serve a somewhat similar tension of manner, and
somewhat similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a
contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like
impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double
life producing double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism
combined with a fair amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs,
and I have known school heroes, that, set aside the fur, could hardly
have been told apart; and if we desire to understand the chivalry of
old, we must turn to the school playfields or the dungheap where the
dogs are trooping.

Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant massacre of
female innocents has changed the proportions of the sexes and perverted
their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a
romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at
war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part
he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of
Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial
situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign
without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine
wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was
somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very
alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet
bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer he
is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems
abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot
order, he was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at
their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating
like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like
a regimental banner; and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more,
when a human lady upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame
who had been so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one
hoarse cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of
a soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly,
in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare
he would then have written _Troilus and Cressida_ to brand the offending
sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surp