4 Chapters on Animals. 



minutes in the deepening twilight and I called for him in 

 vain. He had tried to leap across between the bridge and 

 the mill, and was hurried to destruction along an irresisti- 

 ble current, between walls of pitiless stone on which he 

 had no hold. I cannot think of that twilight even now 

 without painful sorrow for my poor, imprudent compan- 

 ion. All dogs are worth keeping, but there are very 

 great differences in their natural gifts, and that one had 

 a rare intelligence. He would sit studying his master's 

 face, and had become from careful observation so acute 

 a physiognomist that he read whatever thoughts of mine 

 had any concern for him. . . . 



Man has succeeded in domesticating several other ani- 

 mals, but where else has he found this spirit of uncon- 

 querable fidelity ? It has not been developed by kind 

 treatment, it has not even been sought for in itself, or 

 made an aim in breeding. Ladies make pets of their 

 dogs, but all the shepherds I see around me pay them in 

 kicks, and curses, and starvation. What does the obscure 

 member of a pack of foxhounds know of his master's 

 love .'' As much as a Prussian private in the rifle-pit 

 knew of the tender heart of Moltke. I have seen a great 

 deal of the life of the French peasantry, but never to this 

 day have I seen a peasant caress his dog otherwise than 

 with a stick or a wooden shoe. There is a well-known 

 picture by Decamps, called " The Kennel," which repre- 

 sents a huntsman visiting his hounds, and he is lashing 

 with a ponderous whip. Thousands of dogs, whole gener- 

 ations of them, have known man in no other character 

 than that of a merciless commander, punishing the 

 slightest error without pity, yet bestowing no reward. 



A. G. Decamps, b. 1803, d. i860. A famous French painter of animals and 

 of the wilder and more picturesque aspects of nature. 



