AMIABLE QUALITIES OF ANIMALS. 211 



LETTER XXVI. 



FROM CAROLINE TO EMILY. 



DEAR EMILY, 



1 SHOULD not have written so soon^ had not 

 I met with a circumstance that I think worth your 

 notice ; as it is a striking confirmation of a pleasing 

 truth that I have long cherished^ though without 

 daring to assure myself that the thing existed^ as 

 it seems to bring animals too much on a level with 

 human creatures. I am now convinced that, though 

 the brute creation is not capable of acting virtuously 

 from a principle of duty, and that grand stimulus 

 that man enjoys, of the hope of a future reward, they 

 are, nevertheless, often endowed with virtuous dis- 

 positions, such as gratitude, attachment, docility, and 

 other amiable propensities, of which I give you the 

 following example. 



A farmer* in our neighbourhood had a bull so 



* The facts here related are taken from the Monthly Maga- 

 zine for October 1810. 



