EEASON OE INSTINCT 



This is a big question as regards the animal world, and one 

 which never wears out, but, on the contrary, acquires more 

 interest the deeper we go into it. The minds of animals of 

 the higher class are unfathomable, and I feel convinced 

 that, just as all must have experienced in the business 

 world, some good-natured action has often been the means 

 of bringing about some lucrative advantage in after life 

 most unexpectedly; so constant familiar intercourse with 

 the brute creation gives one a pleasure in life which grows 

 with increasing years, and if I was dying, I think I should 

 feel more comfortable if I said good-bye to my dogs. 

 Charles Dickens was very fond of his dogs; and, to my 

 mind, there is more pathos in Hugh, the rough gipsy out- 

 cast, on his way to the scaffold remembering his dog, than 

 in the death of little Nell, which, with many apologies to 

 the ghost of Mr. Dickens, I think a murder : " There is 

 nothing more; unless," said Hugh, "any person has a fancy 

 for a dog — and not then unless he will use him well. . . . 

 He'll whine at first, but he'll soon get over that. You 

 wonder that I think about a dog just now," he added, with 

 a kind of laugh ; " if any man deserved it of me half as 

 well, I'd think of him:' Whyte-Melville said in words all 

 that could be said about a horse in his beautiful song, " The 

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