hing of the substance of things, we
must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at
least in appearance, there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged
kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.

However the case may stand with these appearances, it is none the less
certain that, in the aggregate of intelligent creatures that have
rights, duties, a mission and a destiny, the dog is a really privileged
animal. He occupies in this world a pre-eminent position enviable among
all. He is the only living being that has found and recognizes an
indubitable, tangible, unexceptionable and definite god. He knows to
what to devote the best part of himself. He knows to whom above him to
give himself. He has not to seek for a perfect, superior and infinite
power in the darkness, amid successive lies, hypotheses and dreams. That
power is there, before him, and he moves in its light. He knows the
supreme duties which we all do not know. He has a morality which
surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself and which he can
practise without scruple and without fear. He possesses truth in its
fulness. He has a certain and infinite ideal.

IV

And it was thus that, the other day, before his illness, I saw my little
Pelleas 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 approval of a
life incomparably higher than his own. He was there, studying, drinking
in all my looks; and he replied to them gravely, as from equal to equal,
to inform me, no doubt, that, at least through the eyes the most
immaterial organ that transformed into affectionate intelligence the
light which we enjoyed, he knew that he was saying to me all that love
should say. And, when I saw him thus, young, ardent and believing,
bringing me, in some wise, from the depths of unwearied nature, quite
fresh news of life and trusting and wonderstruck, as though he had been
the first of his race that came to inaugurate the earth and as though we
were still in the first days of the world's existence, I envied the
gladness of his certainty, compared it with the destiny of man, still
plunging on every side into darkness, and said to myself that the dog
wh