FOR THOSE WHO LOVE PETS.
“All were loved and all were regretted, but life is made up of
forgetting.”
“The best thing which a man possesses is his dog.”
When I saw a man driving into my yard after this, I would dart out of a
back door and flee to sweet communion with my cows.
On one such occasion I shouted back that I did not want a horse of
any variety, could not engage any fruit trees, did not want the
place photographed, and was just going out to spend the day. I was
courteously but firmly informed that my latest visitor had, singular to
relate, no horse to dispose of, but he “would like fourteen dollars for
my dog tax for the current year!” As he was also sheriff, constable,
and justice of the peace, I did not think it worth while to argue the
question, although I had no more thought of being called up to pay a
dog tax than a hen tax or cat tax. I trembled, lest I should be obliged
to enumerate my entire menagerie—cats, dogs, canaries, rabbits, pigs,
ducks, geese, hens, turkeys, pigeons, peacocks, cows, and horses.
Each kind deserves an entire chapter, and how easy it would be to
write of cats and their admirers from Cambyses to Warner; of dogs and
their friends from Ulysses to Bismarck. I agree with Ik Marvel that a
cat is like a politician, sly and diplomatic; purring—for food; and
affectionate—for a consideration; really caring nothing for friendship
and devotion, except as means to an end. Those who write books and
articles and verse and prose tributes to cats think very differently,
but the cats I have met have been of this type.
And dogs. Are they really so affectionate, or are they also a
little shrewd in licking the hand that feeds them? I dislike to be
pessimistic. But when my dogs come bounding to meet me for a jolly
morning greeting they do seem expectant and hungry rather than
affectionate. At other hours of the day they plead with loving eyes and
wagging tails for a walk or a seat in the carriage or permission to
follow the wagon.
But I will not analyze their motives. They fill the house and grounds
with life and frolic, and a farm would be incomplete if they were
missing. Hamerton, in speaking of the one dog, the special pet and dear
companion of one’s youth, 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 three-score and ten, man and dog might
have traveled through life together, but, as it is, we must either have
a succession of affections, or else, when the first is buried in its
early grave, live in a chill condition of dog-less-ness.”
I thank him for that expressive compound word. Almost every one might,
like Grace Greenwood and Gautier, write a History of my Pets and make
a readable book. Carlyle, the grand old growler, was actually attached
to a little white dog—his wife’s special delight, for whom she used to
write cute little notes to the master. And when he met with a fatal
accident, he was tenderly nursed by both for months, and when the
doctor was at last obliged to put him out of pain by prussic acid,
their grief was sincere. They buried him at the top of the garden in
Cheyne Row, and planted cowslips round his grave, and his 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, of fidelity, girdled by the darkness of night
eternal.”
Beecher said many a good thing about dogs, but I like this best:
Speaking of horseback riding, he incidentally remarked that in
evolution, the human door was just shut upon the horse, but the dog
got fully up before the door was shut. If there was not reason,
mirthfulness, love, honor, and fidelity in a dog, he did not know where
to look for it. Oh, if they only could speak, what wise and humorous
and sarcastic things they would say! Did you never feel snubbed by an
immense dog you had tried to patronize? And I have seen many a dog
smile. 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!”
Dr. Holland wrote a poem to his dog Blanco, “his dear, dumb friend,” in
which he expresses what we all have felt many times.
I look into your great brown eyes,
Where love and loyal homage shine,
And wonder where the difference lies
Between your soul and mine.
The whole poem is one of the best things Holland ever did in rhyme. He
was ambitious to be remembered as a poet, but he never excelled in verse
unless he had something to express that was very near his heart. He was
emphatically the Apostle of Common Sense. How beautifully he closes his
loving tribute—
Ah, Blanco, did I worship God
As truly as you worship me,
Or follow where my Master trod
With your humility,
Did I sit fondly at his feet
As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine,
And watch him with a love as sweet,
My life would grow divine!
Almost all our great men have more than one dog in their homes. When
I spent a day with the Quaker poet at Danvers, I found he had three
dogs. Roger Williams, a fine Newfoundland, stood on the piazza with the
questioning, patronizing air of a dignified host; a bright-faced Scotch
terrier, Charles Dickens, peered at us from the window, as if glad of a
little excitement; while Carl, the graceful greyhound, was indolently
coiled up on a shawl and took little notice of us.
Whittier has also a pet cow, favorite and favored, which puts up her
handsome head for an expected caress. The kindly hearted old poet, so
full of tenderness for all created things, told me that years when nuts
were scarce he would put beech nuts and acorns here and there as he
walked over his farm, to cheer the squirrels by an unexpected find.
Miss Mitford’s tribute to her defunct doggie shows to what a degree
of imbecility an old maid may carry fondness for her pets, but it is
pathetically amusing.
“My own darling Mossy’s hair, cut off after he was dead by dear Drum,
August 22, 1819. He was the greatest darling that ever lived (son of
Maria and Mr. Webb’s ‘Ruler,’ a famous dog given him by Lord Rivers),
and was, when he died, about seven or eight years old. He was a large
black dog, of the largest and strongest kind of greyhounds; very fast
and honest, and resolute past example; an excellent killer of hares,
and a most magnificent and noble-looking creature. His coat was of
the finest and most glossy black, with no white, except a very little
under his feet (pretty white shoe linings I used to call them)—a little
beautiful white spot, quite small, in the very middle of his neck,
between his chin and his breast—and a white mark on his bosom. His
face was singularly beautiful; the finest black eyes, very bright,
and yet sweet, and fond, and tender—eyes that seemed to speak; a
beautiful, complacent mouth, which used sometimes to show one of the
long white teeth at the side; a jet black nose; a brow which was bent
and flexible, like Mr. Fox’s, and gave great sweetness and expression,
and a look of thought to his dear face. There never was such a dog! His
temper was, beyond comparison, the sweetest ever known. Nobody ever
saw him out of humor. And his sagacity was equal to his temper. Thank
God, he went off without suffering. He must have died in a moment. I
thought I should have broken my heart when I came home and found what
had happened. I shall miss him every moment of my life; I have missed
him every instant to-day—so have Drum and Granny. He was laid out last
night in the stable, and this morning we buried him in the middle
plantation on the house side of the fence, in the flowery corner,
between the fence and Lord Shrewsbury’s fields. We covered his dear
body with flowers; every flower in the garden. _Everybody loved him_;
‘dear saint,’ as I used to call him, and as _I do not doubt he now
is!!_ No human being was ever so faithful, so gentle, so generous, and
so fond! I shall never love anything half so well.
“It will always be pleasant to me to remember that I never teased him
by petting other things, and that everything I had he shared. He always
ate half my breakfast, and the very day before he died I fed him _all
the morning_ with filberts.” (There may have been a connection between
the filberts and the funeral.)
“While I had him, I was always sure of having one who would love me
alike in riches or poverty, who always looked at me with looks of the
fondest love, always faithful and always kind. To think of him was a
talisman against vexing thoughts. A thousand times I have said, ‘I want
my Mossy,’ when that dear Mossy was close by and would put his dear
black nose under my hand on hearing his name. God bless you, my Mossy!
I cried when you died, and I can hardly help crying whenever I think of
you. All who loved me loved Mossy. He had the most perfect confidence
in me—always came to me for protection against any one who threatened
him, and, thank God, always found it. I value all things he had lately
or ever touched; even the old quilt that used to be spread on my bed
for him to lie on, and which we called Mossy’s quilt; and the pan that
he used to drink out of in the parlor, and which was always called
Mossy’s pan, dear darling!
“I forgot to say that his breath was always sweet and balmy; his coat
always glossy like satin; and he never had any disease or anything to
make him disagreeable in his life. Many other things I have omitted;
and so I should if I were to write a whole volume of his praise; for he
was above all praise, sweet angel! I have inclosed some of his hair,
cut off by papa after his death, and some of the hay on which he was
laid out. He died Saturday, the 21st of August, 1819, at Bertram House.
Heaven bless him, beloved angel!”
It is as sad as true that great natures are solitary, and therefore
doubly value the affections of their pets.
Southey wrote a most interesting biography of the cats of Greta Hall,
and on the demise of one wrote to an old friend: “Alas! Grosvenor, this
day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and as happy a life
as cat could wish for—if cats form wishes on that subject. There should
be a court mourning in Cat-land, and if the Dragon wear a black ribbon
round his neck, or a band of crape, _à la militaire_, round one of the
fore paws, it will be but a becoming mark of respect. As we have not
catacombs here, he is to be decently interred in the orchard and catnip
planted on his grave.”
And so closes this catalogue of Southey’s “Cattery.”
But, hark! my cats are mewing, dogs all calling for me—no—for dinner!
After all, what is the highest civilization but a thin veneer over
natural appetites? What would a club be without its _chefs_, a social
affair without refreshment, a man without his dinner, a woman without
her tea? Come to think of it, I’m hungry myself!