THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 291 



Moreover, there is nothing we can desire and not 

 find in her garden, which has infinite variety. Why 

 should we cherish a carrion-flower and wear it in 

 our bosoms while carelessly trampling on so many 

 bright and beautiful blooms ? It is a pity to 

 trample on them, since the effect of so destructive 

 a habit is to make them rare ; and " rarity," as 

 certain of our great naturalists have told us, 

 " is the precursor to extinction." And perhaps 

 by and by, blaming ourselves for the past, we 

 shall be diligently seeking everywhere for them, 

 anxious to find and to bring them into our houses, 

 where, after long companionship with the dog, they 

 will serve to sweeten our imaginations and be a 

 j oy for ever. 



NOTE. I had pronounced the foregoing old magazine 

 article unusable, partly because of the manner of it, its care- 

 fulness, and partly because it was somewhat polemical and 

 touched on questions which are not natural history, pure and 

 simple. Now at the last moment I have resolved to put it in 

 just for fun. 



It appeared anonymously ages ago in Macmillari's Magazine, 

 then edited by Mowbray Morris, who wrote to me that my 

 article had given him a painful shock, that it would hurt and 

 disgust many readers of the Magazine, and, finally, that all I 

 and others like me could say in derogation of the dog would 

 have no effect on those who loved and esteemed that friend of 

 man at its proper worth. 



" All right," I replied. " Send me back the MS. Of course 

 you mustn't let anything appear in your magazine to hurt the 

 feelings of these dear people." 



No, he wouldn't, he said. He had accepted the article and 

 would print it. And in due time print it he did. 



Just then a lady named Frances Power Cobbe, whom I 

 greatly esteemed and admired for her courage in combating 



