The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909Bierce, Ambrose
Philosophy
The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909
Bierce, Ambrose
Essays
Evidently the commercial advantages of
deposing the dog from the position of Exalted Personage and subduing him
to that of Motor would not be all clear gain. He would no longer have
the spirit to send, Whitmanwise, his barbarous but beneficent yawp over
the housetops, nor the leisure to throw off vast quantities of energy
by centrifugal efforts at the conquest of his tail. As to the fleas, he
would accept them with apathetic satisfaction as preventives of thought
upon his fallen fortunes.
Having observed with attention and considered with seriousness the
London _Daily News_ declares its conviction that the dog, as we have the
happiness to know him, is dreadfully bored by civilization. This is one
of the gravest accusations that the friends of progress and light have
been called out to meet--a challenge that it is impossible to ignore and
unprofitable to evade; for the dog as we have the happiness to know him
is the only dog that we have the happiness really to know. The wolf is
hardly a dog within the meaning of the law, nor is the scalp-yielding
coyote, whether he howls or merely sings and plays the piano; moreover,
these are beyond the pale of civilization and outside the scope of our
sympathies.
With the dog it is different His place is among us; he is with us and of
us--a part of our life and love. If we are maintaining and promoting a
condition of things that gives him "that tired feeling" it is befitting
that we mend our ways lest, shaking the carpet dust from his feet and
the tenderloin steaks from his teeth, he depart from our midst and
connect himself with the enchanted life of the thrilling barbarian. We
can not afford to lose him. The cynophobes may call him a "survival" and
sneer at his exhausted mandate--albeit, as Darwin points out, they are
indebted for their sneer to his own habit of uncovering his teeth to
bite; they may seek to cast opprobrium upon the nature of our affection
for him by pronouncing it hereditary--a bequest from our primitive
ancestors, for whom he performed important service in other ways than
depriving visitors of their tendons; but quite the same we should miss
him at his meal time and in the (but for him) silent watches of the
night. We should miss his bark and his bite, the feel of his forefeet
upon our shirt-fronts, the frou-frou of his dusty sides against our
nether habiliments. More than all, we should miss and mourn that visible
yearning for chops and steaks, which he has persuaded us to accept as
the lovelight of his eye and a tribute to our personal worth. We must
keep the dog, and to that end find means to abate his weariness of us
and our ways.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account