hereditary reason for fear. So he is not to be 'pressed'; and, in the meantime, with all the incipient fatness, he is as light at a jump, and as quick of spirits as ever, and quite well."
In a subsequent letter, she again refers to her pet, thus:—
"May I tell you that I have lost and won poor Flush again, and that I had to compound with the thieves and pay six guineas in order to recover him, much as I did last year—besides the tears, the tears! And when he came home he began to cry. His heart was full, like my own. Nobody knows, except you and me and those who have experienced the like affections, what it is to love a dog and lose it. Grant the love, and the loss is imaginable, but I complain of the fact that people, who will not or cannot grant the love, set about wondering how one is not ashamed to make such a fuss for a dog. As if love (whether of dogs or man) must not have the same quick sense of sorrow. For my part, my eyelids have swelled and reddened both for the sake of lost dogs and birds—and I do not feel particularly ashamed of it. For Flush, who loves me to the height and depth of the capacity of his own nature, if I did not love him, I could love nothing. Besides, Flush has a soul to love. Do you not believe that dogs have souls? I am thinking of writing a treatise on the subject, after the manner of Plato's famous one.
"The only time almost that Flush and I quarrel seriously, is when I have, as happens sometimes, a parcel of new books to undo and look at. He likes the undoing of the parcel, being abundantly curious; but to see me absorbed in what he takes to be admiration for the new books is a different matter, and makes
