
-occupant of the room. It
-would nestle in his waistcoat, hop
-upon his shoulder, and seemed influenced
-by constant association with a
-giant, for it grew in stature until it
-was alleged that the sparrow was
-gradually becoming an eagle.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The Rev. Gilbert White, who wrote
-the Natural History of Selborne, speaks
-of a tortoise which he petted, saying,
-“I was much taken with its sagacity
-in discerning those that show it kind
-offices, for as soon as the good old
-lady comes in sight who has waited
-on it for more than thirty years, it
-hobbles toward its benefactress with
-awkward alacrity, but remains inattentive
-to strangers.” Thus not only
-“the ox knoweth his owner and the
-ass his master’s crib,” but the most abject
-reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes
-the hand that feeds it, and is
-touched with the feelings of gratitude.
-Think of Jeremy Bentham growing a
-sort of vetch in his garden to cram his
-pockets with to feed the deer in Kensington
-Gardens! “I remember,” says
-his friend who tells the story, “his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>pointing it out to me and telling me
-the virtuous deer were fond of it, and
-ate it out of his hand.” Like Byron,
-he once kept a pet bear, but he was in
-Russia at the time, and the wolves got
-into the poor creature’s box on a terrible
-night and carried off a part of
-his face, a depredation which the philosopher
-never forgot nor forgave to
-his dying day. He always kept a supply
-of stale bread in a drawer of his
-dining table for the “mousies.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The Brownings had many pets,
-among them an owl, which after
-death was stuffed and given an honoured
-position in the poet’s library.
-Sydney Smith professed not to care
-for pets, especially disliking dogs; but
-he named his four oxen Tug and Lug,
-Haul and Crawl, and dosed them when
-he fancied they needed medicine. Miss
-Martineau relates that a phrenologist
-examining Sydney’s head announced,
-“This gentleman is a naturalist, always
-happy among his collections of birds
-and fishes.” “Sir,” said Sydney, turning
-upon him solemnly with wide-open
-eyes—“sir, I don’t know a fish from
-a bird.” But this ignorance and indifference
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>were all assumed. His daughter,
-writing of his daily home life, says:
-“Dinner was scarcely over ere he called
-for his hat and stick and sallied forth
-for his evening stroll. Each cow and
-calf and horse and pig were in turn
-visited and fed and patted, and all
-seemed to welcome him; he cared
-for their comforts as he cared for the
-comforts of every living being around
-him.” He used to say: “I am for all
-cheap luxuries, even for animals; now,
-all animals have a passion for scratching
-their back bones; they break down
-your gates and palings to effect this.
-Look, this is my Universal Scratcher,
-a sharp-edged pole resting on a high
-and low post, adapted to every height,
-from a horse to a lamb. Even the
-Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn;
-you have no idea how popular it is.”
-Who could resist repeating just here
-the wit’s impromptu epigram upon the
-sarcastic, diminutive Jeffrey when the
-caustic critic was surprised riding on
-the children’s pet donkey? “I still
-remember the joy-inspiring laughter
-that burst from my father at this unexpected
-sight, as, advancing toward
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>his old friend, with a face beaming
-with delight, he exclaimed:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Witty as Horatius Flaccus,</div>
- <div class='line'>As great a Jacobin as Gracchus,</div>
- <div class='line'>Short, though not as fat as Bacchus,</div>
- <div class='line'>Riding on a little jackass.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Before saying good-bye to the donkey
-I must give the appeal of Mr.
-Evarts’s little daughter at their summer
-home in Windsor, Vermont, to
-her learned and judicial father; so
-naïve and irresistible:</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Papa</span>: Do come home soon.
-The donkey is so lonesome without
-you!”</p>
-
-<p class='c002'>I once heard Mr. Evarts lamenting
-to Chief-Justice Chase that he had been
-badly beaten at a game of High Low
-Jack by Ben, the learned pig. “I
-know now,” said he, “why two pipes
-are called a hog’s head. It is on account
-of their great capacity!”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>One would fancy that a busy lawyer
-would have no time to give to pets, but
-this is far from true. Burnet, in his life
-of Sir Matthew Hale, the most eminent
-lawyer in the time of Charles I and
-Cromwell, says of him, that “his mercifulness
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>extended even to his beasts, for
-when the horses that he had kept long
-grew old, he would not suffer them
-to be sold or much wrought, but ordered
-his man to turn them loose on
-his grounds and put them only to easy
-work, such as going to market and the
-like. He used old dogs also with the
-same care; his shepherd having one
-that was blind with age, he intended
-to have killed or lost him, but the judge
-coming to hear of it made one of his
-servants bring him home and feed him
-till he died. And he was scarce ever
-seen more angry than with one of his
-servants for neglecting a bird that he
-kept so that it died for want of food.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Daniel Webster’s fondness for animals
-is well known. When his friends
-visited him at Marshfield the first excursion
-they must take would be to his
-barns and pastures, where he would
-point out the beauties of an Alderney,
-and mention the number of quarts she
-gave daily, with all a farmer’s pride,
-adding, “I know, for I measured it
-myself.” Choate used to tell a story
-<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à propos</span></i> of this. Once, when spending
-the Sabbath at Marshfield, he went to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>his room after breakfast to read. Soon
-there came an authoritative knock at
-the door, and Mr. Webster shouted,
-“What are you doing, Choate?” He
-replied, “I’m reading.” “Oh,” said
-Webster, “come down and see the
-pigs.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>He would often rout up his son
-Fletcher at a provokingly early hour
-to go out and hold a lantern while he
-fed the oxen with nubs of corn; and,
-noticing a decided lack of enthusiasm
-in Fletcher, would say: “You do not
-enjoy this society, my son; it’s better
-than I find in the Senate.” It was a
-touching scene when on the last day,
-when he sat in his loved library, he
-longed to look once more into the
-kindly faces of his honest oxen, and
-had them driven up to the window to
-say good-bye. Speaking of Choate
-recalls a comical story about his finding
-in his path, during a summer
-morning’s walk, a dozen or more dorbeetles
-sprawling on their backs in the
-highway enjoying the warm sunshine.
-With great care he tipped them all
-over into a normal position, when a
-friend coming along asked curiously,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>“What are you doing, Mr. Choate?”
-“Why, these poor creatures got overturned,
-and I am helping them to take
-a fresh start.” “But,” said the other,
-“they do that on purpose; they are
-sunning themselves, and will go right
-back as they were.” This was a new
-idea to the puzzled pleader, but with
-one of those rare smiles which lit up
-his sad, dark face so wonderfully, he
-said: “Never mind, I’ve put them
-right; if they go back, it is at their
-own risk.” And an interesting anecdote
-is told in his biography of his
-touch of human sympathy for inanimate
-objects: “When as a boy he
-drove his father’s cows, he says, more
-than once when he had thrown away
-his switch, he has returned to find it,
-and has carried it back and thrown it
-under the tree from which he took it,
-for he thought, ‘Perhaps there is, after
-all, some yearning of Nature between
-them still.’”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>There are enough anecdotes about
-birds as pets to fill another big book.
-One of Dickens’s most delightful characters
-was ponderous, impetuous Lawrence
-Boythorn, with his pet bird lovingly
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>circling about him. In Washington,
-in Salmon P. Chase’s home,
-when he was Secretary of the Treasury,
-lived a pet canary, one of the
-tamest, which had a special liking for
-the grave, reserved statesman. It was
-allowed to fly about the room freely,
-and had an invariable habit of calmly
-waiting beside the secretary at dinner
-until he had used his finger-bowl; then
-Master Canary would take possession
-of it for a bath. In Jean Paul Richter’s
-study stood a table with a cage of canaries.
-Between this and his writing
-table ran a little ladder, on which the
-birds could hop their way to the
-poet’s shoulder, where they frequently
-perched.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Celia Thaxter loved birds. She
-writes: “I can not express to you my
-distress at the destruction of the birds.
-You know how I love them; every
-other poem I have written has some
-bird for its subject, and I look at the
-ghastly horror of women’s headgear
-with absolute suffering. I remonstrate
-with every wearer of birds.
-No woman worthy of the name would
-wish to be instrumental in destroying
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>the dear, beautiful creatures, and for
-such idle folly—to deck their heads
-like squaws—who are supposed to
-know no better—when a ribbon or a
-flower would serve their purpose just
-as well, and not involve this fearful
-sacrifice.” In a letter she describes a
-night visit from birds.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Two or three of the earlier were
-down in the big bay window, and between
-two and three o’clock in the
-morning it began softly to rain, and
-all at once the room filled with birds:
-song sparrows, flycatchers, wrens, nuthatches,
-yellow birds, thrushes, all
-kinds of lovely feathered creatures
-fluttered in and sat on picture frames
-and gas fixtures, or whirled, agitated,
-in mid air, while troops of others beat
-their heads against the glass outside,
-vainly striving to get in. The light
-seemed to attract them as it does the
-moths. We had no peace, there was
-such a crowd, such cries and chirps
-and flutterings. I never heard of such
-a thing; did you?</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Oh, the birds! I do believe few
-people enjoy them as you and I do.
-The song sparrows and white-throats
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>follow after me like chickens when
-they see me planting. The martins
-almost light on my head; the humming
-birds <em>do</em>, and tangle their little
-claws in my hair; so do the sparrows.
-I wish somebody were here to tell me
-the different birds, and recognise these
-different voices. There are more birds
-than usual this year, I am happy to say.
-The women have not assassinated them
-all for the funeral pyres they carry on
-their heads.... What between the
-shrikes and owls and cats and weasels
-and women—worst of all—I wonder
-there’s a bird left on this planet.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“In the yard of the house at Newton,
-where we used to live, I was in
-the habit of fastening bones (from
-cooked meat) to a cherry tree which
-grew close to my sitting-room window;
-and when the snow lay thick upon the
-ground that tree would be alive with
-blue jays and chickadees, and woodpeckers,
-red-headed and others, and
-sparrows (not English), and various
-other delightful creatures. I was
-never tired watching them and listening
-to them. The sweet housekeeping
-of the martins in the little
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>boxes on my piazza roof is more enchanting
-to me than the most fascinating
-opera, and I worship music.
-I think I must have begun a conscious
-existence as some kind of a
-bird in æons past. I love them so!
-I am always up at four, and I hear
-everything every bird has to say on
-any subject whatever. Tell me, have
-you ever tied mutton and beef bones
-to the trees immediately around the
-house where you live for the birds?”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Matthew Arnold wrote of his canary
-and cat in a most loving way.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c016'><span class='sc'>Poor Matthias.</span></h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Poor Matthias! Found him lying</div>
- <div class='line'>Fallen beneath his perch and dying?</div>
- <div class='line'>Found him stiff, you say, though warm,</div>
- <div class='line'>All convulsed his little form?</div>
- <div class='line'>Poor canary, many a year</div>
- <div class='line'>Well he knew his mistress dear;</div>
- <div class='line'>Now in vain you call his name,</div>
- <div class='line'>Vainly raise his rigid frame.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Vainly warm him in your heart,</div>
- <div class='line'>Vainly kiss his golden crest,</div>
- <div class='line'>Smooth his ruffled plumage fine,</div>
- <div class='line'>Touch his trembling beak with wine.</div>
- <div class='line'>One more gasp, it is the end,</div>
- <div class='line'>Dead and mute our tiny friend.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>Poor Matthias, wouldst thou have</div>
- <div class='line'>More than pity? Claim’st a stave?</div>
- <div class='line'>Friends more near us than a bird</div>
- <div class='line'>We dismissed without a word.</div>
- <div class='line'>Rover with the good brown head,</div>
- <div class='line'>Great Attossa, they are dead;</div>
- <div class='line'>Dead, and neither prose nor rhyme</div>
- <div class='line'>Tells the praises of their prime.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><hr class='dotted' /></div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Thou hast seen Attossa sage</div>
- <div class='line'>Sit for hours beside thy cage;</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou wouldst chirp, thou foolish bird,</div>
- <div class='line'>Flutter, chirp, she never stirred.</div>
- <div class='line'>What were now these toys to her?</div>
- <div class='line'>Down she sank amid her fur;</div>
- <div class='line'>Eyed thee with a soul resigned,</div>
- <div class='line'>And thou deemedst cats were kind.</div>
- <div class='line'>Cruel, but composed and bland,</div>
- <div class='line'>Dumb, inscrutable and grand,</div>
- <div class='line'>So Tiberius might have sat</div>
- <div class='line'>Had Tiberius been a cat.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Fare thee well, companion dear,</div>
- <div class='line'>Fare forever well, nor fear,</div>
- <div class='line'>Tiny though thou art, to stray</div>
- <div class='line'>Down the uncompanioned way.</div>
- <div class='line'>We without thee, little friend,</div>
- <div class='line'>Many years have yet to spend;</div>
- <div class='line'>What are left will hardly be</div>
- <div class='line'>Better than we spent with thee.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Maclise was one of the intimate associates,
-if we may use the expression,
-of Dickens’s celebrated Raven. The
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>letter in which the bereaved owners
-announced to Maclise the death of
-this interesting bird has been published,
-but the reply of the artist is
-now printed for the first time:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“<em>March 13, 1841.</em></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c019'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Dickens</span>: I received the
-mournful intelligence of our friend’s
-decease last night at eleven, and the
-shock was great indeed. I have just
-dispatched the announcement to poor
-Forster, who will, I am sure, sympathize
-deeply with our bereavement.</p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“I know not what to think is the
-probable cause of his death—I reject
-the idea of the Butcher Boy, for the
-orders he must have in his (the Raven’s)
-lifetime received on acct. of the Raven
-himself must have been considerable—I
-rather cling to the notion of <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">felo de
-se</span></i>, but this will no doubt come out
-upon the post mortem. How blest
-we are to have such an intelligent
-coroner in Mr. Wakely! I think he
-was just of those grave, melancholic
-habits which are the noticeable signs
-of your intended suicide—his solitary
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>life—those gloomy tones, when he did
-speak—which was always to the purpose,
-witness his last dying speech—‘Hallo,
-old girl!’ which breathes of
-cheerfulness and triumphant resignation—his
-solemn suit of raven black
-which never grew rusty—altogether
-his character was the very prototype
-of a Byron Hero and even of a Scott—a
-master of Ravenswood——We
-ought to be glad he had his family,
-I suppose; he seems to have intended
-it, however, for his solicitude to deposit
-in those Banks in the Garden
-his savings, were always very touching—I
-suppose his obsequies will take
-place immediately—It is beautiful—the
-idea of his return soon after death
-to the scene of his early youth and
-all his joyful associations, to lie with
-kindred dusts amid his own ancestral
-groves, after having come out
-and made such a noise in the world,
-having clearly booked his place in
-that immortality coach driven by
-Dickens.</p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Yes, he committed suicide, he felt
-he had done it and done with life—the
-hundreds of years!! What were
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>they to him? There was nothing near
-to live for—and he committed the
-rash act.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r c015'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Sympathizingly yours,</div>
- <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>D. Maclise</span>.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c002'>The pet dove of Thurlow Weed
-seemed inconsolable after his death.
-When any gentleman called at the
-house the bird would alight on his
-shoulder, coo, and peer into his face.
-Then finding it was not his dear
-friend, he would sadly seek some
-other perch. Miss Weed writes:
-“Since the day that father’s remains
-were carried away, the affectionate
-creature has been seeking for his master.
-He flies through every room in
-the house, and fairly haunts the library.
-Many times every day the mourning
-bird comes and takes a survey of the
-room. He will tread over every inch
-of space on the lounge, and then go
-to the rug, over which he will walk
-repeatedly, as if in expectation of his
-dead master’s coming. Does not this
-seem akin to human grief?”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Whittier wrote a good deal about
-his pet parrot. Read his poem called
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>“The Bird’s Question.” After his
-tragic end, the Quaker bard wrote of
-him: “I have met with a real loss.
-Poor Charlie is dead. He has gone
-where the good parrots go. He has
-been ailing and silent for some time,
-and he finally died. Do not laugh at
-me, but I am sorry enough to cry if
-it would do any good. He was an old
-friend. Lizzie liked him. And he
-was the heartiest, jolliest, pleasantest
-old fellow I ever saw.” He used to
-perch upon the back of his master’s
-chair at meal time; at times disgracefully
-profane, especially when in moments
-of extreme excitement he would
-climb to the steeple by way of the
-lightning rod, and there he would
-dance and sing and swear on a Sunday
-morning, amusing the passer-by
-and shocking his owner. At last he
-fell down the chimney, and was not
-discovered for two days. He was rescued
-in the middle of the night, and, although
-he partially recovered, he soon
-died. Whittier said: “We buried poor
-Charlie decently. If there is a parrot’s
-paradise he ought to go there.”
-He also had a pet Bantam rooster
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>which would perch on his shoulder,
-and liked to be buttoned up in his
-coat. Grace Greenwood in Heads
-or Tails speaks of a diplomatic parrot
-belonging to Seward, at Washington,
-taking part in political discussion, trying
-to scream Sumner down, and so
-sympathetic that when his master had
-a cough he had symptoms of bronchitis.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>In a trustworthy collection of epitaphs
-may be found this quaint tribute
-with old-fashioned formality to a pet
-bird:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Here lieth, aged three months, the
-body of Richard Acanthus, a young
-person of unblemished character. He
-was taken in his callow infancy from
-the wing of a tender parent by the
-rough and pitiless hand of a two-legged
-animal without feathers.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Though born with the most aspiring
-disposition and unbending love of
-freedom he was closely confined in a
-grated prison, and scarcely permitted
-to view those fields of which he had
-an undoubted charter.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Deeply sensible of this infringement
-of his natural rights, he was often
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>heard to petition for redress in the most
-plaintive notes of harmonious sorrow.
-At length his imprisoned soul burst
-the prison which his body could not,
-and left a lifeless heap of beauteous
-feathers.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“If suffering innocence can hope for
-retribution, deny not to the gentle
-shade of this unfortunate captive the
-humble though uncertain hope of animating
-some happier form; or trying
-his new-fledged pinions in some happy
-Elysium, beyond the reach of <span class='sc'>Man</span>,
-the tyrant of this lower world.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Few women are so fond of pets as
-Sarah Bernhardt. She carries five or
-six with her in all her travels. When
-in New York the French actress has
-apartments at the Hoffman House.
-When the writer last visited her there
-he was received, upon entering the
-sitting room, by half a dozen dogs,
-ranging in size and species from the
-massive St. Bernard to the tiny, shivering
-black and tan.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The actress rose from a low divan
-and extended one hand to her guest
-while she pressed two very small
-snakes to her bosom with the other.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>After she had resumed her seat upon
-the divan, and while conversing, she
-fondled the snakes or allowed them to
-squirm at will over her person.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>In reply to questions, Madame Bernhardt
-said that the snakes were used
-in the famous scene where Cleopatra
-presses the asp to her bosom and dies.
-The actress explained that the snakes
-with which she was playing were presented
-to her by a gentleman in Philadelphia.
-She spoke regretfully of the
-death of the snakes which she had
-brought with her from France, and
-which had succumbed to the hardships
-of the ocean voyage.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Emily Crawford tells some good
-stories about “The Elder Dumas,”
-the most dashingly picturesque character,
-surely, in the whole range of
-literature. We quote a paragraph
-showing Dumas’s fondness for animals:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“At his architectural folly of Monte
-Cristo, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
-which he built at a cost of upward of
-seven hundred thousand francs, and
-sold for thirty-six thousand francs in
-1848, Dumas had uninclosed grounds
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>and gardens, which, with the house,
-afforded lodgings and entertainment
-not only to a host of Bohemian
-‘sponges,’ but to all the dogs, cats,
-and donkeys that chose to quarter
-themselves in the place. It was called
-by the neighbours ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la Maison de Bon
-Dieu</span></i>.’ There was a menagerie in the
-park, peopled by three apes; Jugurtha,
-the vulture, whose transport
-from Africa, whence Dumas fetched
-him, cost forty thousand francs (it
-would be too long to tell why); a big
-parrot called Duval; a macaw named
-Papa, and another christened Everard;
-Lucullus, the golden pheasant; Cæsar,
-the game-cock; a pea-fowl and a guinea-fowl;
-Myeouf II, the Angora cat, and
-the Scotch pointer, Pritchard. This
-dog was a character. He was fond of
-canine society, and used to sit in the
-road looking out for other dogs to
-invite them to keep him company at
-Monte Cristo. He was taken by his
-master to Ham to visit Louis Napoleon
-when a prisoner there. The
-latter wished to keep Pritchard, but
-counted without the intelligence of
-the animal in asking Dumas before
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>his face to leave him behind. The
-pointer set up a howl so piteous that
-the governor of the prison withdrew
-the authorization he had given his
-captive to retain him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>It is difficult to think of any created
-thing that has not been found sufficiently
-interesting to be petted by
-some one!</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Pliny tells us of a cow that followed
-a Pythagorean philosopher on all his
-travels. Proud Wolsey was on familiar
-terms with a venerable carp. St.
-Anthony had a fondness for pigs.
-Frank Buckland took to rats. Buffon’s
-toad has become historical. Clive
-owned a pet tortoise. Gautier wrote
-of his lizards, magpie, and chameleon.
-Butterflies and crickets have been
-domesticated and found responsive.
-Rosa Bonheur used to be always escorted
-by two great dogs, one on
-either side, while in her home a favourite
-monkey played upon her staircase,
-and amused visitors with its gambols
-and pranks. Cowper doffed his
-melancholy to play with hares, and
-immortalized his rather ungrateful
-pensioners in verse:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>Well—one at least is safe. One sheltered hare</div>
- <div class='line'>Has never heard the sanguinary yell</div>
- <div class='line'>Of cruel man, exulting in her woes,</div>
- <div class='line'>Innocent partner of my peaceful home,</div>
- <div class='line'>Whom ten long years’ experience of my care</div>
- <div class='line'>Has made at last familiar; she has lost</div>
- <div class='line'>Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,</div>
- <div class='line'>Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.</div>
- <div class='line'>Yes—thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand</div>
- <div class='line'>That feeds thee; thou mayst frolic on the floor</div>
- <div class='line'>At ev’ning, and at night retire secure</div>
- <div class='line'>To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed;</div>
- <div class='line'>For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged</div>
- <div class='line'>All that is human in me, to protect</div>
- <div class='line'>Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.</div>
- <div class='line'>If I survive thee, I will dig thy grave;</div>
- <div class='line'>And, when I place thee in it, sighing say,</div>
- <div class='line'>I knew at least one hare that had a friend.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>James M. Hoppin, in his Old England,
-tells of his visit to Olney, where
-Cowper lived. He went to the rooms
-where he kept his hares, Puss, Bess,
-and Tiny; of the veteran survivor of
-this famous trio he says Cowper wrote:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Though duly from my hand he took</div>
- <div class='line in2'>His pittance every night,</div>
- <div class='line'>He did it with a jealous look,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And when he could, would bite.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Dr. John Hall was seen trudging
-through Central Park last winter, followed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>by a troop of frisky little gay
-squirrels. He had been feeding nuts
-to them, and they scattered the snow
-in clouds as they scampered along
-hoping to get more.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>It would be interesting to quote
-from very many distinguished persons
-who believe in the immortality
-of the lower animals.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Lord Shaftesbury says: “I have ever
-believed in a happy future for animals.
-I can not say or conjecture how or
-where, but sure I am that the love so
-manifested, by dogs especially, is an
-emanation from the Divine essence,
-and as such it can, or rather it will,
-never be extinguished.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Frances Power Cobbe wrote: “I
-entirely believe in a higher existence
-hereafter, both for myself and for those
-whose less happy lives on earth entitle
-them far more to expect it, from eternal
-love and justice.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mr. Somerville said: “The dear animals
-I believe we shall meet. They suffer
-so often here they must live again!
-Pain seems a poor proof of immortality,
-but it is used by theologians,
-and we find many great souls who believe
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>and hope that animals may also
-have another life. Agassiz believed
-in this firmly. Bishop Butler saw no
-reason why the latent powers and capacities
-of the lower animals should
-not be developed in the future, and
-in his Analogy of Religion he endeavoured
-to carry out this train of thought,
-and to show that the lower animals do
-possess those mental and moral characteristics
-which we admit in ourselves
-to belong to the immortal spirit and not
-to the perishable body.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The Rev. J. G. Wood has written
-a most interesting book on Man and
-Beast: Here and Hereafter, with the
-especial aim of proving the immortality
-of the brute creation, showing
-that they share with man the attributes
-of reason, language, memory, a
-sense of moral responsibility, unselfishness,
-and love, all of which belong
-to the spirit and not to the body.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Bayard Taylor says, “If one should
-surmise a lower form of spiritual being
-yet equally indestructible, who
-need take alarm?” “Yea, they have
-all one breath, so that a man hath no
-pre-eminence above a beast, for all is
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>vanity,” said the Preacher, more than
-two thousand years ago. In Taylor’s
-poem to an old horse, Ben Equus,
-which died on the farm when he was
-a young man, he uses the same idea:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>For I may dream fidelity like thine,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>May save some essence in thee from decay,</div>
- <div class='line'>That, not neglected by the Soul Divine,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Thy being rises on some unknown way.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Some intermediate heaven, where fields are fresh,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And golden stables littered deep with fern;</div>
- <div class='line'>Where fade the wrongs that horses knew in flesh,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>And all the joys that horses felt return.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mrs. Charles writes:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Is all this lost in nothingness,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>Such gladness, love, and hope, and trust,</div>
- <div class='line'>Such busy thought our thoughts to guess,</div>
- <div class='line in2'>All trampled into common dust?</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Or is there something yet to come</div>
- <div class='line in2'>From all our science all concealed,</div>
- <div class='line'>About the patient creatures dumb</div>
- <div class='line in2'>A secret yet to be revealed?</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Writing of the death of a favourite
-spaniel, Southey expresses the same
-faith:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in6'>... Mine is no narrow creed,</div>
- <div class='line'>And he that gave thee being did not frame</div>
- <div class='line'>The mystery of life to be the sport</div>
- <div class='line'>Of merciless man. There is another world</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>For all that live and move—a better one,</div>
- <div class='line'>Where the proud bipeds who would fain confine</div>
- <div class='line'>Infinite Goodness to the little bounds</div>
- <div class='line'>Of their own charity, may envy thee.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Mrs. Mary Somerville wrote these
-words at the age of eighty-nine: “If
-animals have no future, the existence
-of many is most wretched. Multitudes
-are starved, cruelly beaten, and
-loaded during life; many die under a
-barbarous vivisection. I can not believe
-that any creature was created
-for uncompensated misery; it would
-be contrary to the attributes of God’s
-mercy and justice. I am sincerely
-happy to find that I am not the only
-believer in the immortality of the
-lower animals.” Lamartine has the
-same thought in an address to his
-dog, and many other wise men have
-hoped that such a future was a reality.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The Rev. Henry Storrs says it is
-wisest to treat animals kindly, because,
-if we are ever to meet them again, it
-will be pleasanter to have them on our
-side.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Henry Ward Beecher many times
-owned his love for horses, as in his
-one novel, Norwood:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>“I tell you,” said Hiram, turning
-slightly toward the doctor, “these
-horses are jest as near human as is
-good for ’em. A good horse has
-sense jest as much as a man has; and
-he’s proud, too, and he loves to be
-praised, and he knows when you treat
-him with respect. A good horse has
-the best p’ints of a man without his
-failin’s.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“What do you think becomes of
-horses, Hiram, when they die?” said
-Rose.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Wal, Miss Rose, it’s my opinion
-that there’s use for horses hereafter,
-and that you’ll find there’s a horse-heaven.
-There’s Scripture for that,
-too.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Ah!” said Rose, a little surprised
-at these confident assertions. “What
-Scripture do you mean?”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Why, in the Book of Revelation!
-Don’t it give an account of a white
-horse, and a red horse, and black
-horses, and gray horses? I’ve allers
-s’posed that when it said Death rode
-on a pale horse, it must have been
-gray, ’cause it had mentioned white
-once already. In the ninth chapter,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>too, it says there was an army of two
-hundred thousand horsemen. Now, I
-should like to know where they got
-so many horses in heaven, if none of
-’em that die off here go there? It’s
-my opinion that a good horse’s a
-darned sight likelier to go to heaven
-than a bad man!”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>When we see the superiority of a
-noble horse to his brutal or drunken
-driver, it seems at least possible, and
-most of us have lost some pet that we
-would rather meet again than the majority
-of our acquaintances.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Helen Barron Bostwick, after “burying
-her pretty brown mare under the
-cherry tree,” inquires:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Is this the end?</div>
- <div class='line'>Do you know?</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>and closes her poem as follows:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Is there aught of harm believing,</div>
- <div class='line'>That, some newer form receiving,</div>
- <div class='line'>They may find a wider sphere,</div>
- <div class='line'>Live a larger life than here?</div>
- <div class='line'>That the meek, appealing eyes,</div>
- <div class='line'>Haunted by strange mysteries,</div>
- <div class='line'>Find a more extended field,</div>
- <div class='line'>To new destinies unsealed;</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>Or, that in the ripened prime</div>
- <div class='line'>Of some far-off summer time,</div>
- <div class='line'>Ranging that unknown domain,</div>
- <div class='line'>We may find our pets again.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>Sir Edwin Arnold has translated
-much that is touching about those
-who are devoted to animals. A sinful
-woman led out to die by stoning
-was pardoned by the king, because of
-her pity, even at that terrible crisis,
-for a dying dog:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Glaring upon the water out of reach,</div>
- <div class='line'>And praying succor in a silent speech,</div>
- <div class='line'>So piteous were its eyes which, when she saw,</div>
- <div class='line'>This woman from her foot her shoe did draw,</div>
- <div class='line'>Albeit death-sorrowful, and looping up</div>
- <div class='line'>The long silk of her girdle, made a cup</div>
- <div class='line'>Of the heel’s hollow, and thus let it sink</div>
- <div class='line'>Until it touched the cool, black water’s brink,</div>
- <div class='line'>So filled the embroidered shoe and gave a draught</div>
- <div class='line'>To the spent beast.</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in20'>This brute beast</div>
- <div class='line'>Testifies for thee, sister! whose weak breast</div>
- <div class='line'>Death could not make ungentle. I hold rule</div>
- <div class='line'>In Allah’s stead, who is the merciful,</div>
- <div class='line'>And hope for mercy; therefore go thou free—</div>
- <div class='line'>I dare not show less pity unto thee!</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>We send missionaries to the East to
-teach those who in some respects are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>well fitted by their pure lives, exalted
-aims, and mercy toward the brute
-creation to instruct us. How exquisite
-the story of the man who would
-not enter heaven and leave his dog behind!</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>But the king answered: “O thou Wisest One,</div>
- <div class='line'>Who knowest what was, and is, and is to be,</div>
- <div class='line'>Still one more grace: this hound hath ate with me,</div>
- <div class='line'>Followed me, loved me: must I leave him now?”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Monarch,” spake Indra, “thou art now as we—</div>
- <div class='line'>Deathless, divine—thou art become a god;</div>
- <div class='line'>Glory and power and gifts celestial,</div>
- <div class='line'>And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye.</div>
- <div class='line'>What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound.”</div>
- <div class='line'>Yet Yudhishthira answered: “O Most High,</div>
- <div class='line'>O thousand-eyed and wisest; can it be</div>
- <div class='line'>That one exalted should seem pitiless?</div>
- <div class='line'>Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake</div>
- <div class='line'>I would not leave one living thing I loved.”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Then sternly Indra spake: “He is unclean,</div>
- <div class='line'>And into Swarga such shall enter not.</div>
- <div class='line'>The Krodhavasha’s hand destroys the fruits</div>
- <div class='line'>Of sacrifice, if dogs defile the fire.</div>
- <div class='line'>Bethink thee, Dharmaraj, quit now this beast;</div>
- <div class='line'>That which is seemly is not hard of heart.”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Still he replied: “’Tis written that to spurn</div>
- <div class='line'>A suppliant equals in offence to slay</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga’s bliss</div>
- <div class='line'>Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog.</div>
- <div class='line'>So without any hope or friend save me,</div>
- <div class='line'>So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness,</div>
- <div class='line'>So agonized to die, unless I help</div>
- <div class='line'>Who among men was called steadfast and just.”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Quoth Indra: “Nay, the altar flame is foul</div>
- <div class='line'>Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep</div>
- <div class='line'>The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits</div>
- <div class='line'>Of offering, and the merit of the prayer</div>
- <div class='line'>Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here;</div>
- <div class='line'>He that will enter heaven must enter pure.</div>
- <div class='line'>Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way,</div>
- <div class='line'>And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,</div>
- <div class='line'>Attaining firm and glorious, to this mount</div>
- <div class='line'>Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?</div>
- <div class='line'>Hath Yudhishthira vanquished self, to melt</div>
- <div class='line'>With one poor passion at the door of bliss?</div>
- <div class='line'>Stay’st thou for this, who didst not stay for them—</div>
- <div class='line'>Draupadi, Bhima?”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in18'>But the king yet spake:</div>
- <div class='line'>“’Tis known that none can hurt or help the dead.</div>
- <div class='line'>They, the delightful ones, who sank and died,</div>
- <div class='line'>Following my footsteps, could not live again</div>
- <div class='line'>Though I had turned, therefore I did not turn;</div>
- <div class='line'>But could help profit, I had turned to help.</div>
- <div class='line'>There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins:</div>
- <div class='line'>The first is making suppliants despair,</div>
- <div class='line'>The second is to slay a nursing wife,</div>
- <div class='line'>The third is spoiling Brahmans’ goods by force,</div>
- <div class='line'>The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>These four I deem but equal to one sin,</div>
- <div class='line'>If one, in coming forth from woe to weal,</div>
- <div class='line'>Abandon any meanest comrade then.”</div>
- </div>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled;</div>
- <div class='line'>Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there</div>
- <div class='line'>The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma’s self.</div>
- <div class='line'>Sweet were the words that fell from those dread lips,</div>
- <div class='line'>Precious the lovely praise: “O thou true king,</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou that dost bring to harvest the true seed</div>
- <div class='line'>Of Pandu’s righteousness; thou that hast ruth</div>
- <div class='line'>As he before, on all which lives! O son,</div>
- <div class='line'>I tried thee in the Dwaita wood, what time</div>
- <div class='line'>They smote thy brothers, bringing water; then</div>
- <div class='line'>Thou prayed’st for Nakula’s life, tender and just,</div>
- <div class='line'>Not Bhima’s nor Arjuna’s, true to both,</div>
- <div class='line'>To Madri as to Kunti, to both queens.</div>
- <div class='line'>Hear thou my word: Because thou didst not mount</div>
- <div class='line'>This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent</div>
- <div class='line'>Who looked to thee—lo! there is none in heaven</div>
- <div class='line'>Shall sit above thee, King Bharata’s son!</div>
- <div class='line'>Enter thou now to the eternal joys,</div>
- <div class='line'>Living and in thy form. Justice and love</div>
- <div class='line'>Welcome thee, monarch; thou shalt throne with them.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c004'>As a farmer and butter-maker I
-want to condense a dissertation on
-The Intellectual Cow, taken from the
-London Spectator:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The writer resents the general impression
-that the cow is merely a food
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>machine, and proves that she never
-yet has had justice done to her mental
-qualities, and is entitled to more
-respectful consideration.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Cows certainly possess decided individuality,
-and in every herd will
-be found a master mind which leads
-and domineers over the rest or acts
-as ringleader in mischief. They soon
-learn their own names, and will answer
-to them, and seldom make mistakes
-as to their own stalls. They are
-also undoubtedly influenced by affection,
-and will give down milk more
-freely to a friend than to one who is
-brutal in his manner.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Moreover, they enjoy petting just
-as much as humans, and will greet
-with delight those who bring offerings
-of potatoes or apple-parings or
-bits of bread, or who will give their
-heads and necks the luxury of a good
-rub.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Charles Dudley Warner, in Being
-a Boy, pays a glowing tribute to the
-Martial Turkey:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Perhaps it is not generally known
-that we get the idea of some of our
-best military manœuvres from the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>turkey. The deploying of the skirmish
-line in advance of an army is
-one of them. The drum major of our
-holiday militia companies is copied
-exactly from the turkey gobbler: he
-has the same splendid appearance, the
-same proud step, and the same martial
-aspect. The gobbler does not lead his
-forces in the field, but goes behind them,
-like the colonel of a regiment, so that
-he can see every part of the line and direct
-its movements. This resemblance
-is one of the most singular things in
-natural history. I like to watch the
-gobbler manœuvring his forces in a
-grasshopper field. He throws out his
-company of two dozen turkeys in a crescent-shaped
-skirmish line, the number
-disposed at equal distances, while he
-walks majestically in the rear. They
-advance rapidly, picking right and left,
-with military precision, killing the foe
-and disposing of the dead bodies with
-the same peck. Nobody has yet discovered
-how many grasshoppers a
-turkey will hold; but he is very much
-like a boy at a Thanksgiving dinner—he
-keeps on eating as long as the supplies
-last. The gobbler, in one of these
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>raids, does not condescend to grab a
-single grasshopper—at least, not while
-anybody is watching him. But I suppose
-he makes up for it when his dignity
-can not be injured by having spectators
-of his voracity; perhaps he falls
-upon the grasshoppers when they are
-driven into a corner of the field. But
-he is only fattening himself for destruction;
-like all greedy persons, he
-comes to a bad end. And if the turkeys
-had any Sunday school, they
-would be taught this.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>Josh Billings, in his Animile Statistix,
-proved that he had been a close
-observer. He says in this comical
-medley:</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Kats are affectionate, they luv
-young chickens, sweet kream, and the
-best place in front of the fireplace.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Dogs are faithful; they will stick
-to a bone after everybody haz deserted
-it.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The ox knoweth hiz master’s krib,
-and that iz all he duz kno or care about
-hiz master.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Munkeys are imitatiff, but if they
-kan’t imitate some deviltry they ain’t
-happy.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>“The goose is like all other phools—alwuss
-seems anxious to prove it.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Ducks are only cunning about one
-thing: they lay their eggs in sitch sly
-places that sumtimes they kan’t find
-them again themselfs.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The mushrat kan foresee a hard
-winter and provide for it, but he
-kan’t keep from gittin ketched in the
-sylliest kind ov a trap.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Hens know when it is a going to
-rain, and shelter themselfs, but they
-will try to hatch out a glass egg just
-az honest az they will one ov their
-own.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The cuckcoo iz the greatest ekonemist
-among the birds, she lays her eggs
-in other birds’ nests, and lets them hatch
-them out at their leizure.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“Rats hav fewer friends and more
-enemies than anything ov the four-legged
-purswashun on the face ov
-the earth, and yet rats are az plenty
-now az in the palmyest days ov the
-Roman Empire.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The horse alwuss gits up from the
-ground on his fore legs first, the kow
-on her hind ones, and the dog turns
-round 3 times before he lies down.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>“The kangaroo he jumps when he
-walks, the coon paces when he trots,
-the lobster travels backwards az fast
-az he does forward.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>“The elephant has the least, and the
-rabbit the most eye for their size, and
-a rat’s tale is just the length ov hiz
-boddy.”</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>The very latest item of interest to
-dog-lovers is the announcement that
-Bismarck has purchased a two-pound
-King Charles spaniel from the dog
-show in Boston.</p>
-
-<p class='c004'>My collection is now as complete
-as the limitations of time and the publishers
-will allow. As proprietor, I
-beg leave to announce my Literary
-Zoo as now open at all hours (for a
-moderate fee) to those interested in
-what we call, with conceit and possibly
-ignorance, the inferior orders of
-creation, and the dumb brutes.</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>THE END.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='section ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>D. APPLETON &amp; CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>SLEEPING FIRES.</cite> By <span class='sc'>George Gissing</span>, author of
-“In the Year of Jubilee,” “Eve’s Ransom,” etc. 16mo.
-Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>In this striking story the author has treated an original motive with rare
-self-command and skill. His book is most interesting as a story, and remarkable
-as a literary performance.</p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>STONEPASTURES.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Eleanor Stuart</span>. 16mo.
-Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“This is a strong bit of good literary workmanship.... The book has
-the value of being a real sketch of our own mining regions, and of showing
-how, even in the apparently dull round of work, there is still material for a
-good bit of literature.”—<cite>Philadelphia Ledger.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>COURTSHIP BY COMMAND.</cite> By <span class='sc'>M. M. Blake</span>.
-16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“A bright, moving study of an unusually interesting period in the life
-of Napoleon,&nbsp;... deliciously told; the characters are clearly, strongly, and
-very delicately modeled, and the touches of color most artistically done.
-‘Courtship by Command’ is the most satisfactory Napoleon bonne-bouche
-we have had.”—<cite>New York Commercial Advertiser.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE WATTER’S MOU’.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Bram Stoker</span>. 16mo.
-Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“Here is a tale to stir the most sluggish nature.... It is like standing
-on the deck of a wave-tossed ship; you feel the soul of the storm go
-into your blood.”—<cite>New York Home Journal.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>MASTER AND MAN.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Count Leo Tolstoy</span>.
-With an Introduction by <span class='sc'>W. D. Howells</span>. 16mo. Cloth,
-75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“Crowded with these characteristic touches which mark his literary
-work.”—<cite>Public Opinion.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Reveals a wonderful knowledge of the workings of the human mind,
-and it tells a tale that not only stirs the emotions, but gives us a better insight
-into our own hearts.”—<cite>San Francisco Argonaut.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE ZEIT-GEIST.</cite> By <span class='sc'>L. Dougall</span>, author of “The
-Mermaid,” “Beggars All,” etc. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“One of the best of the short stories of the day.”—<cite>Boston Journal.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“One of the most remarkable novels of the year.”—<cite>New York Commercial
-Advertiser.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Powerful in conception, treatment, and influence.”—<cite>Boston Globe.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE ONE WHO LOOKED ON.</cite> By <span class='sc'>F. F. Montrésor</span>,
-author of “Into the Highways and Hedges.”
-16mo. Cloth, special binding, $1.25.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“The story runs on as smoothly as a brook through lowlands; it excites
-your interest at the beginning and keeps it to the end.”—<cite>New York
-Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“An exquisite story.... No person sensitive to the influence of what
-makes for the true, the lovely, and the strong in human friendship and the
-real in life’s work can read this book without being benefited by it.”—<cite>Buffalo
-Commercial.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“The book has universal interest and very unusual merit.... Aside
-from its subtle poetic charm, the book is a noble example of the power of
-keen observation.”—<cite>Boston Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>CORRUPTION.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Percy White</span>, author of “Mr.
-Bailey-Martin,” etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“There is intrigue enough in it for those who love a story of the ordinary
-kind, and the political part is perhaps more attractive in its sparkle
-and variety of incident than the real thing itself.”—<cite>London Daily News.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“A drama of biting intensity, a tragedy of inflexible purpose and relentless
-result.”—<cite>Pall Mall Gazette.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>A HARD WOMAN.</cite> A Story in Scenes. By <span class='sc'>Violet
-Hunt</span>. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“An extremely clever work. Miss Hunt probably writes dialogue better
-than any of our young novelists.... Not only are her conversations
-wonderfully vivacious and sustained, but she contrives to assign to each of
-her characters a distinct mode of speech, so that the reader easily identifies
-them, and can follow the conversations without the slightest difficulty.”—<cite>London
-Athenæum.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“One of the best writers of dialogue of our immediate day. The conversations
-in this book will enhance her already secure reputation.”—<cite>London
-Daily Chronicle.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>AN IMAGINATIVE MAN.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Robert S. Hichens</span>,
-author of “The Green Carnation,” etc. 12mo.
-Cloth, $1.25.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“One of the brightest books of the year.”—<cite>Boston Budget.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Altogether delightful, fascinating, unusual.”—<cite>Cleveland Amusement
-Gazette.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“A study in character.... Just as entertaining as though it were the
-conventional story of love and marriage. The clever hand of the author
-of ‘The Green Carnation’ is easily detected in the caustic wit and pointed
-epigram.”—<em>Jeannette L. Gilder, in the New York World.</em></p>
-
-<div class='ph3'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>TWO REMARKABLE AMERICAN NOVELS.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. An Episode of
-the American Civil War.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Stephen Crane</span>. 12mo.
-Cloth, $1.00.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“Mr. Stephen Crane is a great artist, with something new to say, and
-consequently with a new way of saying it.... In ‘The Red Badge of
-Courage’ Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece.... He has
-painted a picture that challenges comparison with the most vivid scenes
-of Tolstoy’s ‘La Guerre et la Paix’ or of Zola’s ‘La Débácle.’”—<cite>London
-New Review.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“In its whole range of literature we can call to mind nothing so searching
-in its analysis, so manifestly impressed with the stamp of truth, as ‘The
-Red Badge of Courage.’... A remarkable study of the average mind
-under stress of battle.... We repeat, a really fine achievement.”—<cite>London
-Daily Chronicle.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Not merely a remarkable book: it is a revelation.... One feels that,
-with perhaps one or two exceptions, all previous descriptions of modern
-warfare have been the merest abstractions.”—<cite>St. James Gazette.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Holds one irrevocably. There is no possibility of resistance when
-once you are in its grip, from the first of the march of the troops to the
-closing scenes.... Mr. Crane, we repeat, has written a remarkable book.
-His insight and his power of realization amount to genius.”—<cite>Pall Mall
-Gazette.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the
-American Revolution.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Chauncey C. Hotchkiss</span>.
-12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“The whole story is so completely absorbing that you will sit far into
-the night to finish it. You lay it aside with the feeling that you have seen
-a gloriously true picture of the Revolution.”—<cite>Boston Herald.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“The story is a strong one—a thrilling one. It causes the true American
-to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter until the eyes
-smart; and it fairly smokes with patriotism.”—<cite>N. Y. Mail and Express.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking part in the
-scenes described.... Altogether the book is an addition to American
-literature.”—<cite>Chicago Evening Post.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“One of the most readable novels of the year.... As a love romance
-it is charming, while it is filled with thrilling adventure and deeds of patriotic
-daring.”—<cite>Boston Advertiser.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“This romance seems to come the nearest to a satisfactory treatment
-in fiction of the Revolutionary period that we have yet had.”—<cite>Buffalo
-Courier.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“A clean, wholesome story, full of romance and interesting adventure....
-Holds the interest alike by the thread of the story and by the incidents....
-A remarkably well-balanced and absorbing novel.”—<cite>Milwaukee
-Journal.</cite></p>
-
-<div class='ph3'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>GILBERT PARKER’S BEST BOOKS.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY.</cite> Being the
-Memoirs of Captain <span class='sc'>Robert Moray</span>, sometime an Officer
-in the Virginia Regiment, and afterward of Amherst’s Regiment.
-12mo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.50.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>For the time of his story Mr. Parker has chosen the most absorbing
-period of the romantic eighteenth-century history of Quebec. The curtain
-rises soon after General Braddock’s defeat in Virginia, and the hero, a prisoner
-in Quebec, curiously entangled in the intrigues of La Pompadour,
-becomes a part of a strange history, full of adventure and the stress of peril,
-which culminates only after Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm. The material
-offered by the life and history of old Quebec has never been utilized
-for the purposes of fiction with the command of plot and incident, the mastery
-of local color, and the splendid realization of dramatic situations shown
-in this distinguished and moving romance. The illustrations preserve the
-atmosphere of the text, for they present the famous buildings, gates, and
-battle-grounds as they appeared at the time of the hero’s imprisonment in
-Quebec.</p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD.</cite> A Novel. l2mo.
-Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“Mr. Parker here adds to a reputation already wide, and anew demonstrates
-his power of pictorial portrayal and of strong dramatic situation and
-climax.”—<cite>Philadelphia Bulletin.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“The tale holds the reader’s interest from first to last, for it is full of
-fire and spirit, abounding in incident, and marked by good character-drawing.”—<cite>Pittsburg
-Times.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE TRESPASSER.</cite> 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth,
-$1.00.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“Interest, pith, force, and charm—Mr. Parker’s new story possesses all
-these qualities.... Almost bare of synthetical decoration, his paragraphs
-are stirring because they are real. We read at times—as we have read the
-great masters of romance—breathlessly.”—<cite>The Critic.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“Gilbert Parker writes a strong novel, but thus far this is his masterpiece....
-It is one of the great novels of the year.”—<cite>Boston Advertiser.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c003'><cite>THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE.</cite> 16mo.
-Flexible cloth, 75 cents.</p>
-
-<p class='c014'>“A book which no one will be satisfied to put down until the end has
-been matter of certainty and assurance.”—<cite>The Nation.</cite></p>
-
-<p class='c019'>“A story of remarkable interest, originality, and ingenuity of construction.”—<cite>Boston
-Home Journal.</cite></p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c005'>
- <div>New York: D. APPLETON &amp; CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c007' />
-</div>
-<div class='tnotes'>
-
-<div class='section ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c001'>
- <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
- <ol class='ol_1'>
- <li>Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
-
- </li>
- <li>Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
- </li>
- </ol>
-
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Literary Zoo, by Kate Sanborn
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