XXXVDOG BOOKS
The dog, except in very high latitudes, is not so useful as the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey; he cannot supply food and drink, like the cow and the goat; but for all that, he is, among all the lower animals, man’s best friend. Even here, as in bipeds, we do not prize our friends for what they can do for us, but for their mental and moral qualities.
If it were possible to collect in one heap all the books and articles that men have written in praise of dogs, it would be a sky-scraper. I cannot tell what the earliest literary allusion to dogs is; but I think it strange that the Bible is so silent. Those books representing the social history of the Jews for many centuries, contain the most beautiful poetry and prose ever written, as well as the most tender and comforting assurances; but they indicate little interest in animals as companions or pets. The word dog is repeatedly used as a term of degradation, and for some unknown reason the Jews were forbiddento bring into the sanctuary the price of a dog, which was coupled with the wages of sin. The only allusion I have found to the dog as a companion is in the Apocrypha, in the eleventh chapter of Tobit: “So they went their way, and the dog went after them.” Even here the dog apparently had to force his attentions upon man, which is a way he has when unappreciated.
The fact that in the New Testament the dogs ate of the crumbs from the table and that the street dogs licked the sores of Lazarus the beggar, proves nothing in the way of appreciation; other animals moved freely about the houses in Palestine, and they were not kept for the charm of their company.
But in the old Indian books of the East, many centuries before Christ, the dog’s fidelity and social attractions were prized; as is shown by the well-known story of the righteous pilgrim coming to the gates of heaven with his dog. He was told to walk right in. “And my dog?” “Oh, no dogs allowed.” “All right, then I don’t go in.” This man thought heaven would not be heaven without dogs, as Siegmund cared naught for heaven without Sieglinde.
Pope alluded to the Indian love of dogs:
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
The Greeks loved dogs. One of the most affecting incidents in Homer’sOdysseyis where Ulysses returns after years of wandering, and, being in rags, no one recognises him. But his dog Argos, who had waited for his master expectantly all these years, instantly sees and knows him, and through the beggar’s disguise salutes the king. He wags his tail and dies of joy.
English literature is filled with dogolatry. Dr. John Brown’sRab and His Friends(1858), became a little classic. Tennyson worshipped dogs, and always had two or three huge dogs in the room while he composed poetry, which he read aloud to them. His poemOwd Roa(Old Rover), describes how a dog saved a family when the house was on fire. Bret Harte made a marvellous sketch of the strange appearance and characteristics of the dog Boonder. Stevenson wrote a whimsical essay,The Character of Dogs, in which he proves conclusively that many dogs are snobs. They certainly are; they will fawn on well-dressed strangers, and try to bite the iceman.
Maeterlinck has declared that the dog is the only conscious being in the world who knows and is sure of his god; inThe Blue Birdhe exalted the moral character of the dog, though Ifind it hard to forgive him for his slander of the cat. Richard Harding Davis’s masterpiece—among all his brilliant short stories—isThe Bar Sinister, an imaginative study of dogs. Rudyard Kipling has celebrated the virtues of dogs both in prose and verse.
Vivisection and dogs have called out many poems, of which two of the most notable are Robert Browning’sTrayand Percy MacKaye’sThe Heart of a Dog.
Jack London’s masterpiece isThe Call of the Wild, where the great dog reverted to primitive impulses and habits. This is an imperishable work of literature, and although cast in the form of prose fiction, has much of the elevation and majesty of poetry. Among contemporary writers, Albert Payson Terhune has specialised in dogs, and done admirable work in canine psychoanalysis. The late Senator Vest, when a young man, made a speech in court on dogs which will outlast his political orations.
But of all the works in prose or verse, ancient or modern that celebrates the virtues of the dog, the most admirable is the novel,Bob, Son of Battle, by the late Alfred Ollivant. It was published in 1898, and was his first book, written under peculiar circumstances. Mr. Ollivant was a young Englishman who had injured hisspine in football; then, having apparently recovered, he received a commission in the artillery at the age of nineteen. A fall from his horse permanently injured him, so that he was an invalid for the rest of his life—he died in 1927. For the first few years he was not able to leave his bed, and at the age of twenty, in horizontal pain and weakness, began to writeBob. It took him three years to finish the book. In England it was published under the poor title,Owd Bob, and attracted no attention; but in America the publishers wisely changed the name to the alliterativeBob, Son of Battle, and the book sold by the hundred thousand. (Those who are interested in the first editions should know that the first English edition differs in style from the first American edition; the London publishers delayed publication, and the author revised the story without injuring it.)
It is a curious fact that this book, written by an Englishman for Englishmen, and dealing exclusively with English scenes and customs, should have attracted no attention in the land of its birth, while selling like the proverbial hot cakes in every city and village in America. In public lectures in Texas, California, and all over the middle West and the East, I had only to mention the name of this novel and a wave ofdelighted recognition swept over the audience. But even ten years after its appearance it was practically unheard of in England. I asked William De Morgan, Henry Arthur Jones, and William Archer if they had read it; they had never heard of it.
Some years after that, however, a cheap edition was published in Great Britain, and the book slowly made its way, and is now over there as here an acknowledged classic. Its popularity was increased by its being made into a motion picture, and Mr. Ollivant was elected to the Athenæum.
The two most remarkable dogs I ever met in fiction are both inBob, Son of Battle—the hero, Bob, the Grey Dog of Kenmuir, and the villain Red Wull. Their continued rivalry has an epic force and fervour. It is the eternal strife between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness.