THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 293 



the dog's affection, devotion, and courage in defence of his 

 master as a ' very small and very low thing.' It is easy to 

 imagine how Miss Cobbe characterises him. Warned by this 

 example, we shall take care not to say that, nowadays perhaps, 

 the dog is too much with us in literature. It may be thought 

 we do not say it is our opinion that the dog's worst peril 

 awaits him at the moment of his highest fortune, when he has 

 become the pet and protege of women. Women may spoil 

 him, so the cynic might say if a cynic could be expected 

 to say anything unkind on such a subject as they spoil all 

 their favourites. Under their enervating patronage he may 

 gradually lose some of his most cherished qualities, until he 

 whines with the poet, ' What is it, in this world of ours, that 

 makes it fatal to be loved ? ' For fatal it would be if the dog 

 were gradually evolved into a thing of tricks, a suppliant for 

 sugar at afternoon tea, a pert assailant only of the people who 

 never mean to rob the house, or a being deaf to the cry of 4 rats,' 

 but fiercely active in the pursuit of a worsted ball a fine- 

 coated dandy with his initials embroidered on his back. His 

 affection, his fidelity, his reasoning power are very good things, 

 but it is not all a blessing for him that they are finding their 

 way into literature. For literature never can take a thing 

 simply for what it is worth. The plain dealing dog must be 

 distinctly bored by the ever-growing obligation to live up to 

 the anecdotes of him in the philosophic journals. These 

 anecdotes are not told for his sake ; they are told to save the 

 self-respect of people who want an idol, and who are distorting 

 him into a figure of pure convention for their domestic altars. 

 He is now expected to discriminate between relations and mere 

 friends of the house ; to wag his tail at ' God save the Queen ' ; 

 to count up to five in chips of firewood, and to seven in mutton 

 bones ; to howl for all deaths in the family above the degree 

 of second cousin ; to post letters, and refuse them when they 

 have been insufficiently stamped ; and last and most intoler- 

 able, to show a tender solicitude when the tabby is out of sorts. 

 He will do these things when they are required of him, for he 

 is the most good-natured and obliging fellow in the world, but 

 it ought never to be forgotten that he hates to do them, and 

 that all he really cares for is his daily dinner, his run, his rat, 

 and his occasional caress. He is not in the least concerned 

 about the friendship of the poets, and the attempt to live up 



