14 . DOGS, BIEDS, AND OTHEKS 



letters have, I am convinced, done incalculable service in 

 keeping this particular home fire burning. And one 

 reason is because, as I say, they issue sanely and naturally 

 out of normal English feeling, out of an innate racial 

 tendency which seems to be totally non-existent in some of 

 the more backward European nations. 



So much for the first tradition. The second is Mr. 

 Strachey's former volumes (Unwin, 1895 and 1896), 

 collecting Spectator letters about dogs (one volume) and 

 cats and birds (another). My book has come of a good 

 stock, for these two books, besides granting me constant 

 pleasure and occasions for reflection, spurred me to treat 

 the present volume with as much respect as though I were 

 anthologizing the poems of a period, and to make it as 

 good and solid a contribution to lay knowledge as I 

 possibly could. My original intention was to pick up the 

 thread where Mr. Strachey dropped it in 1896, but inas- 

 much as it was suggested by both the editors and the 

 publisher that I should write notes to the letters, and in 

 view of the fact that I have included in this the first 

 volume (another is to follow) animals of many kinds, and 

 of the richness and abundance of the material, I was com- 

 pelled to draw in my horns and to confine my selection 

 between the years 1900 and 1920. As it is, I have left 

 out a large number of letters many of them at the last 

 moment and after writing notes on them I was anxious 

 to keep within the sanctuary. The liberties I have taken 

 with the letters are as follows : I have arranged and co- 

 ordinated them into divisions, altered the titles of a great 

 many of them to whim or to fit the divisions, and twice 

 struck out part of a letter irrelevant to the subject- 

 matter. Otherwise, the letters are as they were pub- 

 lished, and my only regret has been that I had to take 

 the permission of their authors to include them in a book 

 for granted. I hesitated at first as to the length and 

 character of the notes, but when I got deeper into the 

 book I found the letters so suggestive, tempting, and full 



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