Chapter I: Part 1

MY LITERARY ZOO

KATE SANBORN’S BOOKS.

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=A Truthful Woman in Southern California.= 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.

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New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.

My Literary Zoo

By

Kate Sanborn

Author of Adopting an Abandoned Farm, Abandoning an Adopted Farm, A
Truthful Woman in Southern California, Etc.

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.