The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909Bierce, Ambrose
Philosophy
The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909
Bierce, Ambrose
Essays
Miss Louise Imogen Guiney has replied to Mrs. Meynell's proposal to
abolish the dog--a proposal which Miss Guiney has the originality to
call "original." Divested of its "literature," Miss Guiney's plea for
the defendant consists, essentially, of the following assertions: (1)
Dogs are whatever their masters are. (2) They bite only those who fear
them. (3) Really vicious dogs are not found nearer than Constantinople.
(4) Only wronged dogs go mad, and hydrophobia is retaliation. (5) In
actions for damages for dog-bites judicial prejudice is against the dog.
(6) "Dogs are continually saving children from death." (7) Association
with dogs begets piety, tenderness, mercy, loyalty, and so forth; in
brief, the dog is an elevating influence: "to walk modestly at a dog's
heels is a certificate of merit!" As to that last, if Miss Guiney had
ever observed the dog himself walking modestly at the heels of another
dog she would perhaps have wished that it was not the custom of her sex
to seal the certificate of merit with a kiss.
In all this absurd woman's statements, thus fairly epitomized, there
is not one that is true--not one of which the essential falsity is not
evident, obvious, conspicuous to even the most delinquent observation.
Yet with the smartness and smirk of a graduating seminary girl refuting
Epicurus she marshals them against the awful truth that every year in
Europe and the United States alone more than five thousand human beings
the of hydrophobia--a fact which her controversial conscience does not
permit her to mention. The names on this needless death-roll are mostly
those of children, the sins of whose parents in cherishing their own
hereditary love of dogs is visited upon their children because they have
not the intelligence and agility to get out of the way. Or perhaps they
lack that tranquil courage upon which Miss Guiney relies to avert the
canine tooth from her own inedible shank.
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