liberties;
the men who gave their lives to science and art, when science and art
brought, not as now, fame and fortune, but shame and penury--they
sprang from the loins of the rugged men who had learned, on many a grim
battlefield, to laugh at pain and death, who had had it hammered into
them, with many a hard blow, that the whole duty of a man in this world
is to be true to his trust, and fear not.

Do you remember the story of the old Viking who had been converted
to Christianity, and who, just as they were about, with much joy, to
baptize him, paused and asked: "But what--if this, as you tell me, is
the only way to the true Valhalla--what has become of my comrades, my
friends who are dead, who died in the old faith--where are they?"

The priests, confused, replied there could be no doubt those unfortunate
folk had gone to a place they would rather not mention.

"Then," said the old warrior, stepping back, "I will not be baptized. I
will go along with my own people."

He had lived with them, fought beside them; they were his people. He
would stand by them to the end--of eternity. Most assuredly, a very
shocking old Viking! But I think it might be worth while giving up our
civilization and our culture to get back to the days when they made men
like that.

The only reminder of such times that we have left us now, is the
bull-dog; and he is fast dying out--the pity of it! What a splendid old
dog he is! so grim, so silent, so stanch; so terrible, when he has got
his idea, of his duty clear before him; so absurdly meek, when it is
only himself that is concerned.

He is the gentlest, too, and the most lovable of all dogs. He does not
look it. The sweetness of his disposition would not strike the casual
observer at first glance. He resembles the gentleman spoken of in the
oft-quoted stanza:

'E's all right when yer knows 'im.
But yer've got to know 'im fust.

The first time I ever met a bull-dog--to speak to, that is--was many
years ago. We were lodging down in the country, an orphan friend of
mine named George, and myself, and one night, coming home late from some
dissolving views we found the family had gone to bed. They had left a
light in our room, however, and we went in and sat down, and began to
take off our boots.

And then, for the first time, we noticed on the hearthrug a bull-dog.
A dog with a more thoughtfully ferocious expression--a dog with,
apparently, a heart more dead to all ennobling