Some power of origination animals, and dogs especially, cert_Atlantic Classics, Second Series

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ATLANTIC CLASSICS

Second Series

ATLANTIC CLASSICS

SECOND SERIES

The Atlantic Monthly Press, Inc.

Three Park Street

Boston

MONTHLY COMPANY

ATLANTIC READERS EVERYWHERE

FROM ALASKA TO ZANZIBAR

AND FROM NINE TO NINETY

Preface

When, some two years ago a collection of Atlantic essays was offered to

the public, it was the editor's idea that this volume should be, to use

the current phrase, a kind of permanent exhibit of the character and

quality of _The Atlantic_. In these hurrying days, even the sedatest of

magazines must quicken its pace to keep abreast of the marching world,

and much that is most serviceable in _The Atlantic_ during its appointed

life dies at the heart when a new number brings fresh interests to men's

minds. But a residue there is, no more useful at the time, perhaps, than

much which perishes, but which evidently ought to have such length of

days as the covers of a book can ensure for it. The experiment was made

with the first volume of Atlantic Classics, composed of sixteen essays,

by as many authors, all dealing with topics of more than temporary

interest. The success of this book, which has been many times reprinted,

outstripped anticipation; more than that, it assumed a character quite

unlooked for, and proceeded, on its own account, to introduce itself

into the curricula of colleges and high schools throughout the country,

welcomed, as the editor is credibly informed, by students as well as by

teachers.

Even a layman can see that in such a use there is a sound development. A

book of contemporary expression, exhilarating to the student and

knitting his interests to those of the world outside the schoolroom, may

be peculiarly suited to call forth his appreciation and to kindle

emulation within him. Such a book may teach him to think of literature

as a living thing, quite as alive and full of spirit as he is himself,

and by such method, perhaps, tender shoots of young intelligence may be

spared the blighting influence of too formal education.

These matters belong most properly to the province of the schoolmaster.

The editor's is a different purpose. It is not a text which he seeks to

compile, but (forgive a layman's distinction) a _book_, a book to read,

enjoy, and keep. To all who have found amusement and profit in the first

series of Atlantic Classics, I think I can promise that here shall be

found no lowering of the bars, but only the enlargement of interest

which must come from such an influx of new company.

During pleasant hours spent in selecting this second series of essays

typical of _The Atlantic_, I have more than once turned aside to re-read

well-remembered pages of a similar character written an hundred years

and more ago by men whose names, if not effulgent, still shine in

clusters from the more condensed paragraphs of our literary histories.

Comparisons are odious, and stir inordinate prejudice; so names shall

not be mentioned here, but as I turn from those enshrined volumes to

the less sententious essays of our day, I can truly say I feel no drop

to earth from heaven. Here before me is a group of essays, quite as

individual, if less self-conscious; quite as urbane, often in better

taste; and quite (one reader thinks) as suggestive of company he should

like to keep. Take for instance such a paper as Miss Mackenzie's 'Exile

and Postman.' Bind it in levant, gild well ornament and title, and let

it stand straight on your bookshelf for an hundred years. Then shall

your great-grandson take it down and learn with respect that in his

grandsire's day English still lived as English, and that the magic of

words cannot die.

In republishing this collection, The Atlantic Press owes its warm thanks

to every author represented, and desires to make acknowledgment to

Houghton Mifflin Company for the inclusion of Mr. Merwin's inimitable

'Dogs and Men,' already reprinted in a volume of the author's own; to

the Macmillan Company for permission granted to Miss Addams to allow her

contemporary legend 'The Devil Baby' to be reprinted here. It should be

added that Mr. Chapman's shining paper on 'The Greek Genius' will be

found in more extended form in his volume of similar title, to which

every instructed reader should turn.

E. S.

_The Atlantic Office._ January, 1918.

Contents

DOGS AND MEN _Henry C. Merwin_ 1

JUNGLE NIGHT _William Beebe_ 26

THE DEVIL BABY AT HULL-HOUSE _Jane Addams_ 52

EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE _Samuel McChord Crothers_ 78

THE TEMPLE'S DIFFICULT DOOR _Robert M. Gay_ 95

EXILE AND POSTMAN _Jean Kenyan Mackenzie_ 109

THE LIFE OF ADVENTURE _Edgar J. Goodspeed_ 121

AN INDICTMENT OF INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS _William T. Foster_ 134

CAR-WINDOW BOTANY _Lida F. Baldwin_ 162

STUDIES IN SOLITUDE _Fannie Stearns Gifford_ 173

THE GREEK GENIUS _John Jay Chapman_ 184

IN PRAISE OF OLD LADIES _Lucy Martin Donnelly_ 217

A MEMORY OF OLD GENTLEMEN _Sharlot M. Hall_ 227

VIOLA'S LOVERS _Richard Bowland Kimball_ 235

HAUNTED LIVES _Laura Spencer Portor_ 247

THE ACROPOLIS AND GOLGOTHA _Anne C. E. Allinson_ 273

THE BAPTIZING OF THE BABY _Elizabeth Taylor_ 292

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 307

Dogs and Men

By Henry C. Merwin

There are men and women in the world who, of their own free will, live a

dogless life, not knowing what they miss; and for them this essay,

securely placed in the dignified _Atlantic_, there to remain so long as

libraries and books shall endure, is chiefly written. Let them not pass

it by in scorn, but rather stop to consider what can be said of the

animal as a fellow being entitled to their sympathy, and having,

perhaps, a like destiny with themselves.

As to those few persons who are not only dogless but dog-haters, they

should excite pity rather than resentment. The man who hates a good dog

is abnormal, and cannot help it. I once knew such a man, a money-lender

long since passed away, whose life was largely a crusade against dogs,

carried on through newspapers, pamphlets, and in conversation.

He used to declare that he had often been bitten by these animals, and

that, on one occasion, a terrier actually jumped on the street-car in

which he was riding, took a small piece out of his leg (a mere soupcon,

no doubt), and then jumped off--all without apparent provocation, and in

a moment of time. Probably this story, strange as it may sound, was

substantially true. The perceptions of the dog are wonderfully acute. A

recent occurrence may serve as the converse of the money-lender's story.

A lost collie, lame and nearly starved, was taken in, fed, and cared for

by a household of charitable persons, who, however, did not like or

understand dogs, and were anxious to get rid of this one, provided that

a good home could be found for him. In the course of a week there came

to call upon them in her buggy an old lady who is extremely fond of

dogs, and who possesses that combination of a masterful spirit with deep

affection which acts like witchcraft upon the lower animals. The collie

was brought out, and the story of his arrival was related at length.

Meanwhile the old lady and the dog looked each other steadfastly in the

eye. 'Do you want to come with me, doggie?' she said at last, not really

meaning to take him. Up jumped the dog, and sat down beside her, and

could not be dislodged by any entreaties or commands--and all parties

were loath to use force. She took him home, but brought him back the

next day, intending to leave him behind her. Again, however, the dog

refused to be parted from his new and real friend. He bestowed a

perfunctory wag of the tail upon his benefactors--he was not ungrateful;

but, like all dogs, he sought not chiefly meat and bones and a

comfortable place by the fire, but affection and caresses. The dog does

not live that would refuse to forsake his dinner for the companionship

of his master.

The mission of the dog--I say it with all reverence--is the same as the

mission of Christianity, namely, to teach mankind that the universe is

ruled by love. Ownership of a dog tends to soften the hard hearts of

men. There are two great mysteries about the lower animals: one, the

suffering which they have to endure at the hands of man; the other, the

wealth of affection which they possess, and which for the most part is

unexpended. All animals have this capacity for loving other creatures,

man included. Crows, for example, show it to a remarkable degree. 'As

much latent affection goes to waste in every flock of crows that flies

overhead as would fit a human household for heaven.'[A] A crow and a

dog, if kept together, will become almost as fond of each other as of

their master.

[Note A: _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. 89, p. 322.]

Surely this fact, this capacity of the lower animals to love, not only

man, but one another, is the most significant, the most deserving to be

pondered, the most important in respect to their place in the universe,

of all the facts that can be learned about them. Compared with it, how

trivial is anything that the zoologist or biologist or the physiologist

can tell us about the nature of the lower animals!

The most beautiful sight in the world, I once heard it said (by myself,

to be honest), is the expression in the eyes of an intelligent,

sweet-tempered pup--a pup old enough to take an interest in things about

him, and yet so young as to imagine that everybody will be good to him;

so young as not to fear that any man or boy will kick him, or that any

dog will take away his bone. In the eyes of such a pup there is a look

of confiding innocence, a consciousness of his own weakness and

inexperience, a desire to love and to be loved, which are irresistible.

In older dogs one is more apt to notice an eager, anxious, inquiring

look, as if they were striving to understand things which the Almighty

had placed beyond their mental grasp; and the nearest approach to a

really human expression is seen in dogs suffering from illness. Heine,

who, as the reader well knows, served a long apprenticeship to pain,

somewhere says that pain refines even the lower animals; and all who are

familiar with dogs in health and in disease will see the truth of this

statement. I have seen in the face of an intelligent dog, suffering

acutely from distemper, a look so human as to be almost terrifying; as

if I had accidentally caught a glimpse of some deep-lying trait in the

animal which nature had intended to conceal from mortal gaze.

The dog, in fact, makes a continual appeal to the sympathies of his

human friends, and thus tends to prevent them from becoming hard or

narrow. There are certain families, especially perhaps in New England,

and most of all, no doubt, in Boston, who need to be regenerated, and

might be regenerated by keeping a dog, provided that they went about it

in the proper spirit. A distinguished preacher and author, himself a

Unitarian, remarked recently in an address to Unitarians that they were

usually the most self-satisfied people that he ever met. It was a casual

remark, and perhaps neither he nor those who heard it appreciated its

full significance. However, the preacher was probably thinking, not so

much of Unitarians as of a certain kind of person often found in this

neighborhood, and not necessarily professing any particular form of

religion. We all know the type. When a man _invariably_ has money in the

bank, and is respectable and respected, was graduated at Harvard, has a

decorous wife and children, has never been carried away by any passion

or enthusiasm, knows the right people, and conforms strictly to the

customs of good society; and when this sort of thing has been going on

for, perhaps, two or three generations, then there is apt to creep into

the blood a coldness that would chill the heart of a bronze statue. Such

persons are really degenerates of their peculiar kind, and need to be

saved, perhaps by desperate measures. Let them elope with the cook; let

them get religion of a violent Methodistic, or of an intense

Ritualistic, kind (the two forms have much in common); or if they

cannot get religion, let them get a dog, give him the run of the house,

love him and spoil him, and so, by the blessing of Providence, their

salvation may be effected.

Reformers and philanthropists should always keep dogs, in order that the

spontaneous element may not wholly die out of them. Their tendency is to

regard the human race as a problem, and particular persons as 'cases' to

be dealt with, not according to one's impulses, but according to certain

rules approved by good authority, and supposed to be consistent with

sound economic principles. To my old friend ----, who once liked me for

myself, without asking why, I have long ceased to be an individual, and

am now simply an item of humanity to whom he owes such duty as my

particular wants or vices would seem to indicate. But if he had a dog he

could not regard him in that impersonal way, or worry about the dog's

morals: he would simply take pleasure in his society, and love him for

what he was, without considering what he might have been.

I know and honor one philanthropist who, in middle life or thereabout,

became for the first time the possessor of a dog; and thenceforth there

was disclosed in him a genuine vein of sentiment and affection which

many years of doing good and virtuous living had failed to eradicate.

Often had I heard of his civic deeds and of his well-directed charities,

but my heart never quite warmed toward him until I learned that, with

spectacles on nose and comb in hand, he had spent three laborious hours

in painfully going over his spaniel, and eliminating those parasitic

guests which sometimes infest the coat of the cleanest and most

aristocratic dog. I am not ashamed to say that I have a confidence in

his wisdom now which I did not have before, knowing that his head will

never be allowed to tyrannize over his heart. His name should be

recorded here, were it not that his modesty might be offended by the

act. (Three letters would suffice to print it.)

In speaking of the dog as a kind of missionary in the household, I mean,

it need hardly be said, something more than mere ownership of the

animal. It will not suffice to pay a large sum for a dog of fashionable

breed, equip him with a costly collar, and then relegate him to the

stable or the kitchen. He should be one of the family, living on equal

terms with the others, and their constant companion. The dog's life is

short at the best, and every moment of it will be needed for his

development. It is wonderful how, year by year, the household pet grows

in intelligence, how many words he learns the meaning of, how quick he

becomes in interpreting the look, the tone of voice, the mood of the

person whom he loves. He is old at ten or eleven, and seldom lives

beyond thirteen or fourteen. If he lived to be fifty, he would know so

much that we should be uneasy, perhaps terrified, in his presence.

A certain amount of discipline is necessary for a dog. If left to his

own devices, he is apt to become somewhat dissipated, to spend his

evenings out, to scatter among many the affection which should be

reserved for a few. But, on the other hand, a dog may easily receive too

much discipline; he becomes like the child of a despotic father. A dog

perfectly trained, from the martinet point of view,--one who never

'jumps up' on you, never lays an entreating paw on your arm, never gets

into a chair, or enters the drawing-room,--such a dog is a sad sight to

one who really knows and loves the animal. It is against his nature to

be so repressed. Over-careful housewives, and persons who are burdened

with costly surroundings, talk of injury to carpets and other furniture

if the dog has a right of entry everywhere in the house. But what is

furniture for? Is it for display, is it a guaranty of the wealth of the

owners, or is it for use? Blessed are they whose furniture is so

inexpensive or so shabby that children and dogs are not excluded from

its sacred precincts. Perhaps the happiest household to which I ever had

the honor of being admitted was one where it was sometimes a little

difficult to find a comfortable vacant chair: the dogs always took the

arm-chairs. Alas, where are those hospitable chairs now? Where the dogs

that used to sit up in them, and wink and yawn, and give their paws in

humorous embarrassment?

'The drawing-room was made for dogs, and not dogs for the

drawing-room,' would be Lady Barnes's thesis, did she formulate it. It

was this same Lady Barnes--Rhoda Broughton's--who once said, 'I have no

belief in Eliza, the housemaid I leave in charge here. When last I came

down from London the dogs were so unnaturally good that I felt sure she

bullied them. I spoke very seriously to her, and this time, I am glad to

say, they are as disobedient as ever, and have done even more mischief

than when I am at home.' And she laughed with a delicate relish of her

own folly.

Of all writers of fiction, by the way, is there any whose dogs quite

equal those of Rhoda Broughton? Even the beloved author of _Rab and His

Friends_, even Sir Walter himself, with his immortal Dandie Dinmonts,

has not, it seems to me, given us such life-like and home-like pictures

of dogs as those which occur in her novels. They seem to be there, not

of set purpose, but as if dogs were such an essential part of her own

existence that they crept into her books almost without her knowing it.

No room in her novels is complete without a dog or two; and every remark

that she makes about them has the quality of a caress. Even in a tragic

moment, the heroine cannot help observing, that 'Mink is lying on his

small hairy side in a sunpatch, with his little paws crossed like the

hands of a dying saint.' 'Mr. Brown,' that dear, faithful mongrel, is

forever associated with the unfortunate Joan; and Brenda's 'wouff' will

go resounding down the halls of time so long as novels are read.

Perhaps the final test of anybody's love of dogs is willingness to

permit them to make a camping-ground of the bed. There is no other place

in the world that suits the dog quite so well. On the bed he is safe

from being stepped upon; he is out of the way of draughts; he has a

commanding position from which to survey what goes on in the world; and,

above all, the surface is soft and yielding to his outstretched limbs.

No mere man can ever be so comfortable as a dog looks.

Some persons object to having a dog on the bed at night; and it must be

admitted that he lies a little heavily upon one's limbs; but why be so

base as to prefer comfort to companionship! To wake up in the dark

night, and put your hand on that warm soft body, to feel the beating of

that faithful heart--is not this better than undisturbed sloth? The best

night's rest I ever had was once when a cocker spaniel puppy, who had

just recovered from stomach-ache (dose one to two soda-mints), and was a

little frightened by the strange experience, curled up on my shoulder

like a fur tippet, gently pushed his cold, soft nose into my neck, and

there slept sweetly and soundly until morning.

Companionship with his master is the dog's remedy for every ill, and

only an extreme case will justify sending him away or boarding him out.

To put a dog in a hospital, unless there is some surgical or other like

necessity for doing so, is an act of doubtful kindness. Many and many a

dog has died from homesickness. If he is ill, keep him warm and quiet,

give him such simple remedies as you would give to a child: pour beef

tea or malted milk down his throat, or even a little whiskey, if he is

weak from want of food; and let him live or die, as did our fathers and

our fathers' dogs--at home.

Many dogs are sensitive to an excessive degree, so sensitive indeed that

any correction of them, beyond such as can be conveyed by a word,

amounts to positive cruelty. A dog of that kind may easily be thrown by

harsh treatment into a state of nervous disorder, and will be really

unable to do what is required of him. In that state he often presents an

appearance of obstinacy, whereas in fact he is suffering from a sort of

nervous atrophy or paralysis, closely resembling that of a 'balky'

horse.

This nervous temperament makes the dog susceptible to misery in many

forms, but the worst evil that can befall is to be lost. The very words

'lost dog' call up such pictures of canine misery as can never be

forgotten by those who have witnessed them. I have seen a lost dog,

lame, emaciated, wounded, footsore, hungry, and thirsty, yet suffering

so intensely from fear, and loneliness, and despair,--from the mere

sense of being lost,--as to be absolutely unconscious of his bodily

condition. The mental agony was so much greater that it swallowed up

the physical pain.

A little Boston terrier, who was lost in a large city for two or three

days, became so wrecked in his nervous system that no amount of care or

petting could restore him to equanimity, and it was found necessary to

kill him. Oh, reader, pass not by the lost dog! Succor him if you can;

preserve him from what is worse than death. It is easy to recognize him

by the look of nervous terror in his eye, by his drooping tail, by his

uncertain movements.

There is a remorseful experience of my own, of which I should be glad to

unburden myself to the reader. It once became my duty to kill a dog

afflicted with some incurable disease. Instead of doing it myself, as I

should have done, I took him to a place where lost dogs are received,

and where those for whom no home can be found are mercifully destroyed.

There, instead of myself leading him to the death-chamber, as, again, I

should have done, I handed him over to the executioner. The dog was an

abnormally nervous and timid one; and as he was dragged most unwillingly

away, he turned around, as nearly as he could, and cast back at me a

look of horror, of fear, of agonized appeal--a look that has haunted me

for years.

Whether he had any inkling of what was in store for him, I do not know,

but it is highly probable that he had. Dogs and other animals are

wonderful mind-readers. I have known three cases in which some

discussion about the necessity of killing an old dog, held in his

presence, was quickly followed by the sudden, unaccountable

disappearance of the animal; and no tidings of him could ever be

obtained, although the greatest pains were taken to obtain them. Horses

are inferior only to dogs in this capacity. Often, especially in the

case of vicious or half-broken horses, an intention will flash from the

mind of the horse to the mind of the rider or driver, and _vice versa_,

without the slightest indication being given by horse or man. Men who

ride race-horses have told me that a sudden conviction in their own

minds, in the course of a race, that they could not win has passed

immediately to the horse, and caused him to slacken his speed, although

they had not ceased to urge him. It is notorious in the trotting world

that faint-hearted and pessimistic drivers often lose races which they

ought to win.

As to remarkable stories about this or that animal, perhaps it might be

said that they are probably true when they illustrate the animal's

perceptive abilities, and are probably false when they depend upon his

power to originate. There appeared lately an account of a race between

loons in the wild state: how the loons got together and arranged the

preliminaries (whether they made books on the event or adopted the pool

system of betting was not stated), how the race was run, or rather

flown, amid intense loon excitement, and how the victor was greeted with

screams of applause!

Some power of origination animals, and dogs especially, certainly have.

There is the familiar trick which dogs play when one, to get a bone away

from another, rushes off a little space, gives the bark which signifies

the presence of an intruder, then comes back and quietly runs away with

the bone which the other dog, in his curiosity to see who is coming, has

impulsively dropped. This is an example, not of reasoning only, but of

origination.

In general, however, when dogs surprise us, as they frequently do, it is

by the delicacy and acuteness of their perceptive powers. How unerringly

do they distinguish between different classes of persons, as, for

example, between the members of the family and the servants; and again,

between the servants and the friends of the household! Unquestionably

the dog has three sets of manners for these three classes of persons. He

will take liberties in the kitchen that he would never dream of taking

in the dining-room. We have known our cook to fly in terror from the

kitchen because Figaro, a masterful cocker spaniel, threatened to bite

her if she did not give him a piece of meat forthwith. Figaro reasoned

that the cook was partly _his_ cook, and that he had a right to bully

her if he could.

As for the different members of the family, the dog will 'size them up'

with an unerring instinct. It is impossible to conceal any weakness of

character from him; and if you are strong, he will know that, too. As I

write these lines, the vision of 'Mr. Guppy' rises before me. Mr. Guppy

was a very small Boston terrier with a white head, but otherwise of a

brindle color. He had a beautiful 'mug,' much like that of a bull dog,

with a short nose, wide jaws, and plenty of loose skin hanging about his

stout little neck. It must be admitted that he was somewhat

self-indulgent, being continually on the watch for a chance to lie close

by the fire--a situation considered by his friends to be unwholesome for

him. Mr. Guppy understood me very well. He knew that I was a poor, weak,

easy-going, absent-minded creature, with whom he could take liberties;

accordingly, when we were alone together, the rogue would lie sleeping

with his head on the hearth, while I was absorbed in my book. But hark!

there is a step on the stairs, of one whom Mr. Guppy both loved and

feared more than any dog ever loved or feared me; and forthwith the

little impostor would rise and crawl softly back to his place on a rug

in the corner; and there he would be found lying and winking, with an

expression of perfect innocence, when the disciplinarian entered the

room.

Dogs have the same sensitiveness that we associate with well-bred men

and women. Their politeness is remarkable. Offer a dog water when he is

not thirsty, and he will almost always take a lap or two, just out of

civility, and to show his gratitude. I know a group of dogs that never

forget to come and tell their mistress when they have had their dinner,

feeling sure that she will sympathize with them; and if they have failed

to get it, they will notify her immediately of the omission. If you

happen to step on a dog's tail or paw, how eagerly--after one

irrepressible yelp of pain--will he tell you by his caresses that he

knows you did not mean to hurt him and forgives you!

In their relations with one another, also, dogs have a keen sense of

etiquette. A well-known traveler makes this unexpected remark about a

tribe of naked black men, living on one of the South Sea Islands: 'In

their everyday intercourse there is much that is stiff, formal, and

precise.' Almost the same remark might be made about dogs. Unless they

are on very intimate terms, they take great pains never to brush against

or even to touch one another. For one dog to step over another is a

dangerous breach of etiquette unless they are special friends. It is no

uncommon thing for two dogs to belong to the same person, and live in

the same house, and yet never take the slightest notice of each other.

We have a spaniel so dignified that he will never permit another member

of the dog family to pillow his head on him; but, with the egotism of a

true aristocrat, he does not hesitate to make use of the other dogs for

that purpose.

Often canine etiquette is so subtle that one has much difficulty in

following it out. In our household are two uncongenial dogs, who, in

ordinary circumstances, completely ignore each other, and between whom

any familiarity would be resented fiercely. And yet, when we are all out

walking, if I am obliged to scold or punish one of these two, the other

will run up to the offender, bark at him, and even jostle him, as if he

were saying, 'Well, old man, you got it that time; aren't you ashamed of

yourself?' And the other dog, feeling that he is in the wrong, I

suppose, submits meekly to the insult.

A family of six dogs used to pair off in couples, each couple being on

terms of special intimacy and affection; and besides these

relationships, there were many others among them. For example, they all

deferred to the oldest dog, although he was smaller and weaker than the

rest. If a fight began, he would jump in between the contestants and

stop it; if a dog misbehaved, he would rush at the offender with a

warning growl; and this exercise of authority was never resented. The

other dogs seemed to respect his weight of years, his character, which

was of the highest, and his moral courage, which was undoubted. This

same dog--his name was Pedro--had many human traits. He and his

companions slept together on a sofa upstairs, where, of a cold night,

they would curl up together in an indistinguishable heap. Sometimes the

old dog would put himself to bed before the others, and then, finding

that he needed the warmth and companionship of their presence, he would

go into the hall, put his head between the balusters, and whine softly

until they came upstairs to join him.

That animals reason is a fact of everyday experience. That they can

communicate their wants and feelings to one another and to man is

equally plain. 'When a cat or a dog,' wrote the late Mr. Romanes, 'pulls

one's dress to lead one to the kittens or puppies in need of assistance,

the animal is behaving in the same manner as a deaf mute might behave

when invoking assistance from a friend. That is to say, the animal is

translating the logic of feelings into the logic of signs; and so far as

this particular action is concerned, it is psychologically

indistinguishable from that which is performed by the deaf mute.'

Mentally, we are not so many epochs removed from the other animals, and

emotionally the connection is closer yet. I will not discuss the

question whether dumb animals have any sense of right and wrong. I

believe that they have this sense in a rudimentary degree; or at least

that it is latent in them, and may be developed. The popular instinctive

notions about animals, the result of the experience of the race, seem to

justify this view. 'If we say a _vicious_ horse,' remarked Dr. Arnold,

'why not a _virtuous_ horse?' And we do speak of a 'kind' horse.

Moreover, it is obvious that dogs have a sense of humor; and they have

also a sense of shame, perfectly distinct from the fear of punishment.

Of this sense of shame let me give one example. The dog's eyesight, so

far at least as stationary objects are concerned, is very poor, his real

reliance being on his sense of smell; and I have often seen a dog

mistake one of his own family for a strange animal, run toward him, with

every sign of hostility, and then, when he came within a few feet of the

other dog, suddenly drop his tail between his legs and slink away, as if

he feared that somebody had noticed his absurd mistake.

Can it be that an animal should possess a sense of humor and a sense of

shame, without having also some elementary sense of right and wrong? But

even if it be thought that he is devoid of that sense, it is certain

that he has those kindly impulses from which it has been developed. All

that is best in man springs from something which is practically the same

in the dog that it is in him, namely, the instinct of pity or

benevolence. To that instinct, as it exists in the lower animals, Darwin

attributed the origin of conscience in man; and there are now few, if

any, philosophers who would give a different account of it.

I have seen a pup not six months old run to comfort another pup that

cried out from pain; and the impulse that prompted this act was

essentially the same as that which impels the noblest of mankind when

they befriend the poor or the afflicted. We are akin to the lower

animals morally, as well as physically and mentally.

But this is a modern discovery. It is astonishing and confusing to

realize how little organized Christianity has done for the lower

animals. The ecclesiastical conception of them was simply that they were

creatures without souls, and therefore had no rights as against, or at

the hands of, mankind. To this day that conception remains, although it

is qualified, of course, by other and more humane considerations. Even

Cardinal Newman said,--

'We have no duties toward the brute creation; there is no relation of

justice between them and us. Of course, we are bound not to treat them

ill, for cruelty is an offense against the holy law which our Maker has

written on our hearts, and it is displeasing to Him. But they can claim

nothing at our hand; into our hand they are absolutely delivered. We may

use them, we may destroy them at our pleasure: not our wanton pleasure,

but still for our own ends, for our own benefit and satisfaction,

provided that we can give a rational account of what we do.'

This position, although not perhaps cruel in itself, inevitably results

in immeasurable cruelties. When an English traveler remonstrated with a

Spanish lady for throwing a sick kitten out of the second-story window,

she justified herself by saying that the kitten had no soul; and that is

the national point of view.

Protestantism has been almost as indifferent as Catholicism to the lower

animals. In fact, the conscience which exists outside of the church,

Catholic or Protestant, has in this matter, outstripped the conscience

of the church. 'Cruelty,' said Du Maurier, 'is the only unpardonable

sin'; and the world is slowly but surely coming to that opinion. The

long-deferred awakening of mankind to the sufferings of dumb animals was

not due to a decline of the ecclesiastical conception of them, although

it has declined; nor even to the new knowledge concerning the common

origin of man and beast--indeed, it slightly preceded that knowledge;

but it was due to the gradual enlightenment and moral improvement of the

race, especially of the English-speaking race.

The nineteenth century, as we are often told, saw more discoveries and

inventions than had been made in the preceding six thousand years; but I

believe that in future ages not one of those discoveries and inventions,

nor all together, will bulk so large as factors in the development and

uplifting of man, as will those humane laws and societies which first

came into existence in that century.

We overvalue intellectual as compared with moral and emotional gifts.

The material civilization upon which we pride ourselves is almost wholly

the achievement of the intellect. Fame and wealth, luxury, cultivation,

and leisure,--all the big prizes of the world, in fact,--are obtained

by the successful exercise of the intellect. The moral qualities, of

themselves, can procure us nothing but a clear conscience, and the

approval, perhaps mixed with contempt, of our neighbors.

And yet, when the intellectual qualities are brought to the test of

reality; when one's view of them is not clouded by pride, avarice, or

passion, then how amazingly does their value shrink and shrivel! When a

man lies on his deathbed, for example, his intellectual achievements,

though of the highest order, will seem as nothing to him--he will ask

himself simply whether he has lived a good or a bad life; and after his

death his family and his friends will look at the matter in precisely

the same way.

Even the progress of mankind is far more moral than intellectual.

Competent authorities tell us that the Anglo-Saxon of to-day is mentally

inferior to the Greek who lived two thousand years ago: and if the human

race has improved during that time, it is not so much because man has

advanced in knowledge as because he has acquired more sympathy with his

inferiors, be they brute or human, more generosity, more mercy toward

them. Not Stevenson, nor Faraday, nor Morse, nor Fulton, nor Bell, did

so much for the human race, to say nothing of the other animals, as did

that dueling Irishman who, in the year 1822, proposed in the English

Parliament, amid shrieks and howls of derision, what afterward became

the first law for the protection of dumb animals ever placed on the

statute-book of any country. Every movement for the relief of the brute

creation has originated in England; and when we damn, as we righteously

may, John Bull for one thing and another, let us remember this fact to

his eternal honor!

It is hard to part from an old dog-friend with no hope of ever meeting

him again, hard to believe that the spirit of love which burned so

steadfastly in him is quenched forever. But for those who hold what I

have called the ecclesiastical conception of the lower animals, no other

view is possible. That devout Catholic and exquisite poet, Dr. Parsons,

has beautifully expressed this fact:

When parents die there's many a word to say--

Kind words, consoling--one can always pray;

When children die 't is natural to tell

Their mother, 'Certainly with them 't is well!'

But for a dog, 't was all the life he had,

Since death is end of dogs, or good or bad.

This was his world, he was contented here;

Imagined nothing better, naught more dear,

Than his young mistress; sought no higher sphere;

Having no sin, asked not to be forgiven;

Ne'er guessed at God nor ever dreamed of heaven.

Now he has passed away, so much of love

Goes from our life, without one hope above!

But is there no hope? Is there not as much--or, if the reader prefers,

as little--hope for the dog as there is for man? I remember reading

years ago in a prominent magazine the statement that doubtless a few

men, the very wickedest, will become extinct at death, whereas the rest

of mankind will be immortal. This view had some adherents then, but

would now be regarded by almost everybody as irrational. Who can believe

that between the best and the worst man there is any such gulf as would

justify so diverse a fate!

Moreover we have learned that there are no chasms or jumps in nature.

One thing slides into another; every creature is a link between two

other creatures; and man himself can be traced back physically,

mentally, and morally, to the lower animals. Is it not then reasonable

to suppose that immortality belongs to all forms of life or to none?

that if man is immortal, the dog is immortal, too? Even to speculate

upon this subject seems almost ridiculous, our knowledge is so limited;

and yet it is hard to refrain from speculation. The transmigration of

souls may be a fact, or men and dogs and all other forms of life may be

simply forms, temporary phases, proceeding from one source, and

returning thereto. But alas, every supposition that we can make is

rendered almost, if not quite, untenable by the mere fact that the human

intellect has conceived it--it is so unlikely that we should hit upon

the right solution!

In this situation, what we seem bound to do is to refrain from hasty,

and especially from egotistic conclusions, to keep our minds open, to

regard the lower animals, not only with pity, but with a certain

reverence. We do not know what or whence they are; but we do know that

their nature resembles ours; that they have Individuality, as we have

it; that they feel pain, both physical and mental; that they are capable

of affection; that, although innocent, as we believe, their sufferings

have been, and are, unspeakable. Is there no mystery here?

To many men, to most men, perhaps, a dog is simply an animated machine,

developed or created for the convenience of the human race. It may be

so; and yet again it may be that the dog has his own rightful place in

the universe, irrespective and independent of man, and that an injury

done to him is an insult to the Creator.

[Illustration]

Jungle Night

By William Beebe

Within gun-reach in front of me trudged my little Akawai Indian hunter.

He turned his head suddenly, his ears catching some sound which mine had

missed, and I saw that his profile was rather like that of Dante.

Instantly the thought spread and the simile deepened. Were we two not

all alone? and this unearthly hour and light.--Then I chuckled softly,

but the silence that the chuckle shattered shrank away and made it a

loud, coarse sound, so that I involuntarily drew in my breath. But it

was really amusing, the thought of Dante setting out on a hunt for

kinkajous and giant armadillos. Jeremiah looked at me wonderingly, and

we went on in silence. And for the next mile Dante vanished from my

thoughts and I mused upon the sturdy little red man. Jeremiah was his

civilized name; he would never tell me his real one. It seemed so

unsuited to him that I thought up one still less appropriate and called

him Nupee--which is the three-toed sloth; and in his quiet way he saw

the humor of it, for a more agile human being never lived.

Nupee's face was unclouded, but his position as hunter to our expedition

had brought decisions and responsibilities which he had not known

before. The simple life,--the unruffled existence in the little open

_benab_, with hammock, cassava field, and an occasional hunt,--this was

of the past. A wife had come, slipping quietly into his life,

Indian-fashion; and now, before the baby arrived, decisions had to be

made. Nupee longed for some store shoes and a suit of black clothes. He

had owned a big _benab_ which he himself had built; but a godmother,

like the cowbird in a warbler's nest, had gradually but firmly ousted

him and had filled it with diseased relatives, so that it was unpleasant

to visit. He now, to my knowledge, owned a single shirt and a pair of

short trousers.

The shoes were achieved. I detected in him qualities which I knew that I

should find in some one, as I do on every expedition, and I made him

perform some unnecessary labor and gave him the shoes. But the clothes

would cost five dollars, a month's wages, and he had promised to get

married--white-fashion--in another month, and that would consume several

times five dollars. I did not offer to help him decide. His Akawai

marriage ceremony seemed not without honor, and as for its sincerity--I

had seen the two together. But my lips were sealed. I could not tell

him that a recementing of the ritual of his own tribe did not seem quite

the equal of a five-dollar suit of clothes. That was a matter for

individual decision.

But to-night I think that we both had put all our worries and sorrows

far away, and I memory as well; and I felt sympathy in the quiet, pliant

gait which carried him so swiftly over the sandy trail. I knew Nupee now

for what he was--the one for whom I am always on the lookout, the

exceptional one, the super-servant, worthy of friendship as an equal. I

had seen his uncle and his cousins. They were Indians, nothing more.

Nupee had slipped into the place left vacant for a time by Aladdin, and

by Satan and Shimosaka, by Drojak and Trujillo--all exceptional, all

faithful, all servants first and then friends. I say 'for a time'--for

they all hoped, and I think still hope with me, that we shall meet and

travel and camp together again, whether in the Cinghalese thorn-bush, or

Himalayan daks, in Dyak canoes or among the camphor groves of

Sakarajama.

Nupee and I had not been thrown together closely. This had proved a

static expedition, settled in one place, with no dangers to speak of, no

real roughing it, and we met only after each hunting trip. But the magic

of a full moon had lured me from my laboratory table, and here we were,

we two, plodding junglewards, becoming better acquainted in silence than

I have often achieved with much talk.

It was nearly midnight. We traversed a broad trail of white sand,

between lines of saplings of pale-barked rubber trees, flooded,

saturated, with milky-gray light. Not a star appeared in the cloudless

sky, which, in contrast to the great silver moon-plaque, was blue-black.

These open sandy stretches, so recently etched into what had been

primitive jungle, were too glowing with light for most of the nocturnal

creatures who, in darkness, flew and ran and hunted about in them. And

the lovers of twilight were already come and gone. The stage was vacant

save for one actor--the nighthawk of the silvery collar, whose eerie

_wheeeo!_ or more leisurely and articulate _who-are-you?_ was queried

from stump and log. There was in it the same liquid tang, the virile

ringing of skates on ice, which enriches the cry of the whip-poor-will

in our country lanes.

Where the open trail skirted a hillside we came suddenly upon a great

gathering of these goat-suckers, engaged in some strange midnight revel.

Usually they roost and hunt and call in solitude, but here at least

forty were collected on the white sand within an area of a few yards. We

stopped and watched. They were dancing--or, rather, popping, as corn

pops in a hopper. One after another, or a half dozen at a time, they

bounced up a foot or two from the ground and flopped back, at the

instant of leaving and returning uttering a sudden, explosive _wop!_

This they kept up unceasingly for the five minutes we gave to them, and

our passage interrupted them for only a moment. Later we passed single

birds which popped and wopped in solitary state; whether practicing, or

snobbishly refusing to perform in public, only they could tell. It was a

scene not soon forgotten.

Suddenly before us rose the jungle, raw-edged, with border zone of

bleached, ashamed trunks and lofty branches white as chalk, of dead and

dying trees. For no jungle tree, however hardy, can withstand the

blasting of violent sun after the veiling of emerald foliage is torn

away. As the diver plunges beneath the waves, so, after one glance

backward over the silvered landscape, I passed at a single stride into

what seemed by contrast inky blackness, relieved by the trail ahead,

which showed as does a ray of light through closed eyelids. As the

chirruping rails climbed among the roots of the tall cat-tails out

yonder, so we now crept far beneath the level of the moonlit foliage.

The silvery landscape had been shifted one hundred, two hundred feet

above the earth. We had become lords of creation in name alone,

threading our way humbly among the fungi and toad-stools, able only to

look aloft and wonder what it was like. And for a long time no voice

answered to tell us whether any creature lived and moved in the

tree-tops.

The tropical jungle by day is the most wonderful place in the world. At

night I am sure it is the most weirdly beautiful of all places outside

the world. For it is primarily unearthly, unreal; and at last I came to

know why. In the light of the full moon it was rejuvenated. The simile

of theatrical scenery was always present to the mind, the illusion lying

especially in the completeness of transformation from the jungle by

daylight. The theatrical effect was heightened by the sense of being in

some vast building. This was due to the complete absence of any breath

of air. Not a leaf moved; even the pendulous air-roots reaching down

their seventy-foot plummets for the touch of soil did not sway a hair's

breadth. The throb of the pulse set the rhythm for one's steps. The

silence, for a time, was as perfect as the breathlessness. It was a

wonderfully ventilated amphitheatre; the air was as free from any

feeling of tropical heat, as it lacked all crispness of the north. It

was exactly the temperature of one's skin. Heat and cold were for the

moment as unthinkable as wind.