it is necessary that he should come into our possession when young, 

 before his intelligence is formed, and innumerable other impressions 

 crowd his brain to the exclusion of those we wish to impart. To 

 watch the intelligence unfolding, to see the body developing, and 

 the character chrystallising into the shape we desire it to assume, 

 is a never ending source of joy. Day by day too, the little 

 creature comes to depend more and more upon us, to recognise us 

 as the chief god among the many strange beings that people this 

 earth. When he is hungry we feed him. Is he thirsty? We 

 give him drink. All the thousand and one little services that we 

 render to him in the course of a week make him more and more 

 irrevocably our debtor, and when the time comes for the state of 

 pupilage to be shed we shall have a mature dog our devoted and 

 obedient servant, ready to die for us if need be. In no other wise 

 can we have quite the same understanding between master and 

 dependent. 



If you have not read Maeterlinck's essay on the death of a 

 little dog you should do so at once. How well does he express 

 the intimacy between a puppy and his owner. " I saw my little 

 Pelleas sitting at the foot of my writing table, his tail carefully 

 folded under his paws, his head a little on one side the better to 

 question me, at once attentive and tranquil, as a saint should be in 

 the presence of God. He was happy with the happiness which we, 

 perhaps, shall never know, since it sprang from the smile and the 



