r.

Maeterlinck does not ascribe human powers and capacities to his dumb
friend, the dog; he has no incredible tales of its sagacity and wit to
relate; it is only an ordinary bull pup that he describes, but he
makes us love it, and, through it, all other dogs, by his loving
analysis of its trials and tribulations, and its devotion to its god,
man. In like manner, in John Muir's story of his dog Stickeen,--a
story to go with "Rab and his Friends,"--our credulity is not once
challenged. Our sympathies are deeply moved because our reason is not
in the least outraged. It is true that Muir makes his dog act like a
human being under the press of great danger; but the action is not
the kind that involves reason; it only implies sense perception, and
the instinct of self-preservation. Stickeen does as his master bids
him, and he is human only in the human emotions of fear, despair, joy,
that he shows.

In Mr. Egerton Young's book, called "My Dogs of the Northland," I find
much that is interesting and several vivid dog portraits, but Mr.
Young humanizes his dogs to a greater extent than does either Muir or
Maeterlinck. For instance, he makes his dog Jack take special delight
in teasing the Indian servant girl by walking or lying upon her
kitchen floor when she had just cleaned it, all in revenge for the
slights the girl had put upon him; and he gives several instances of
the conduct of the dog which he thus interprets. Now one can believe
almost anything of dogs in the way of wit about their food, their
safety, and the like, but one cannot make them so entirely human as
deliberately to plan and execute the kind of revenge here imputed to
Jack. No animal could appreciate a woman's pride in a clean kitchen
floor, or see any relation between the tracks which he makes upon the
floor and her state of feeling toward himself. Mr. Young's facts are
doubtless all right; it is his interpretation of them that is wrong.

It is perfectly legitimate for the animal story writer to put himself
inside the animal he wishes to portray, and tell how life and the
world look from that point of view; but he must always be true to the
facts of the case, and to the limited intelligence for which he
speaks.

In the humanization of the animals, and of the facts of natural
history which is supposed to be the province of literature in this
field, we must recognize certain limits. Your facts are sufficiently
humanized the moment they become interesting,