Last summer I stopped at a small town in Northern Virginia. A young man at the same hotel had two setters and a black-and-tan terrier. I experimented extensively with these three dogs during my stay, and deduced therefrom some conclusions which were inevitable. The hotel verandah opened on the street, and was a place of resort for gentlemen of leisure about town. There was also a side entrance through a large yard. I have frequently observed the dogs lying asleep on the verandah, when the owner would enter the side yard on a flagstone walk, often in the midst of conversation of a dozen men. The terrier would recognise the footsteps of his master, would utter a low sound and spring to his feet, and rush at once in the direction whence he heard the steps. The setters invariably seemed to know what it meant, would raise their heads, lash their tails upon the floor, showing evident signs of understanding the situation. I have seen this terrier recognise the steps of his master when the latter was accompanied by two or three other persons. The delicate precision of his hearing was marvellous, and in no instance, so far as I observed, was he deceived in the approaching footsteps. I cannot believe that he was guided by the sense of smell, as it is evident that the setters, whose habits of hunting have developed in them a much more sensitive olfactory power, would naturally have been the first to have detected their master's approach, and yet it was equally evident that the terrier's ears were the first to catch the sounds.
I have observed among dogs associated with each other that where one should bark in the distance, as though he had something at bay, his companion, hearing him from the house, would prick up his ears, listen for a moment, and then dash off in the direction from whence the sounds came; whereas the bark of a strange dog, even having something at bay, would only cause him to listen, utter a low sound or grunt, and lie down again and take a nap, as much as to say "That's nothing to me!" I have known many instances where dogs would follow the farm waggon to town, and faithfully guard the waggon and its contents all day long, with a fidelity that we seldom see in the most devoted servants. The attachment of a dog to his master has been a subject of remark from time immemorial, until the saying has crystallised into a maxim—"As faithful as a watch-dog." A friend of mine had a little terrier, whose name was Nicodemus, that had a habit of sitting in the kitchen window to watch people pass the street. She assures me that on washdays, when the steam condensed on the window-panes, Nicodemus would lick the moisture from the glass in order to see through it more clearly. Could instinct be the guide in such an act?
If man would only pause and calmly view the facts, he would find that he is but a joint heir of Nature; and why not so? From a religious point of view I cannot doubt that the wisdom and mercy of God would bestow alike on all the faculties of speech and reason as their conditions of life require them, and from a scientific point of view I cannot charge the laws of evolution with such disorder. In either case it were a harsh and jarring discord in the great harp of Nature, whether played by the hand of Chance or swept by the fingers of Omniscience.
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MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST.
THE WORKS OF HEINRICH HEINE.
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