LITERARY TREATMENT OF NATURE 
a matter of fact, the dog is not compelled “in less 
than five or six weeks to get into his mind, taking 
shape within it, an image and a satisfactory concep-' 
tion of the universe.” No, nor in five or six years. 
Strictly speaking, he is not capable of conceptions at 
all, but only of sense impressions; his sure guide is 
instinct — not blundering reason. The dog starts 
with a fund of knowledge, which man acquires 
slowly and painfully. But all this does not trouble 
one in reading of Maeterlinck’s dog. Our interest is 
awakened, and our sympathies are moved, by seeing 
the world presented to the dog as it presents itself 
to us, or by putting ourselves in the dog’s place. It 
is not false natural history, it is a fund of true 
human sentiment awakened by the contemplation 
of the dog’s life and character. 
Maeterlinck does not ascribe human powers and 
capacities to his dumb friend, the dog; he has no 
incredible tales of its sagacity and wit to relate; itis 
only an ordinary bull pup that he describes, but he 
makes us love it, and, through it, all other dogs, by 
his loving analysis of its trials and tribulations, and 
its devotion to its god, man. In like manner, in John 
Muir’s story of his dog Stickeen, —a story to go 
with “Rab and his Friends,” — our credulity is 
not once challenged. Our sympathies are deeply 
moved because our reason is not in the least out- 
raged. It is true that Muir makes his dog act like a 
human being under the press of great danger; but 
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