III.

III.PETS IN LITERARY LIFE.

PETS IN LITERARY LIFE.

The pets and authors of the past may be briefly glanced at on our way to those of to-day. We may begin with the learned Justus Lipsius, erstwhile professor at Louvain. This worthy went daily to his lecture-room with a retinue of dogs, whose portraits, each with a commemorative description, adorned the walls of his study. Three have been individualized for posterity as Mopsikins, Mopsy and Sapphire.

Tarot, Franza, Balassa, Ciccone, Musa, Mademoiselle and Monsieur, were, in their long-vanished life-time, companions to Agrippa, the astrologer and scholar. The knowing little Monsieur was permitted, as special favorite, to sleep upon his master’s bed, eat from his plate, and lie upon the table beside his papers, while he wrote. He may even have suggested to Goethe the black poodle in Faust, since, like Rupert’s hound Boy, and Claver’s battle-horse, he was commonly supposed to be a fiend.

The creator of Faust’s demon-poodle could not endure dogs in real life, and was always scolding about their “ungeheure Ton.”As to their character, he even committed himself in this very unpleasant epigram:

“Wundern kannes mich nicht dassMenschen die Hunde so lieben;Denn ein erbärmlicher Schuffist, wieDer Mensch, so der Hund,”

“Wundern kannes mich nicht dass

Menschen die Hunde so lieben;

Denn ein erbärmlicher Schuffist, wie

Der Mensch, so der Hund,”

which has been rendered:

“It cannot surprise me that men love dogs so much,For dog, like man, is a pitiful, sneaking rogue.”

“It cannot surprise me that men love dogs so much,

For dog, like man, is a pitiful, sneaking rogue.”

Such a disagreeable sentiment as this—one so unworthy both of man and author—requires an antidote. We find one in these lines of Herrick to his spaniel Tracy:

“Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever seeFor shape and service spaniel like to thee.This shall my love doe, give thy sad fate oneTeare, that deserves of me a million.”

“Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see

For shape and service spaniel like to thee.

This shall my love doe, give thy sad fate one

Teare, that deserves of me a million.”

This is all we know of Tracy, but it suffices enough. A faithful dog, a fond master—in these words his story is told.

Bounce—named most suggestive—belonged to Alexander Pope; Bean, to the gentler poet, Cowper. Goldsmith had a dog, of course, and equally of course it was a poodle. No creature less comic would serve his turn. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells a story of the pair which reads like a fragment from the Vicar of Wakefield: how one morning he called on the improvident author, rather expecting to find him in low spirits, and found him, instead, at his table, alternately writing a few words, and looking over at the poodle which he had made stand on its hind legs in a corner of the room.

In this fashion the impecunious one was amusing himself; and the great artist looked on, no less amused in truth, and pleasantly sympathetic. If only he had painted the scene, one wishes.

Very different in temperament was Lord Byron. Practically, he agreed withMme. de Staël in liking dogs the better, the more he knew of men. He seems to have had as friendly a feeling for the animal world as his contemporary, Scott, although showing it in a more whimsical fashion. Scott would never have traveled with a private menagerie, but Byron carried with him from England to Italy, “ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow and a falcon.”

Dogs were his favorites; they were friends whose affection could be trusted, and whose criticism he had not to fear. Boatswain is almost as widely known as his master. No one visits Newstead without seeing his picture in the dining-room, and in the grounds his grave, with the famous epitaph:

Near this spotare deposited the remains of onewho possessed beauty without vanity,strength without insolence,courage without ferocity,and all the virtues of man without his vices.This praise, which would be unmeaning flatteryif inscribed over human ashes,is but a just tribute to the memory ofBoatswain, a Dog,who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,and died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.

Near this spot

are deposited the remains of one

who possessed beauty without vanity,

strength without insolence,

courage without ferocity,

and all the virtues of man without his vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

if inscribed over human ashes,

is but a just tribute to the memory of

Boatswain, a Dog,

who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,

and died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.

As this dog was the friend of his youth, so Lion was the companion of his later days in Greece. Major Parry says that “riding, or walking, or sitting, or standing,” they were never apart. “Hismost usual phrase was, ‘Lyon, you are no rogue, Lyon,’ or ‘Lyon,’ his lordship would say, ‘thou art an honest fellow, Lyon.’ The dog’s eyes sparkled, and his tail swept the floor as he sat with his haunches on the ground. ‘Thou art more faithful than men, Lyon; I trust thee more.’ Lyon sprang up and barked, and bounded round his master, as much as to say, ‘You may trust me.’”

Faithful to the last, he watched over Byron’s death-bed, and then went to England, where he lived and died, an honored pensioner, in the house of Mrs. Leigh.

LORD BYRON AND HIS DOG LYON.

Mrs. Radcliffe, whose novels delighted and terrorized our grandmothers, had two dogs, called Fan and Dash. Fan had been a mangy, poverty-stricken beast, condemned by its rustic owner to be hung. In a lucky hour the novelist happened by, purchased the guiltless criminal for half a crown; and Fan, cured of the mange, grown plump and silky, became so beautiful a dog that Queen Charlotte, when out walking with her brood of young princesses, would stop to notice her. On one of these occasions Fan and one of the royal spaniels caught simultaneously the ends of a long bone; and for some distance this foundling of the people and the pet ofroyalty pranced on amicably together, holding the bone between them!

Dash was a poor street dog whose leg had been run over and broken. He was taken in a coach to the doctor’s, the leg was set, health and strength returned, and Dash was more than himself again, for now he was “Mrs. Radcliffe’s dog.”

Another Dash lived first with Thomas Hood, then with Charles Lamb; he made such a slave of the latter, that finally Miss Lamb wrote to Mr. Patmore, entreating him to remove the dog, “if only out of charity; for if we keep him much longer, he will be the death of Charles.”

The transfer took place, and the late victim’s spirits rose to high-water mark soon afterwards in this whimsical, charming letter:

Dear Patmore:Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash?... Goes he muzzled orapesto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation? You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, off with him to St. Luke’s.... Try him with hot water: if he won’t lick it up, it is a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean, when he is pleased—for otherwise there is no judging. You can’t be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia.... You might pull out his teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as Bedlamite.... I send my love in a —— to Dash.C. Lamb.

Dear Patmore:

Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash?... Goes he muzzled orapesto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation? You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, off with him to St. Luke’s.... Try him with hot water: if he won’t lick it up, it is a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean, when he is pleased—for otherwise there is no judging. You can’t be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia.... You might pull out his teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as Bedlamite.... I send my love in a —— to Dash.

C. Lamb.

A great contrast to this tyrant was Mouse, the loving, jealous little terrier of Douglas Jerrold. A source of much gentle mirth while her master was well and strong, she did her utmost to comfort his dying hours. Once more, as she nestled beside him, his thin hand rested on her head; once more, and for the last time, he called her faintly by name; then they removed her, and in a few hours Mouse was masterless.

Horace Walpole’s dogs furnished many an amusing item for his letters, and diverted his friends no less than himself. “Sense and fidelity,” said he, “are wonderful recommendations; when one meets with them ... I cannot think the two additional legs are any drawback.”

Tory, Patapan, Rosette, Touton and a host of others, were the living illustrations in his home of this belief.

Tory, the “prettiest, fattest, dearest” King Charles, might have been leaner with advantage to himself, for a wolf snapped him up as he was waddling behind his master’s carriage in the Alps.

Patapan is the little aristocrat whom you see beside Mr. Walpole in the picture. The whims of “His Patapanic Majesty” were all indulged, his tastes consulted; his master idolized, and royalty itself caressed him; finally his vanity, already large, was puffed out like a balloon, by Mr. Chute’s poem in his praise. Thus it sums up his perfections:

“Patá is frolicsome, and smartAs Geoffrey once was—(oh! my heart),He’s purer than a turtle’s kiss,And gentler than a little miss;A jewel for a lady’s ear,And Mr. Walpole’s pretty dear.”

“Patá is frolicsome, and smart

As Geoffrey once was—(oh! my heart),

He’s purer than a turtle’s kiss,

And gentler than a little miss;

A jewel for a lady’s ear,

And Mr. Walpole’s pretty dear.”

When the pretty dear was frisking through Strawberry Hill, he may very likely have brushed in his frolics against a great bowl of blue and white china occupying a place of honor in one of the rooms.

SIR HORACE WALPOLE AND PATAPAN.

But the label would not have told him, as it does us, that this was theveritable “Tub of Gold Fishes” in which the favorite cat of Thomas Grey was drowned. “Demurest of the tabby kind”—Selimagazed at the fish, and longed; extended “a whisker first and then a claw;” and then—

“The slippery verge her feet beguiled,She tumbled headlong in.”

“The slippery verge her feet beguiled,

She tumbled headlong in.”

She may have found some comfort—since drown she must—in the vase being genuine old china; just as Clarence preferred drowning in Malmsey wine to water; but her best comfort—had she known it—was the poem to be written on her fate, the poem which still points her morals and adorns her tale.

No one, in this group of literary people, was so intimate with cats as Southey. He delighted in them, he admired them, he understood them, and he thought no house quite furnished unless it had a baby and a kitten!

It was to his little daughter Edith that this author dedicated his history of the cats of Greta Hall, which he intended to supplement by the Memoirs of Cats’ Eden. Unfortunately for us all, the last was never finished. The most delightful of philofelists—to use his own coinage—he tells the story of his catscon amore; from the fate untimely of Ovid, Virgil, and Othello, to the merited honors heaped upon Lord Nelson, a great carrot-colored cat promoted by him to the highest rank in the peerage, through all its degrees, under the titles of His Serene Highness, the Archduke Rumpelstilzchen, Marquis Mac-Bum, Earl Tomlemagne, Baron Raticide, Waswlher and Skaratchi. Felicitous titles, are they not?

But how the list lengthens! Only a word can be given to Emily Brontë with her faithful, sullen mastiff Keeper; to Charlotte Brontë, with her black-and-white curly-haired Flossy; to Bulwer, with his Newfoundland Terror, and his better loved Andalusian horse; toMrs. Bulwer—herself a beautiful spoiled child—with her beautiful spoiled Blenheim, Fairy, described by Disraeli as “no bigger than a bird of paradise, and quite as brilliant”—a Fairy that had its own printed visiting cards, and paid fashionable calls with its mistress; to Charles Reade, of keen wit and large heart, who petted squirrels, hares, and deer, as well as dogs, who wept when the exigencies of Never too Late to Mend required him to kill Carlo, and who humorously advised Ouida to name one of her dogs Tonic, as he was “a mixture of steal and w(h)ine.”

CHARLES DICKENS’S PET RAVEN, GRIP.

Charles Kingsley’s pets, and those of Charles Dickens, have been so often and so fully described, that any further description seems superfluous. Timber, Turk and Linda, Mrs. Bouncer, Bumble and Sultan, were only a few of his many dogs; while Dick the canary—“best of birds”—a succession of kittens, an eagle, and various ravens, were among the pets that kept matters lively at Gadshill.

Of the ravens, the most famous was Grip, who sat for his portrait in Barnaby Rudge, and whose stuffed body still exists.

There are no brighter letters, no finer poems in literature, than those which “Flush, my Dog,” called out from Mrs. Browning—letters and verse so vivid, so delicately discriminative, that theyamply supply the lack of other portraiture, and in them Flush still lives. Listen:

“Like a lady’s ringlets brown,Flow thine silken ears adownEither side demurelyOf thy silver-suited breast,Shining out from all the restOf thy body purely.“Darkly brown thy body isTill the sunshine striking this,Alchemize its dullness;When the sleek curls manifoldFlash all over into gold,With a burnished fullness.“Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;Leap! thy slender feet are bright,Canopied in fringes.Leap! those tasseled ears of thineFlicker strangely fair and fineDown their golden inches.”

“Like a lady’s ringlets brown,Flow thine silken ears adownEither side demurelyOf thy silver-suited breast,Shining out from all the restOf thy body purely.

“Like a lady’s ringlets brown,

Flow thine silken ears adown

Either side demurely

Of thy silver-suited breast,

Shining out from all the rest

Of thy body purely.

“Darkly brown thy body isTill the sunshine striking this,Alchemize its dullness;When the sleek curls manifoldFlash all over into gold,With a burnished fullness.

“Darkly brown thy body is

Till the sunshine striking this,

Alchemize its dullness;

When the sleek curls manifold

Flash all over into gold,

With a burnished fullness.

“Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;Leap! thy slender feet are bright,Canopied in fringes.Leap! those tasseled ears of thineFlicker strangely fair and fineDown their golden inches.”

“Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;

Leap! thy slender feet are bright,

Canopied in fringes.

Leap! those tasseled ears of thine

Flicker strangely fair and fine

Down their golden inches.”

How clearly we see him with that gentlest mistress, bathed in the warm, sweet sunshine of the past! But there were other than sunny days—long, weary days in a sick-room, where—

“This dog only waited on,Knowing that when light is gone,Love remains for shining.“Other dogs in thymy dewTracked the hares, and followed throughSunny moor or meadow—This dog only crept and creptNext a languid cheek that slept,Sharing in the shadow.”

“This dog only waited on,Knowing that when light is gone,Love remains for shining.

“This dog only waited on,

Knowing that when light is gone,

Love remains for shining.

“Other dogs in thymy dewTracked the hares, and followed throughSunny moor or meadow—This dog only crept and creptNext a languid cheek that slept,Sharing in the shadow.”

“Other dogs in thymy dew

Tracked the hares, and followed through

Sunny moor or meadow—

This dog only crept and crept

Next a languid cheek that slept,

Sharing in the shadow.”

What wonder that she returned his love with—

—“more love againThan dogs often take of men”?

—“more love again

Than dogs often take of men”?

Flush was a gift from Miss Mitford, another authoress devoted to dogs; and the rival claims of these ladies for their pets, may still pleasantly amuse us. “How is your Flushie?” inquires Miss Mitford. “Mine becomes every day more and more beautiful, and more and more endearing. His little daughter Rose is the very moral of him, and another daughter (a puppy four months old, your Flushie’s half-sister) is so much admired in Reading that she has already been stolen four times—a tribute to her merit which might be dispensed with; and her master having offered ten pounds reward, it seems likely enough that she will be stolen four times more. They are a beautiful race, and that is the truth of it.”

Now hear Miss Barrett (as she was at this time) telling Mr. Horne:

“Never in the world was another such dog as my Flush. Just now, because after reading your note, I laid it down thoughtfully without taking anything else up, he threw himself into my arms, as much as to say, ‘Now it’s my turn. You’re not busy at all now.’ He understands every thing I say, and would not disturb me for the world. Do not tell Miss Mitford—but her Flush, (whom she brought to see me) is not to be compared to mine! quite animal and dog—natural, and incapable of my Flush’s hyper-cynical refinement.”

“My Flush,” she writes elsewhere, “my Flush, who is a gentleman.”

Our next glimpse of this well-bred favorite is due to Mr. Westwood, a friend and correspondent of the lady. “On one occasion,” he says, “she had expressed to me her regret at Flush’s growing plumpness, and I suppose I must have been cruel enough to suggeststarvation as a remedy, for her next letter opens with an indignant protest:

“Starve Flush! Starve Flush! My dear Mr. Westwood, what are you thinking of?... He is fat, certainly—but he has been fatter ... and he may, therefore, become thinner. And then he does not eat after the manner of dogs. I never saw a dog with such a lady-like appetite. To eat two small biscuits in succession is generally more than he is inclined to do. When he has meat it is only once a day, and it must be so particularly well cut up and offered to him on a fork, and he is so subtly discriminative as to differences between boiled mutton and roast mutton, and roast chicken and boiled chicken, that often he walks away in disdain, and will have none of it....“My nearest approach to starving Flush is to give general instructions to the servant who helps him to his dinner, ‘not to press him to eat.’ I know he ought not to be fat—I know it too well—and his father being, according to Miss Mitford’s account, ‘square,’ at this moment, there is an hereditary reason for fear. So he is not to be ‘pressed.’”

“My nearest approach to starving Flush is to give general instructions to the servant who helps him to his dinner, ‘not to press him to eat.’ I know he ought not to be fat—I know it too well—and his father being, according to Miss Mitford’s account, ‘square,’ at this moment, there is an hereditary reason for fear. So he is not to be ‘pressed.’”

Flush left England with his mistress after her marriage, and lived to a good old age in her Italian home. His doggish heart was never torn by seeing younger, more agile pets preferred to himself. Secure in the only affection he valued, he passed quietly out of life; and nothing now remains of his mortality save a lock of hair, which was treasured by Robert Browning.

One word more of Miss Mitford. Her chief favorite was the greyhound Mossy, who died in 1819. She wrote an account of his death which no one ever saw until it was found, after her own death, sealed in an envelope, together with some of his hair. It repeats the well-known burden of the faithful lamenting the faithful: “No human being was ever so faithful, so gentle, so generous, and so fond. I shall never love anything half so well.”

Robert Browning declared himself a partisan of cats and owls—tastes which have suggested different gifts from friends. An owl inkstand on his desk seemed to be brooding over the thoughts whisked out of it by Browning’s pen; an owl paper-weight steadiedthese same thoughts when transferred to paper. Stuffed owls, pictured owls, looked down upon him as he wrote. With regard to cats, who have much secret affinity with owls, his opinions were equally liberal, and he notes with the eye of an artist their wonderful grace and beauty.

A friend of the Brownings in Florence, Miss Isa Blagden, had many pets of her own, charitably gathered from the ranks of the distressed. She is probably best known to American readers by her poem to Bushie, the favorite dog of Charlotte Cushman.

BUSHIE, THE FAVORITE DOG OF CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

Sensitive, nervous and loving was Bushie, her greatest pleasure being the society of her mistress, her greatest grievance being left at home when the family went out riding. In this case Bushie’s grief was hysterical, and required careful soothing ere it abated.

After giving, in her fourteen years of life, “the minimum of trouble and the maximum of pleasure,” Bushie died in Rome, in 1867, and was buried in the garden of Miss Cushman’s house. On the broken column which marked the spot were cut the words:

Bushie, comes fidellissima.

If further epitaph be needed, this verse from Miss Blagden’s poem will suffice:

“From all our lives some faith, some trust,With thy dear life is o’er;A lifelong love lies in thy dust:Can human grave hide more?”

“From all our lives some faith, some trust,

With thy dear life is o’er;

A lifelong love lies in thy dust:

Can human grave hide more?”

Landor and his dogs made another well-known group in Florence. Of Landor, Lowell says that, “there was something of challenge even in the alertness of his pose, and the head was often thrown back like that of a boxer who awaits a blow.” This fine, defiant old head was often seen lovingly bent towards Parigi, Pomero, and Giallo—dogs of pedigree and sense, who cheered his solitude, or adorned his social hours.

Pomero, a Pomeranian, with feathery white hair and bright eyes, lived in England with Landor, in the town of Bath. All knew him there, and saluted him, while he in return barked sociably to all. “Not for a million of money would I sell him,” cried Landor. “A million would not make me at all happier, and the loss of Pomero would make me miserable for life.”

This loss nevertheless soon came. “Seven years,” wrote his master, “we lived together, in more than amity. He loved me to his heart—and what a heart it was! Mine beats audibly while I write about him.” Over his “blameless dust” was inscribed this epitaph, so tender and sweet in its Latin, that translation seems a wrong:

“O urna! nunquam sis tuo ernta portuls:Cor intus est fidele, nam cor est canis.Vale, portule! ætemumque, Pomero! vale.Sed, sidatur, nostri memor.”

“O urna! nunquam sis tuo ernta portuls:

Cor intus est fidele, nam cor est canis.

Vale, portule! ætemumque, Pomero! vale.

Sed, sidatur, nostri memor.”

Giallo, also a Pomeranian, was a gift from the sculptor Story. He became a great favorite with his master, who would often talk doggerel to please him, and maintained that he was the best criticin Italy. “Giallo and I think” so and so, he would often say; or, “I think so, and Giallo quite agrees.” That he was quite fit for heaven, was another belief with his master. Who knows? Perhaps he was!

Victor Hugo’s happy family comprised both cats and dogs. There was Chougna, the watch-dog, and Sénat, the greyhound, whose collar bore the inscription: “I wish some one would take me home. Who is my master? Hugo. What’s my name? Sénat.” There were the Angora kittens, GavrocheI. and GavrocheII., and Mouche, the great black-and-white cat; the latter, according to an intimate friend, was “silencieuse, défiante, ténébreuse, sinistre—the cat of the prison, and of exile”—attributes confirmed by her portrait.

MOUCHE, VICTOR HUGO’S CAT.

From sheer force of contrast, both Mouche and Hugo must have enjoyed—had they known him—General Muff, the stately and affable favorite of an American authoress (Miss Mary L. Booth). I called upon this lady one day to request of her an introduction to the General; but he took matters into his own paws, as it were, and introduced himself before she could appear. Exquisitely dignified and urbane, his composure was not ruffled by the very wildest gambols of a Persian kitten, who darted, glanced and flashed hither and thither in the room like flame.

He wore the famous Fayal collar in which he was photographed. He wore it because of artistic preference, I suppose—certainly not because he had nothing else to wear; for I saw in his ownparticular wardrobe collars of all kinds and colors, from dainty ribbon to Russia leather.

May it be long before Muff’s gracious personality requires an epitaph! but when that time comes, the following lines will apply to him as fitly as to the one for whom they were written—the poet Whittier’s cat, Bathsheba:

“WhereatNone said ‘Scat!’Better catNever satOn a mat,Or caught a rat,Than this cat.Requiescat!”

“Whereat

None said ‘Scat!’

Better cat

Never sat

On a mat,

Or caught a rat,

Than this cat.

Requiescat!”

GENERAL MUFF, MISS MARY L. BOOTH’S CAT.

All who are familiar with the poem by Matthew Arnold, on Geist’s Grave, or another, on Kaiser, Dead, know the story, told as he alone could tell it, of this great author’s pets.

The dachshund Geist lived four brief years, then “humbly laid” him “down to die.” Dearly loved, remembered always—often and often would his friends recall his “liquid, melancholy eye,” his wistful face at the window, the scuffle of his feet upon the stair, and his “small, black figure on the snow.” But “there is no photograph of poor little Geist,” says Mr. Arnold, “except one taken after his death, which gives pleasureto us, but could give it to no one else. There is, however, an excellent portrait of another dog of mine, Max, in a birthday book from my poems, but it is weighted by a very bad portrait of his master.”

This was the Max of the poem, who “with downcast, reverent head” had looked upon “Kaiser, dead”—“Kaiser,” once the blithest, happiest of dogs, supposed at first to be pure dachshund, until at length with—

“The collie hair, the collie swing,The tail’s indomitable ring,The eye’s unrest—The case was clear; a mongrel thing‘Kai’ stood confest.”

“The collie hair, the collie swing,

The tail’s indomitable ring,

The eye’s unrest—

The case was clear; a mongrel thing

‘Kai’ stood confest.”

All the same—

“Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;Thou hadst thine errands off and on;In joy thine last morn flew; anon,A fit! All’s over;And thou art gone where Geist hath gone,And Toss and Rover.”

“Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;

Thou hadst thine errands off and on;

In joy thine last morn flew; anon,

A fit! All’s over;

And thou art gone where Geist hath gone,

And Toss and Rover.”

It is the fashion of mortality to pass away—but that does not alter the sadness of it—of losing what we love. As surely as we have friends or pets, so surely shall we know the pain of loss—fortunate only if there has been between us such true love that the memory thereof abides. Such love there was between Mr. Edmund Yates and Nelly, the story of whose life he told me in the following letter of September, 1887:

“Your letter finds me mourning the loss of the one pet animal of my life. In the year 1878, having taken a country place, and being in want of an animal as companion, I went to the Dogs’Home at Battersea, and on visiting the kennels, was at once struck with the piteous and earnest expression on the face of a female collie, looking up, with many others, through the wire netting; an expression which said, as plainly as possible, ‘Take me out of this, for Heaven’s sake, and I will be loving and true.’ I could learn nothing of her previous history, but I paid a sovereign for her, and took her away with me in a cab; and from that hour to the day of her death, just two months ago, Nelly, as I called her, was the light of my household, and won the admiration and love of all who saw her.

NELLY, THE DOG OF EDMUND YATES.

“Under kind treatment she developed into a very handsome dog, never large, but wonderfully graceful, leaping and bounding like a deer. Her back was a reddish-brown, her chest and paws beautifully white; she looked bright and intelligent, and her eyes had a certain wistful expression, which is well reproduced in the accompanying photograph. She was not particularly clever. She seemed to say, like one of Tennyson’s heroines:

“‘I cannot understand, I love.’

“She was always with me, and in places which I frequent, she was thoroughly well-known; she lay opposite me in the carriage, on the deck of my steam-launch, with her nose up in the air, sniffing the fresh breeze to windward. (‘See the kind-eyed old collie; on the deck, in the sunshine, she loves to recline,’ sang my friend Ashby-Sterry of her in one of his pretty Lazy Minstrel Lays.)

“She followed me in my long rides on horseback, over down and through wood, ranging far away on her own business, but ever and anon coming back to see how I was getting on. She lay at my feet in my library, and slept on a couch at the bottom of my bed. About eighteen months before her death, she developed signs of failing sight, and gradually grew totally blind. This blindness was the cause of an accident on which I do not care to dwell, but which necessitated her destruction; and on the twenty-seventh of July she passed away without a pang. She lies buried in the garden here, at the foot of a flag-staff, and on her prettily turfed grave is the following inscription:

Here liesNellyA Collie Dog;for nine years a much loved friend,gentle, affectionate, and true.Died July 27th, 1887.E. Y., L. K. Y., A. M. B., W. W.

Here lies

Nelly

A Collie Dog;

for nine years a much loved friend,

gentle, affectionate, and true.

Died July 27th, 1887.

E. Y., L. K. Y., A. M. B., W. W.

“This is the history of Nelly, whose memory is so dear to me that I will never have another pet.”

Vorbei! vorbei—past and gone!—says Andersen in telling the fir-tree’s story. It is alsovorbei!with these pets—with Mouche and Dash and Kaiser, with Geist and Nelly and Flush.

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