Future Life. 483 



Not by man alone have these higher qualities been 

 accorded to the brute. Women have praised the good within 

 the lower animals, and been quite as willing to share with 

 them the benefits of an immortal life. Eugenie de Guerin, a 

 woman distinguished for her devotional piety, and an author 

 of no mean repute, was, like the most of her sex, quite pas- 

 sionately fond of pets. Hers was a turtle-dove. Its voice was 

 the first to greet her in the morning. There was a pleasure 

 in its soft, gentle cooings, as they fell upon her ear, that sent 

 a sweet consolation to her busy, thinking soul. But the 

 time came at last when she must part with her treasure. 

 The morn dawned bright, an August morning, and the bird 

 was well and happy, but, with the falling of the shadows at 

 even-tide, its little life went out. A bitter trial it was for the 

 mistress, who loved with a perfect love her feathered friend. 

 While wrestling with her intense sorrow, and after she had 

 sincerely placed its mortal remains in a dainty cavity beneath 

 the roses, it was that she wrote : " I have a tolerably strong 

 belief in the souls of animals, and I should even like there to 

 be a little paradise for the good and gentle, like turtle-doves, 

 dogs and lambs. But what to do with wolves and other 

 wicked animals ? To damn them ? that embarrasses me." 



Less devotional, perhaps, and looking rather to logic than 

 to intuition, was the mind of Mrs. Somerville. With such 

 a difference in constitution between the two women, we 

 would naturally look for the greatest divergence of opinion 

 upon a matter of this kind, but, astonishing to relate, there 

 is noticeable a marked unanimity. Speaking of death, and 

 the accompanying change of environing objects, this gifted 

 writer, in her eighty-ninth year, says in her " Memoirs " : 



" I shall regret the sky, the sea, with all their beautiful 

 coloring ; the earth, with its verdure and flowers ; but far 

 more shall I grieve to leave animals that have followed our 

 steps affectionately for years, without knowing for certainty 

 their ultimate fate, though I firmly believe that the living 

 principle is never extinguished. Since the atoms of matter 



