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 protégé 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 ‘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 anec- 
dotes 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 intolerable, 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 
