[From _An American Family in Germany_ (New York, 1866)]
One of the most remarkable sights is the dog-fancier--a strapping
six-foot dandy, leading after him, with silken strings, a whole brood
of nasty little poodles. This fellow is a type of the class; you meet
them everywhere at every Continental city. There are thousands of them
in Frankfort, men strangely infatuated on the subject of little dogs.
Now pardon me if I devote some serious reflections to this extraordinary
and unreasonable propensity, which, I fear, is rapidly taking root in
the hearts of the American people, especially the female portion of our
population. In men it is often excusable; they may be driven to it by
unrequited affection. I never see a fine-looking fellow leading a gang
of little poodle-dogs after him, that I don't imagine he has had some
dreadful experience in the line of true love; but with the opposite sex
the case is quite different. "If women have one weakness more marked
than another," says Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in a very eloquent passage of
the "Minister's Wooing," "it is toward veneration. They are born
worshippers--makers of silver shrines for some divinity or other, which,
of course, they always think fell straight down from heaven." And, in
illustration of this very just remark, she refers to instances where
celebrated preachers and divines have stood like the image that
Nebuchadnezzar the king set up, "and all womankind, coquettes and flirts
not excepted, have been ready to fall down and worship, even before the
sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and so forth," where the most
gifted and accomplished of the sex "have turned away from the flattery
of admirers, to prostrate themselves at the feet of a genuine hero, who
never moved them except by heroic deeds and the rhetoric of a noble
life"--a most striking and beautiful trait in woman's character to which
all homage should be rendered. She clingeth unto man, even as the ivy
clingeth unto the oak. But does anybody pretend to tell me that man is
always the lucky recipient of this devotion? Alas, no! Not always for
him is it that women are burdened with this load of "fealty, faith, and
reverence more than they know what to do with;" not always for him is it
that "They stand like a hedge of sweet peas, throwing out fluttering
tendrils everywhere for something high and strong to climb by." Alas!
man is but a cipher among the objects of woman's heroic devotion. I have
a lady in my eye who from early youth has bestowed the tenderest
affections of her heart upon poll-parrots; another, who for years has
wept over the woes of a little chicken; who would abandon her midnight
slumber to minister to the afflictions of a lame turkey, and insensible
to the appeals of her lover, only relax in her severity when moved by
the plaintive mewing of a cat; another, who, in the bosom of her family,
and tenderly adored by her husband, has long since yielded to the
fascinating allurement of a sewing-machine, and wrapped around its
cogwheels, cotton spools, and hammering needles the poetry of a romantic
attachment; and, lastly, the particular case in point, at which I marvel
most of all, three most bewitching young ladies, of acknowledged beauty,
who are hopelessly and irrevocably gone in love with--what do you think?
Not a man, erect and noble, with the brow of Jove and eye of Mars; not
even a horse, the paragon of beautiful and intelligent animals, or a
lion, the king of the forest; but a miserable, dirty, nasty, little
lapdog; a snappish, foul-eyed inodorous, sneaking little brute, which
even the very cats hold in contempt! And yet they love it; at least they
say so, and I have no reason to dispute their word. Have I not heard
them, morning, noon, and night, protest their devotion to the dear
little Fidel--the precious, beautiful little Fidel--the adorable love of
a little Fidel! Oh, it is enough to make the angels weep to see the
grace and fondness with which this horrid little wretch is caught up in
those tender white arms, and hugged to those virgin bosoms and kissed by
those pouting and honeyed lips! Faugh! It drives me mad. What is the use
of wasting so much sweetness when there are thousands of good, honest
fellows actually pining away from unrequited affection? brave sons of
toil, ready at a moment's notice to be caressed by these sweet-pea
vines, who are throwing out their fluttering tendrils for something high
and strong to cling to. I leave it to any honest miner, if it is not
provoking to the last degree to see the noblest capacity of woman's
nature thus cruelly and wastefully perverted--the choicest affections
devoted to a miserable, disgusting, and unsympathizing little
monster--the very honey of their lips lavished on that foul and mucous
nose, which, if it knows anything, must know some thing not fit to be
mentioned to polite ears. Heaven! how often have I longed to have a good
fair kick at one of these pampered little brutes. Only think of the care
taken of them, while widows and orphans are shivering in the cold and
perishing of hunger. The choicest pieces of meat cut up for them,
potatoes and gravy mixed, delicate morsels of bread; the savory mess put
before them by delicate hands, and swallowed into their delicate
stomachs, and too often rejected by those delicate organs, to the
detriment of the carpet. And then, when this delectable subject of
woman's adoration is rubbed, and scrubbed, and pitied, and physicked,
and thoroughly combed out from head to foot, with every love-lock of his
glossy hair filtered of its fleas, how tenderly he is laid upon the bed
or clasped in the embraces of beauty! Shade of Cupid! what a happy thing
it is to be a lapdog! Well might the immortal Bard of Avon prefer to be
a dog that bayed the moon rather than an indifferent poet. For my part,
I'd sooner be wrapped in the arms of beauty than be King of the Cannibal
Islands. That strange infatuation of feminine instinct which lends to
the head-dress, at an approaching bridal, a degree of importance to
which the expected groom can never aspire; which sees the destinies of
the whole matrimonial career centred in the fringe of a nightgown; which
seeks advice and consolation in the pattern of a reception-dress; which
would shrink from the fearful sacrifice of liberty but for the magic
power of new bonnets, new gloves, and embroidered handkerchiefs--that we
can all understand; these are woman's coy devices to tantalize mankind;
these are the probationary tortures inflicted upon him through mere
wantonness and love of mischief. But when the richest treasures of her
affection, the most divine essence of her being, the Promethean spark
warm from her virgin heart, for which worlds are lost and won--when
these are cast away upon a nauseous little lapdog, ye gods! what can
poor mortals do but abandon their humanity! It is shocking to think of
such competition, but how can we help it if young ladies give themselves
up to dog worship? I sincerely trust this Continental fashion may never
take root in California. Should it do so, farewell all hope for the
honest sons of toil; it will then be the greatest of good fortunes to be
born a lapdog!