Under Dispute/The Idolatrous Dog
WE shall never know why a feeling of shame attends certain harmless sensations, certain profoundly innocent tastes and distastes. Why, for example, are we abashed when we are cold, and boastful when we are not? There is no merit or distinction in being insensitive to cold, or in wearing thinner clothing than one's neighbour. And what strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom? We are not necessarily morons or moral lepers because we have no ear for harmony. It is a significant circumstance that Shakespeare puts his intolerant lines,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
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Let no such man be trusted"—
is the girl who "gilded" herself with stolen gold, and gave her dead mother's ring for a monkey.
It is a convenience not to feel cold when the thermometer falls, and it is a pleasure to listen appreciatively to a symphony concert. It is also a convenience to relish the proximity of dogs, inasmuch as we live surrounded by these animals, and it is a pleasure to respond to their charm. But there is no virtue in liking them, any more than there is virtue in liking wintry weather or stringed instruments. An affection for dogs is not, as we have been given to understand, a test of an open and generous disposition. Still less is their affection for us to be accepted as a guarantee of our integrity. The assumption that a dog knows a good from a bad human being when he sees one is unwarranted. It is part of that engulfing wave of sentiment which swept the world in the wake of popular fiction. Dickens is its most unflinching exponent. Henry Gowan's dog, Lion, springs at the throat of Blandois, alias Lagnier, alias Rigaud, for no other reason than that he recognizes him as a villain, without whom the world would be a safer and better place to live in. Florence Dombey's dog, Diogenes, looks out of an upper window, observes Mr. Carker peacefully walking the London streets, and tries to jump down and bite him then and there. He sees at once what Mr. Dombey has not found out in years—that Carker is a base wretch, unworthy of the confidence reposed in him.
A few animals of this kind might, in real life, close the courts of justice. The Dickens dog is detective, prosecuting attorney, judge, jury and executioner, all in one. He stands responsible for a whole school of fictitious canines who combine the qualities of Vidocq, Sherlock Holmes, and the Count of Monte Cristo. I read recently a story in which the villain was introduced as "that anomalous being, the man who doesn't like dogs." After that, no intelligent reader could have been unprepared to find him murdering his friend and partner. So much was inevitable. And no experienced reader could have been unprepared for the behaviour of the friend and partner's dog, which recognizes the anomaly as a person likely to commit murder, and, without wasting time on circumstantial evidence, tracks him down, and, unaided, brings him to his death. A simple, clean-cut retribution, contrasting favourably with the cumbersome processes of law.
A year ago the Governor of Maine had the misfortune to lose his dog. He signified his sense of loss, and his appreciation of the animal's good qualities, by lowering the American flag on the Augusta State House to half-mast. He was able to do this because he was Governor, and there was no one to say him nay. Nevertheless, certain sticklers for formality protested against an innovation which opened up strange possibilities for the future; and one logical lady observed that a dog was no more a citizen than was a strawberry patch, a statement not open to contradiction. The country at large, however, supported the Governor's action. Newspaper men wrote editorials lauding the "homespun" virtues of an official who set a true value on an honest dog's affection. Poets wrote verses about "Old Glory" and "Garry" (the dog's name); and described Saint Peter as promptly investing this worthy quadruped with the citizenship of Heaven. The propriety or impropriety of lowering the national flag for an animal—which was the question under dispute—was buried beneath the avalanche of sentiment which is always ready to fall at the sound of a dog's name.
A somewhat similar gust of criticism swept Pennsylvania when a resident of that State spent five hundred dollars on the obsequies of his dog. The Great War, though drawing to a close, was not yet over, and perhaps the thought of men unburied on the battle-field, and refugees starving for bread, intensified public feeling. There was the usual outcry, as old as Christianity—"this might have been given to the poor." There was the usual irrelevant laudation of the Pennsylvania dog, and of dogs in general. People whose own affairs failed to occupy their attention (there are many such) wrote vehement letters to the daily press. At last a caustic reader chilled the agitation by announcing that he was prepared to give five hundred dollars any day for the privilege of burying his next-door neighbour's dog. Whether or not this offer was accepted, the public never knew; but what troubled days and sleepless nights must have prompted its prodigality!
The honour accorded to the dog is no new thing. It has for centuries rewarded his valour and fidelity. Responsibilities, duties, compensations—these have always been his portion. Sirius shines in the heavens, and Cerberus guards in hell. The dog, Katmir, who watched over the Seven Sleepers for three hundred and nine years, gained Paradise for his pains, as well he might. Even the ill-fated hounds of Actæon, condemned to kill their more ill-fated master, are in some sort immortal, inasmuch as we may know, if we choose, the names of every one of them. Through the long pages of legend and romance the figure of the dog is clearly outlined; and when history begins with man's struggle for existence, the dog may be found his ally and confederate. It was a strange fatality which impelled this animal to abandon communal life and the companionship of his kind for the restraints, the safety, the infinite weariness of domesticity. It was an amazing tractableness which caused him to accept a set of principles foreign to his nature—the integrity of work, the honourableness of servitude, the artificial values of civilization.
As a consequence of this extraordinary change of base, we have grown accustomed to judge the dog by human standards. In fact, there are no other standards which apply to him. The good dog, like the good man, is the dog which has duties to perform, and which performs them faithfully. The bad dog, like the bad man, is the dog which is idle, ill-tempered and over-indulged by women. Women are responsible for most of the dog-failures, as well as for many of the man-failures of the world. So long as they content themselves with toy beasts, this does not much matter; but a real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.
What if the shepherd dog fares hardly, and if exposure stiffens his limbs! He has at least lived, and played his part in life. Nothing more beautiful or more poignant has ever been written about any animal than James Hogg's description of his old collie which could no longer gather in the sheep, and with which he was compelled to part, because—poor Ettrick shepherd—he could not afford to pay the tax on two dogs. The decrepit beast refused to be separated from the flocks which had been his care and pride. Day after day he hobbled along, watching the new collie bustling about his work, and—too wise to interfere—looking with reproachful eyes at the master who had so reluctantly discarded him.
The literature of the dog is limitless. A single shelf would hold all that has been written about the cat. A library would hardly suffice for the prose and verse dedicated to the dog. From "Gêlert" to "Rab" and "Bob, Son of Battle," he has dominated ballad and fiction. Few are the poets and few the men of letters who have not paid some measure of tribute to him. Goethe, indeed, and Alfred de Musset detested all dogs, and said so composedly. Their detestation was temperamental, and not the result of an unfortunate encounter, such as hardened the heart of Dr. Isaac Barrow, mathematician, and Master of Trinity College. Sidney Smith tells us with something akin to glee that this eminent scholar, when taking an early stroll in the grounds of a friend and host, was attacked by a huge and unwarrantably suspicious mastiff. Barrow, a fighter all his life (a man who would fight Algerine pirates was not to be easily daunted), hurled the dog to the ground, and fell on top of him. The mastiff could not get up, but neither could Barrow, who called loudly for assistance. It came, and the combatants were separated; but a distaste for morning strolls and an aversion for dogs lingered in the Master's mind. There was one less enthusiast in the world.
We are apt to think that the exuberance of sentiment entertained by Americans for dogs is a distinctively British trait, that we have inherited it along with our language, our literature, our manliness, our love of sport, our admirable outdoor qualities. But it may be found blooming luxuriously in other and less favoured lands. That interesting study of Danish childhood by Carl Ewald, called "My Little Boy," contains a chapter devoted to the lamentable death of a dog named Jean, "the biggest dog in Denmark." This animal, though at times condescending to kindness, knew how to maintain his just authority. "He once bit a boy so hard that the boy still walks lame. He once bit his own master." The simple pride with which these incidents are narrated would charm a dog-lover's soul. And the lame boy's point of view is not permitted to intrude.
Of all writers who have sung the praises of the dog, and who have justified our love for him, Maeterlinck has given the fullest expression to the profound and absorbing egotism which underlies this love. Never for a moment does he consider his dog save as a worshipper. Never does he think of himself save as a being worshipped. Never does he feel that this relationship can be otherwise than just, reasonable, and satisfying to both parties. "The dog," he says, "reveres us as though we had drawn him out of nothing. He has a morality which surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself, and which he can practise without scruple and without fear. He possesses truth in its fullness. He has a certain and infinite ideal."
And what is this ideal? "He" (the dog) "is the only living being that has found, and recognizes, an indubitable, unexceptionable and definite god."
And who is this god? M. Maeterlinck, you, I, anybody who has bought and reared a puppy. Yet we are told that the dog is intelligent. What is there about men which can warrant the worship of a wise beast? What sort of "truth in its fullness" is compatible with such a blunder? Yet it is for the sake of being idolized that we prize and cherish the idolater. Our fellow mortals will not love us unless we are lovable. They will not admire us unless we are admirable. Our cats will probably neither love nor admire us, being self-engrossed animals, free from encumbering sensibilities. But our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage. M. Maeterlinck recognizes our dependence on the dog for the deification we crave, and is unreasonably angry with the cat for her aloofness. In her eyes, he complains, we are parasites in our own homes. "She curses us from the depths of her mysterious heart."
She does not. She tolerates us with a wise tolerance, recognizing our usefulness, and indulgent of our foibles. Domesticity has not cost her the heavy price it has cost the dog. She has merely exchanged the asylum of cave or tree for the superior accommodation of the house. Her habits remain unaltered, her freedom unviolated. Cream-fed and pampered, she still loves the pleasures of the chase; nor will she pick and choose her prey at the recommendation of prejudiced humanity. M. Maeterlinck, who has striven to enter into the consciousness of the dog, describes it as congested with duties and inhibitions. There are chairs he must not sit on, rooms he must not enter, food he must not steal, babies he must not upset, cats he must not chase, visitors he must not bark at, beggars and tramps he must not permit to enter the gates. He lives under as many, and as strict, compulsions as though he were a citizen of the United States. By comparison with this perverted intelligence, this artificial morality, the mind of the cat appears like a cool and spacious chamber, with only her own spirit to fill it, and only her own tastes and distastes to be consulted and obeyed.
Perhaps it is because the dog is so hedged in by rules and regulations that he has lost his initiative. Descended from animals that lived in packs, and that enjoyed the advantages of communal intelligence, he could never have possessed this quality as it was possessed by an animal that lived alone, and had only his own acuteness and experience to rely on. But having surrendered his will to the will of man, and his conscience to the keeping of man, the dog has by now grown dependent for his simplest pleasures upon man's caprice. He loves to roam; but whereas the cat does roam at will, rightly rejecting all interference with her liberty, the dog craves permission to accompany his master on a stroll, and, being refused, slinks sadly back to confinement and inaction. I have great respect for those exceptional dogs that take their exercise when they need or desire it in self-sufficing solitude. I once knew an Irish terrier that had this independent turn of mind. He invited himself to daily constitutionals, and might have been seen any morning trotting along the road, miles away from home, with the air of an animal walking to keep his flesh down. In the end he was run over by a speeding motor, but what of that? Die we must, and, while he lived, he was free.
A lordliness of sentiment mars much of the admirable poetry written about dogs. The poet thrones himself before addressing his devoted and credulous ally. Even Matthew Arnold's lines to "Kaiser Dead"—among the best of their kind—are heavy with patronage:
The humbler sort who serve and tend,
Were thine in store, thou faithful friend."
To be sure, Kaiser was a mongrel; but why emphasize his low estate? As a matter of fact, mongrels, like self-made men, are apt to have a peculiar complacency of demeanour. They do not rank themselves among "the humbler sort"; but "serve and tend" on the same conditions as their betters.
Two years ago Mr. Galsworthy, who stands in the foremost rank of dog-lovers, and who has drawn for us some of the most lifelike and attractive dogs in fiction, pleaded strongly and emotionally for the exemption of this animal from any form of experimental research. He had the popular sentiment of England back of him, because popular sentiment always is emotional. The question of vivisection is one of abstract morality. None but the supremely ignorant can deny its usefulness. There remain certain questions which call for clean-cut answers. Does our absolute power over beasts carry with it an absolute right? May we justifiably sacrifice them for the good of humanity? What degree of pain are we morally justified in inflicting on them to save men from disease and death? If we faced the issue squarely, we should feel no more concern for the kind of animal which is used for experimentation than for the kind of human being who may possibly benefit by the experiment. Right and wrong admit of no sentimental distinctions. Yet the vivisectionist pleads, "Is not the life of a young mother worth more than the life of a beast?" The anti-vivisectionist asks: "How can man deliberately torture the creature that loves and trusts him?" And Mr. Galsworthy admitted that he had nothing to say about vivisection in general. Cats and rabbits might take their chances. He asked only that the dog should be spared.
It has been hinted more than once that if we develop the dog's intelligence too far, we may end by robbing him of his illusions. He has absorbed so many human characteristics—vanity, sociability, snobbishness, a sense of humour and a conscience—that there is danger of his also acquiring the critical faculty. He will not then content himself with flying at the throats of villains—the out-and-out villain is rare in the common walks of life—he will doubt the godlike qualities of his master. The warmth of his affection will chill, its steadfastness will be subject to decay.
Of this regrettable possibility there is as yet no sign. The hound, Argus, beating the ground with his feeble tail in an expiring effort to welcome the disguised Odysseus, is a prototype of his successor to-day. Scattered here and there in the pages of history are instances of unfaithfulness; but their rarity gives point to their picturesqueness. Froissart tells us that the greyhound, Math, deserted his master, King Richard the Second, to fawn on the Duke of Lancaster who was to depose and succeed him; and that a greyhound belonging to Charles of Blois fled on the eve of battle to the camp of John de Montfort, seeking protection from the stronger man. These anecdotes indicate a grasp of political situations which is no part of the dog's ordinary make-up. Who can imagine the fortunate, faithful little spaniel that attended Mary Stuart in her last sad months, and in her last heroic hours, fawning upon Queen Elizabeth? Who can imagine Sir Walter Scott's dogs slinking away from him when the rabble of Jedburgh heaped insults on his bowed grey head?
The most beautiful words ever written about a dog have no reference to his affectionate qualities. Simonides, celebrating the memory of a Thessalian hound, knows only that he was fleet and brave. "Surely, even as thou liest in this tomb, I deem the wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, Lycas; and thy valour great Pelion knows, and the lonely peaks of Cithæron." This is heroic praise, and so, in a fashion, is Byron's epitaph on Boatswain. But Byron, being of the moderns, can find no better way of honouring dogs than by defaming men; a stupidity, pardonable in the poet only because he was the most sincere lover of animals the world has ever known. His tastes were catholic, his outlook was whimsical. He was not in the least discomposed when his forgetful wolf-hound bit him, or when his bulldog bit him without the excuse of forgetfulness. Moore tells us that the first thing he saw on entering Byron's palace in Venice was a notice, "Keep clear of the dog!" and the first thing he heard was the voice of his host calling out anxiously, "Take care, or that monkey will fly at you."
It is a pleasant relief, after floundering through seas of sentiment, to read about dogs that were every whit as imperfect as their masters; about Cowper's "Beau" who has been immortalized for his disobedience; or Sir Isaac Newton's "Diamond" who has been immortalized for the mischief he wrought; or Prince Rupert's "Boy" who was shot while loyally pulling down a rebel on Marston Moor; or the Church of England spaniel, mentioned by Addison, who proved his allegiance to the Establishment by worrying a dissenter. It is also a pleasure of a different sort to read about the wise little dog who ran away from Mrs. Welsh (Carlyle's mother-in-law) on the streets of Edinburgh, to follow Sir Walter Scott; and about the London dog of sound literary tastes who tried for many nights to hear Dickens read. It is always possible that if men would exact a less unalterable devotion from their dogs, they might find these animals to be possessed of individual and companionable traits.
But not of human sagacity. It is their privilege to remain beasts, bound by admirable limitations, thrice happy in the things they do not have to know, and feel, and be. "The Spectator" in a hospitable mood once invited its readers to send it anecdotes of their dogs. The invitation was, as might be imagined, cordially and widely accepted. Mr. Strachey subsequently published a collection of these stories in a volume which had all the vraisemblance of Hans Andersen and "The Arabian Nights." Reading it, one could but wonder and regret that the tribe of man had risen to unmerited supremacy. The "Spectator" dogs could have run the world, the war and the Versailles Conference without our lumbering interference.
The end