it is necessary that he should come into our possession when young, before his intelligence is formed, and innumerable other impressions crowd his brain to the exclusion of those we wish to impart. To watch the intelligence unfolding, to see the body developing, and the character chrystallising into the shape we desire it to assume, is a never ending source of joy. Day by day too, the little creature comes to depend more and more upon us, to recognise us as the chief god among the many strange beings that people this earth. When he is hungry we feed him. Is he thirsty? We give him drink. All the thousand and one little services that we render to him in the course of a week make him more and more irrevocably our debtor, and when the time comes for the state of pupilage to be shed we shall have a mature dog our devoted and obedient servant, ready to die for us if need be. In no other wise can we have quite the same understanding between master and dependent.
If you have not read Maeterlinck's essay on the death of a little dog you should do so at once. How well does he express the intimacy between a puppy and his owner. "I saw my little Pelléas sitting at the foot of my writing table, his tail carefully folded under his paws, his head a little on one side the better to question me, at once attentive and tranquil, as a saint should be in the presence of God. He was happy with the happiness which we, perhaps, shall never know, since it sprang from the smile and the
