A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



with me. Be quiet and I will tell you. I am sick. 

 I came up here to do as you do and sleep it off 

 in the sun ; but it didn t work worth a cent, be 

 cause I m only a man, and not a fortunate dog 

 like you. Hist, what do you want to bark for ? 

 Don t you know Charlie is asleep ? I ll bounce 

 you if you don t stop. You can just wag your 

 tail and talk, can t you, quietly? What time do 

 you suppose it is ? Wait till I look at my watch. 

 It must be nearly morning. Heavens, it s only 

 half-past three. What can we do for three hours? 

 The sun will not be up till six. I ll tell you, let s 

 light that wood fire. A wood fire is company. 

 Come on, there s some light wood in the kitchen, 

 and I feel chilly.&quot; 



I might as well put down that dog s reply, if 

 for no other reason than that it is a true dog s 

 reply, and not man s, which dog talk is so apt to 

 be. This is what he said, exactly : &quot; I can t make 

 out what it is you propose to do, but I under 

 stand in a general way that you are going to do 

 something, and I m with you whatever it is. Let s 

 make as much hullabaloo about it as we can.&quot; 



I have learned that a dog apprehends a man s 

 meaning very much as a man apprehends the 

 meaning of a symphony. It is purely a matter 

 of tones and not of articulations. He seizes 

 upon your moods, not upon your ideas, with the 

 marvellous generalizing capacity of a sympathetic 

 ear. He responds to the allegros and andantes, 

 appropriates the rhythms without consciousness, 

 and keeps time to the feelings as they slip and 



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