An Alarming Interlude 



there is actually a shop in a West -End arcade 

 where there are sold coats, and collars, and boots, 

 and handkerchiefs, and walking-sticks, and ties, 

 and jewelled tie-pins for dogs. 



It is no new thing, and almost all the follies 

 to which the alliance between dogs and men has 

 given rise are recorded in a certain chapter of 

 Montaigne. 



Dogs and other animals, it is to be observed, 

 take their character from their masters, or, as the 

 Theosophists put it in their transcendental way, 

 dogs and beasts can be helped upward in the scale 

 by those with whom they live, who then are 

 weighted with a certain karmic responsibility. One 

 thing is certain, that no dog can be turned into a 

 religious animal by contact (or anything else for 

 that matter) : that is, it cannot pass beyond the 

 line of demarcation between dumb consciousness 

 and the consciousness which is so acute that it 

 must speak. Dogs at their very best can sympa- 

 thise with men only up to a certain point : beyond 

 that they are baffled : for beyond that lies all 

 — because they do not understand — that makes 

 them regard men as Gods. 



As to cats, it is impossible to theorise. 



All this is not so far from the subject as might 

 appear at first sight. It serves to indicate that, 



i59 



