THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGS.

I am about to do a very unpopular thing,—namely, to write realistically about the dog and to protest mildly against the extravagant and sentimental way of writing about him which has become so fashionable and which threatens to make him a veritable fetich. The intolerance of his worshippers has already attained a height of dogmatism (the pun is hardly a conscious one) which is truly theologic. I have been made aware, when expressing dissent or a low measure of faith, of an ill-concealed scorn, such as curls the lip of a Boston liberal or lights the eye of a "Hard-Shell" or a Covenanter when any one ventures to differ from him.

The theory is gravely advanced of a dog heaven,—not confined to the poor Indian, whose paradise consists of happy hunting-grounds, where, of course, he will need his faithful hound to keep him company. The main argument of white men is generally found to be the superiority of canine virtue over the human. Whether the word "cynic" originates from a similar source I will not undertake to say; but I have more than half a suspicion that such talk proceeds rather from a prejudice against men than a genuine enthusiasm for dogs. This was doubtless the feeling of the Frenchman who said, "Plus je connais l'homme, plus je préfère le chien." As to any argument drawn from the need of compensation elsewhere for privation endured on earth, however it might hold concerning the ancient dog, there is no foundation for the claim now; for verily the modern dog hath his portion in this life,—and a double one, too.

I am impelled by no fanatical zeal, and have no creed or cult of my own to vindicate. I am influenced only by a noble love of truth and a sublime sense of duty in arraying myself with the despised minority,—perhaps I may say by a sense of fair play for the "under dog." I do not ask the kynolatrist to "call off his dogs" altogether: I merely ask him to allow those who do not share his enthusiasm to pass by on the other side without his setting the dogs upon them. I would recall to the sentimentalist who goes on repeating his stock phrases and, perhaps, like Mr. Winkle, pretending an enthusiasm which he does not feel, the wholesome advice of Dr. Johnson, "Sir, free your mind of cant." Canon Farrar tells of a gentleman who was seated in the smoking-room of an English hotel when a dog entered. He became violently agitated, so that a waiter had to bend over and whisper to him, "It's a real dog." The poor fellow was subject to a form of delirium tremens which caused him to see imaginary dogs. I fear the disease is epidemic and is on the increase. I would kindly recall the public mind to the real dog. At least, I would suggest that the other side be heard; for those who have had most to say on the subject seem to me to exhibit a one-sided habit of mind, analogous to the manner of running observable in their favorites.

It is difficult to trace the origin of this new theology, the apotheosis of the Dog. It is certainly altogether un-Biblical. The whole tenor of Scripture is decidedly uncomplimentary to the species. It is even proclaimed as a new commandment, "Beware of dogs." They are everywhere presented as the symbol of all that is unclean, noisy, greedy, and dangerous. The nearest to a compliment I can find is the saying that "a living dog is better than a dead lion." The only good deed recorded of them is that of licking the wounds of poor Lazarus. When Hazael would express in the strongest terms his incapability of the most shocking conduct, he asks, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Job seems to have felt that he could say nothing more scathing of certain persons who derided him than that "their fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." Instead of a dog heaven, we are told that one of the bright distinctions and blessed securities of the New Jerusalem will be that "without are dogs."

Nor would it seem to be a religion of nature. I find little, if any, more respect shown to the species in mythology,—the nearest to an apotheosis being the assignment of the janitorship of hell to a dog with three heads. Egyptian mythology found it convenient to have a dog-headed man—Anubis—as the attendant of Isis and Osiris. The cynocephali whom the Egyptians venerated were more properly baboons: so that their dog heaven, one might say, was only such on its face.

Language is the amber which preserves the thought of man. We need not dig far into the etymological strata to be impressed by the unenviable place which the dog has made for himself in the tradition and experience of our race. The name itself, and still more its variations, such as cur, hound, puppy, and whelp, are anything but complimentary when applied to mankind; and its derivatives, such as "dogged" and "doggerel," are not of dignified suggestion. And, mark you, these associations with the names do not seem to "let go," any more than the dog itself from his bone.

The dog slipped into literature at a very early date after the Fall, but slunk about with his tail between his legs, as it were, and was kicked and cursed with entire unanimity. It is difficult to say just when his dogship began to stand up on his hind legs in literature. He has little or no classical standing. The dog of Ulysses is, I believe, a solitary instance. Shakespeare's "view" comes out in Lear's climacteric execration of his "dog-hearted daughters." Sir Henry Holland once lost a bet of a guinea owing to his failure to find a dog kindly spoken of by Shakespeare. Milton for the most part sublimely passes them by, except to embellish his "portress at hell's gate" with a canine appendix. Goethe's aversion to them is well known. Old Dr. Watts is an authority on moral traits, and the best word he has for them is that "dogs delight to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature to."

Let it not be supposed that I altogether endorse this apparent conspiracy of the ages to give the dog a bad name,—always supposing that he did not himself furnish the bad name to literature. I am not impervious to advanced thought, and I like to see fair play. When a dog is down, and everybody is down on him, he ought to be let up. It is no wonder that a reaction set in, as will always be the case in extremes, and, as usual, to the opposite extreme. English literature experienced about the beginning of this century an invasion of shepherd kings, such as Walter Scott, Christopher North, the Ettrick Shepherd, and the like, who brought with them a great gust of outdoor air, and with it a renaissance of the dog. But the great apostle of the new movement was the late Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, whose famous "Rab and his Friends" has inoculated the reading public with something which might be called a species of rabies. This charming writer reminds me of certain gentle inhabitants of the asylum, who have so identified themselves in imagination with dogs that they greet you with a bark.

We owe a debt of gratitude to these amiable enthusiasts for their demurrers to the one-sided verdict of history and for their discoveries of exceptional dogs and of exceptional traits in the canine character. For are we not bidden, "if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," to "think on these things"?

We do think of them, and we are grateful. We do not, to be sure, find ourselves starting off incontinently to the dog-fancier's in order to present our wife with a poodle or to transform our quiet premises into a howling wilderness, but we think better of the world as a place to live in, and we have a higher sense of the charity and patience of human nature. Nevertheless, while yielding to none in my tender feeling for dear Dr. Brown and his gentle fellow-kynophilists, I am not prepared to obey the new commandment which this new canine gospel inculcates, "Love me, love my dog."

Probably my personal acquaintance with the species has been unfortunate, but I have not happened to meet with these superhuman creatures. I once tried, in my extreme childhood, to make a pet of a Newfoundland pup of high degree; but the little brute sickened and killed himself one day by eating a mess of the foulest refuse. In the village where I lived there was a crabbed little hump-backed tailor, whose house and shop were on a corner, and with him lived a vicious yellow bull-dog. It was a question which was the most unpopular and the most obnoxious bête noire with the villagers. We boys took a fearful delight in stealthily approaching the little tailor's back door in the evening, and then, with a sudden shout, taking to our heels around the corner, whereat the yellow fiend would burst out after us, with "Bunky" close behind.

The only other dog in our village of which I have any recollection was a great animal, facetiously known as a watch-dog, whose mission it was to lie in wait behind the house of the man he owned, and, as soon as he heard a step upon the gravel walk or the tinkle of the door-bell, to dart out upon the intruder with a howl and a spring. The result was that one day my father, the most quiet and respectable of men, in attempting to pay a friendly visit, was set upon, knocked down, throttled, and, but for timely rescue, would probably have fallen a victim to the habits of this hospitable mansion. And from that day he left his friends to their preference of companions. My own experiences of the premises were such that I followed for once the paternal example, in giving them a wide berth.

My social footsteps have always been guided by a knowledge of the kennel, as well as of the house. Even as the pastor of a human flock, I confess that I have many a time stood at men's gates balancing the question of duty or safety before I girded up a martyr spirit and resolved to enter. Not that I loved the sheep and lambs less, but that I hated their growling, leaping, four-footed favorites more.

It is not a mere question of wisdom or of taste, this prevalence and idolatry of dogs. If it were only an amiable weakness, and a matter affecting the person indulging it, some such form of image-worship as the rage for bric-à-brac and old china, I should not take the trouble to enter my protest. But hath not a dog teeth? Hath not a dog great, dirty paws, a venomous and fiery tongue, and a throat which is the organ of all discords? Hath he not feet which can carry his unpleasantnesses into other people's presence, perhaps deposit them on your lap, or cause you to stumble and be offended and made weak by standing in your way? An ideal dog, a china dog, a dog behind a picture-frame, the dog of literature, are not without their æsthetic side,—are certainly things to be let alone. But the realistic, vigorously vital, intrusively affectionate, or faithfully suspicious dog can no more be "let alone" than could Mr. Jefferson Davis and his rebellious States once upon a time, for the simple reason that he will not let us alone. It is as curious an exhibition of human nature to note the surprise which always seizes the owner when one of these "faithful" creatures bites any of his friends and neighbors as is the proverbial incapacity of the householder to admit the existence of malaria on his premises. A little friend of mine who can hardly toddle, while visiting with his parents, was recently sprung upon by a great house-dog and bitten seriously in the cheek. And the philosophical explanation, which ought to have been highly satisfactory, was, "The dog dislikes children, but has never been known to hurt grown people"!

I have alluded to the testimony of Scripture concerning dogs. Herein, at least, Science is in accord with Revelation. It tells us that there is nothing in the osteology of this family (Canidæ) to distinguish the domestic dog from the wolf or fox or jackal. His "brain-cavity is small," his strong point being "his powerful muscles of mastication." His "sense of taste is dull and coarse." He is "not as cleanly in his habits as the cat." He is "not courageous in proportion to his strength." Let me illustrate this last point by what I saw this afternoon. A dog about as large and strong as a young lion was barking vigorously behind a low fence at a cat, who sat serenely on the other side, meeting his Bombastes Furioso plunges at the intervening pickets with a contemptuous hiss and an occasional buffet with her claw upon his muzzle. I have yet to see a dog that dares attack my goat of a year old, except when he is harnessed to his wagon. They are not, however, afraid of sheep. And they are much more clear in their minds about attacking children than strong men with clubs. A man is safe before them in proportion as he is not in fear. They know a coward at once, with all a coward's instinct.

Another little peculiarity of this family in all its branches is the hydrophobia, an accomplishment which they are very generous in imparting, and which is to be taken into account in estimating their usefulness.

Cuvier, however, puts forward the ingenious claim—worthy of the Buckle and Taine type of scientific speculators, who are never so happy as when they think they have accounted for the world without the hypothesis of a God, and who naturally catch at an opportunity of reading that name backward (or the name Dog backward, whichever you like)—that "the dog was necessary to the establishment of human society." This startling dogma of the new kynolatry is a good illustration of the way in which this class of theorists persist in putting the cart before the horse. The truth is that man was necessary to the establishment of canine society. Except as human skill and patience subdued, trained, and developed the dog, the latter was incapable of rising, and was one of man's most dangerous foes,—the fox robbing his hen-roosts and grape-vines, the wolf eating him and his children, and the jackal and hyena picking his bones and rifling his grave. The same ridiculous claim of being the corner-stone of human society has been made by some wiseacre in behalf of the goat. The plain truth is that only one animal can justly lay claim to such a distinction. At the threshold of human society and civilization lies the slimy figure of the snake, who persuaded man to purchase knowledge at the cost of innocence, a lesson which has been learned by heart and been worked out in all the "history of civilization," for verily "the trail of the serpent is over it still."

Few persons realize the comparative un-worth of the dog. There is even a hazy notion in most minds that he is to be classed with the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the gentle swine, that he is entitled to lift up his voice with the morn-saluting cock, or to roam with the mouse-disturbing cat, or with that patient pair, the harnessed billy- and the lactiferous nanny-goat.[A] Hence an enormous revenue is required for his support. For example, we are told that "the dogs in Iowa eat enough annually to feed a hundred thousand workmen, and cost the State nine million dollars, or double the education of all its children." I should like to know how many of these costly and pampered creatures earn their salt. They toil not, they spin not, they contribute neither food nor wool nor "power." There are extreme cases where they have proved serviceable for defence and special purposes. The Laplanders are forced to make shift with them in default of better draught-animals. There was a time when the dogs of St. Bernard were a great convenience to the philanthropic monks,—who, by the way, never received one-hundredth part of the credit which has been lavished by the sentimentalists upon their half-automaton assistants. The slave-hunters have found the race still more serviceable for their ends. On great moors and lonely mountains and in the exigencies of frontier-life, the shepherd, the hunter, and the pioneer have turned them to account.

Far be it from me to disparage their assistance in these exceptional instances and in others which might be named. The dog, like the bull or the frogs of Egypt, is good in his place. But it does not follow that we should have a bull in every door-yard, nor that it was an advantage to the land of Egypt to be covered with frogs in-doors and out. The notion that a dog is needful for defence in settled, civilized communities is on a par with the delusion that a man is safer for carrying a loaded pistol, more harm being done to honest people, and even to those of them who resort to fire-arms, than to their enemies. One needs only to consider the dogs of one's own neighborhood and compare the number of burglars they have routed with the number of children or innocent passers-by they have scared or bitten. My experience convinces me that more houses and hen roosts are robbed where there are dogs than where there are none. And it is easily explained. People who have a blind trust in watch-dogs cease to watch for themselves. Moreover, the false alarms of the dog are so numerous, and his barking so indiscriminating of the difference between friend and foe, and even between real and imaginary persons, that his owner soon ceases to take note of them. For who is going to get up every time the dog barks in the night? The dog is, of course, one of the conditions to be provided for in the burglar's plan. But when he has silenced, overpowered, or eluded the watch, he has turned the defence over to his own side, and proceeds with a special sense of security.

At all events, I do not find that dogs are chiefly kept by those who most need to be defended, but rather by the strong and by persons living in closely-settled neighborhoods. Nor do I find that people affect dogs at all in the ratio or for the sake of the protection, but for the amusement which they afford, as something to be taken care of as pets rather than to take care of them.

The watch-dog is an admirable protection from one's friends. What a boon he is to the misanthrope! What an isolation reigns about the home, especially in the evening, where a real savage beast stands guard, roaming in the shadows or clanking his chain beside the path! The ingenious Mr. Quilp turned this fact to fine account, as he escorted Sampson Brass to the door of his counting-house on a dark night:

"Be careful how you go, my dear friend. There's a dog in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child; but that was in play. Don't go too near him."

"Which side of the road is he, sir?" asked Brass, in great dismay.

"He lives on the right hand," said Quilp, "but sometimes he hides on the left, ready for a spring. He's uncertain in that respect. Mind you take care of yourself. I'll never forgive you if you don't."

An exceedingly social institution, the watch-dog, and a delightful attraction to one's visitors and would-be callers. A watch-dog indeed; for is he not the one thing to be on the watch for, now that the day of spring-guns and man-traps is past?

It is all very well for Byron to rhapsodize about "the watch-dog's honest bark," and to think it "sweet" when it "bays deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;" but when one has got inside of that home and gone to bed, and wants to sleep off his fatigue, it is not always so sweet to have some neighbor's watch-dog keeping up a dishonest bark at everything and nothing half through the night. As to the moral quality of the noise, the only honest bark is that of the mosquito, who is too sincere either to attack you without warning or to give a false alarm. I have thrown my share of boot-jacks and other missiles at the nightly cat, and with some small measure of success; but what boot-jack will reach the howling mastiff domiciled several doors off, and whose owner says in effect, "Boot me, boot my dog," or the converse? And what an "aid to reflection," which Coleridge never conceived of, is that wretched little whelp that explodes under my study window at the critical moment of intellectual inspiration, like a pack of animated fire-crackers! Who shall pretend to set off the occasional service which the canine voice has rendered to man against the long and varied agonies which it has inflicted on our race? Emerson has a fine touch of nature, which will go to many a heart, when he enumerates among the recollected experiences of childhood "the fear of dogs." Goethe's aversion to dogs, already alluded to, seems to have been based chiefly upon their noisiness at night. Charles Reade had a habit of hitting the nail on the head, and never showed it more pithily than when he answered "Ouida's" application for a name for her new pet poodle: "Call it Tonic, for it is sure to be a mixture of bark, steal, and whine."

As to poodles and pugs, it is difficult for the masculine "man of letters" to write. Fortunately, no member of my family has thus far evinced any symptom of the poodle mania, so akin to the singular malady which reduced poor Titania to the abject adoration of ass-headed Bottom. Therefore any repugnance (this is purely an ex post facto pun) on my part cannot be attributed to jealousy. I feel that I cannot be too thankful not to be numbered among the unhappy husbands indicated by the following recent incident:

"Hello, old man!" said a gentleman to a friend, "what's that you've got under your coat?"

"That," was the sad reply, as he brought it forth, "is my wife's little pug dog."

"What are you going to do with him? Take him somewhere and drown him?"

"I wish I might," earnestly responded the gentleman, fetching a sigh. "No, I am not going to drown him. My wife is having a new spring suit made to harmonize with Beauty, as she is pleased to call the disgusting little brute, and I am on my way to a dry-goods store to match him for half a yard more of material."

Ladies will pay as much as ten dollars a week for the board of a poodle in summer. And here is a specimen order at the inn wherein his puppyship is taking his ease:

"Room No. 122.—To the clerk of —— Hotel: Please send to my room, for the use of my little pet 'Watch,' a choice porter-house steak, cooked rare, and two chicken-wings, and charge to account of Mrs. ——."

But it is not always practicable to take our "dumb companions" with us in our travels. Accordingly, the following advertisement is said to have been recently inserted in the papers:

"Wanted, by a lady, a careful man to look after the house and be company for her dog during her absence in Europe."

I myself lately witnessed a suggestive scene in a drawing-room car at the Grand Central Dépôt. A portly old gentleman of opulent appearance was stepping aboard with his daughter (or wife?), a fine specimen of Amazonian beauty, accompanied by a third member of the family, a yellow and dirty-looking little pug with its hair in its eyes. But, alas! the latter was arrested at the platform, according to rule, and was being conveyed to the baggage-car. I have no power to picture the blazing indignation of his devoted mistress, or the eloquent storm with which she assailed the officials, or the undignified haste and distress of mind into which the old gentleman was thrown in his part of negotiator between the contending parties. The lady was inconsolable and inexorable. She would not go without her beloved. She would never subject him to the discomfort and indignity of the baggage-car. She would "rather ride in the common car" herself. How the case was settled I did not see. She left the hateful drawing-room car with her packages and her papa(?). Whether she abandoned her tour, or went into the baggage-car to share the shame and sorrow of her poodle, or whether a compromise was effected in favor of the "common car," I never ascertained, I trust she was not the lady of Baltimore who last summer went insane and tried to kill herself on account of the death of her pet dog.

And this leads me to make a point in favor of dogs, at least so far as their claim to being "so human" is concerned. There has been supposed to be nothing more distinctive of human nature than its propensity to suicide, arising from its capacity, as it rises in civilization and enlightenment, of finding out that life is not worth living. But a number of well-authenticated cases have come to my observation which show that the dog is rapidly learning this supreme accomplishment. A dog at Warwick, New York, whose master had neglected him for a new-comer, became morose and sulky, took to watching the railway-trains with great interest, and one day threw himself under a passing car and was crushed to death. Another, in Marseilles, whose owner had avoided him from fear of hydrophobia, and which had been driven from the door of a friend of his master, ran straight for the river and plunged in, never to rise till he was dead. A Newfoundland dog on the relief-ship Bear, and two or three of the Esquimaux dogs belonging to the relief expedition, drowned themselves deliberately, after showing great depression for several days. Dr. Lauder Lindsay, in his "Mind in the Lower Animals," tells of a Newfoundland that, being refused an accustomed outing with the children and being playfully whipped with a handkerchief, took it so deeply to heart that he went and drowned himself by resolutely holding his head under water in a shallow ditch.

But, seriously, it is a nice psychological question whether there is something human about dogs, or something canine about men. At any rate, it may well be asked whether it is really the dog-nature which attracts us, and not rather a somewhat of the human in the brute. For when we see the dog in the man we are repelled.

The above is undoubtedly the most honorable, if not the most obvious, reason why the dog has succeeded in winning the companionship, and even the affection, of so large a portion of mankind. Another reason lies in the fact that, as a dog, he has been wonderfully improved. There is no denying that he comes of a bad stock. As already intimated, his "family" includes, besides himself, the wolf, the fox, and the jackal, with the hyena as a sort of step-brother. But he has proved himself "the flower of the family," and, like all flowers, he has been "cultivated" and developed, differentiated in species, till a grand bench-show will display all the varieties, from little fluff balls, "small enough to put in your waistcoat-pocket," to the splendid deerhound, valued at ten thousand dollars, with his "silver-gray hair, muscular flanks, and calm, resolute eyes." I shall never forget coming suddenly, in the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, upon one of the veritable bloodhounds which were employed once upon a time in tracking fugitive slaves. His dimensions were beyond all my previous conceptions of the canine race. He impressed me rather as an institution than an animal. And as he stood across my path in a statuesque repose, with his red tongue and massive jaws, and a slumbering fire in his eye, I conceived a new idea and even admiration of "brute force."

The intelligence of the dog has also been developed, notwithstanding the smallness of his brain and his natural inferiority in this respect to many other animals, until he has almost rivalled the feats of the learned pig and the industrious fleas. His moral character must be admitted to have shown itself capable of great development, despite the recent effort of writers like Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson to prove that he develops chiefly the worst and meanest traits of human nature. His capacity for hero-worship and his patience under ill usage from the one who has mastered him are conspicuous. He has a sublime indifference to that master's moral character, however, being as subservient to Bill Sykes or Daniel Quilp as to Leatherstocking or Dr. John Brown himself. This fidelity to me does not imply that he may not be highly treacherous to others, just as his protective value to me is in proportion to his savage and perilous possibilities to the not-me. Therefore I ought not to insist that my lovers must love my dog also. I should rather estimate their steadfast affection for me all the more on his account.

It is argued by the dog-haters that we must not judge the whole vast and varied race of Canidæ from a few exceptional individuals and highly-cultivated breeds. But it may be retorted that neither are all men Shakespeares and St. Augustines. The credit is so much the greater to those of the species which have overcome the disadvantages of a low and repulsive origin. None the less, however, will a strict veracity of mind and speech be careful not to generalize too sweepingly from a few particulars, and also not to make too indiscriminate and imperious a demand upon other people's enthusiasm. Especially will it be unwise for the friends of the dog to persist in their attempt to exalt him by depreciating man, inasmuch as man is the party to be won over to their way of thinking. Man has, unfortunately, been endowed by his Creator with a notion of his superiority even to the hound and the terrier, and naturally winces at the comparison, and is in danger of being thrown to the other extreme. I myself am able to present these considerations thus dispassionately as a friend of humanity rather than a foe to caninity; but all are not favored with a judicial spirit.

I suspect, in fact, that this inclining of our race to these brute servitors is largely due to the same cause which promotes the love of "horse-flesh." Man must assert his dominion over the brutes. He wants some tangible evidence, always beside him and running at his heels, of his superiority to something. It is a great upholder of his self-respect. It is so consoling, amid our conscious defeats and snubbings by a proud and unmanageable world, to have at hand a fellow-creature, strong enough to tear us in pieces, who will grovel at our feet, and quail before our eye, and let us laugh at him while he makes a fool of himself at our bidding. Even the most successful and superior men find herein a grateful outlet for their surplus masterfulness.

But I prefer to ascribe the tender and enthusiastic feeling which men have for their dogs not so much to the merits of the latter as to an overflowing and supererogatory goodness in the former. The human runs readily into the humane. Man is, after all, a loving animal, and is disposed to lavish his affection upon all who come into the right relation and moral angle with himself. He loves to be munificent as well as magnificent, and to be the patron of somebody or something. He has no little magnanimity toward such as put themselves in an abject dependence upon his honor and justice. He is ready to see all good in those who come not in competition with himself. He has a fund of generous enthusiasm which finds too little occupation in the world, and is glad to find or create an object for it near at hand. So that his dog, unconsciously to himself, is seen rather in the reflection of his own light. He clothes him with those amiable qualities which superabound in his own heart, and attributes to him a fidelity which is really far more remarkable on his own side.

Dogs are remarkable for their dreaming capacity. A dog never seems to sleep but he dreams, and very likely is quite unable to distinguish his waking and sleeping impressions. And is it not altogether probable that those who have much to do with them catch the infection, so that they view the canine race through a dream-like medium and as slumbering dogs are haunted by imaginary flies?

But I fear lest I shall be suspected of having caught at least one quality of my subject and of following up this scent at a wearisome length. And yet I have not begun to exhaust my theme, and have hardly given a glimpse of its many lights and shades. Inasmuch as there is an excessive tendency just now to show the lights only, it may have been noticed that I have rather emphasized the shades. Perhaps I shall not have written in vain if I have succeeded in moderating the present kynomania, surpassing in virulence even the æsthetic craze. The dog is having his day now,—that is clear. I presume it is the order of nature, and that we must expect a season in human history when the dog-star will rage. But it may not be unseasonable to recommend a slight muzzle to the dog-bitten, especially of the literary gens.

F. N. Zabriskie.

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