PAPA'S WISE DOGS.*
THE only fault of this amusing little book, which is not only good in itself, but admirably illustrated by the author, is the Mrs. Markhamy shape,—if we may be allowed to coin an adjective front a painful reminiscence of our childhood,—into which its stories are unfortunately thrown by the author. Mrs. Markham's his- tories of England and France, into which the persons of that worthy historian herself and of certain impertinent (but we hope imaginary) infants are irrelevantly introduced, and are made to indulge in a line of conversational remark which, in a dramatic sense, is of a highly improbable kind, though excellently well adapted to bring out the fragments which remained of Mrs. Markham's learning after the narrative chapters had been con- cluded, were perhaps better known and more frequently used thirty years ago than they now are. But Richard, the highly impro- bable little prig of thirteen, who came to his mother with tears in his eyes, to say he could not understand the English histories he had been studying, and that he wished she would prepare one for him herself, and who provoked his mother to so many acts of bland encouragement and moral pats on the head,—George, the warrior spirit, who always went in for fighting kings, and was evidently invented to give the old lady an opportunity of moralizing on the superficial character of military glory,—and little Mary, who made imbecile remarks of a highly babyish description which always corresponded so fortunately to entertaining little social anecdotes which Mrs. Markham had come across in her reading, have remained deeply engraved on many middle-aged minds of the present day as monuments of the complex, clumsy, and irritatingly condescending machinery by which elderly people suppose that they are " adapting " their instruction to the minds of childish recipients. A conversational machinery of somewhat similar awkwardness and irrelevance is the only fault of this otherwise charming little book. Here is the opening,—and dialogue of an equally intrusive description runs though the whole :—" 'Papa, instead of a story to-night, please tell us of all the dogs you ever had.' And the speaker, a little girl of nine with bright golden hair, which Papa irreverently called carrots,' drew a footstool to Papa's feet and composed herself to attention, feeling quite con- fident that her request would be granted. But, Katie, this is rather unreasonable, seeing that I am more than forty years old, and have had almost as many dogs.' — 'But Papa,' in- terrupted Janie, a little fair-haired monkey of five, 'sister means
all the wise dogs you ever had, from Fan to Nic.' 'But children,' interposed mamma, you know all Papa's dog stories by heart.'—' Never mind,' answered Janie, we can hear them again,' "—and so forth, in scraps of dialogue throughout the stories. Now, it is not that we question the authenticity of these interesting childish personalities, as we do that of Mrs. Markham's trio of in- fantine critics. We dare say Katie, and her golden hair, and her nickname of carrots, and the little fair-haired monkey of five, and Mamma, too, are all perfectly historic characters. But they are very intrusive and irrelevant figures, exhibited to provoke very much the just minds of childish readers who go to this book to hear about dogs, and not about Katie's golden hair and her papa's nickname for it, and their great-grandfather the benevolent bishop, and their other distinguished relations. Indeed, the officious interventions of these various personages in
* The Storis„of Papa's lrise Dogs, told and illustrated by Himself. London: Roudodgo.
the dog stories, and the vexatious dialogue in which the stories are framed, affect one at times with an impatient desire to send Katie and Janie to bed,and beg Papa to stick to the point and not digressto irrelevant moralities. When we were told, for instance, that" Unques- tioning obedience should be thefirst lesson taught to dogs and bairns; if children are always obedient they are always happy," we were so outraged by this base imposition, an imposition not only on the golden-haired Katie and the fair-haired monkey of five, but on all the infantine readers of the book, that we very nearly withdrew our credence from all Papa's stories of dogs, on the strength of a piece of mendacity at once so irrelevant and so clearly betraying its diplomatic motive. But, on the whole, we imagine that Papa is one of those who, though he would tell didactic fibs about abstract morality to children with the idea of moulding their characters to what he supposes to be a great virtue, would probably not tell amusing fibs as to mat- ters of history as to which the sense of veracity in model parents is apt to be much more lively. And, indeed, the stories themselves, when taken out of the rather vexatious frame- work of childish prattle and parental condescension, have all the air of truthfulness about them. It is a sad mistake diligently to
bechildren in this way, if we may be allowed to coin a word, stories intended to take hold of the earnest and straightforward
imagination of children. Nobody wants to know that Janie's blue eyes "enlarged so enormously" when her father spoke of " tiffin," that he had to explain it was the Hindoostanee slang word for luncheon. Such an interruption is a gross offence against the true spirit in which the stories of the wise dog, Fan, should be told. No doubt Janie may really have asked its meaning with her eyes and have received the explanation ; but the very fact that in her eager interest she asked the meaning only with her eyes, should have taught Papa to explain the word (if it were necessary to use it at all) in the briefest possible way in a bracketed trans- lation, and not to lug Janie and her blue eyes into the narrative. Having had out our grumble, which we hold to be due to the Many children who will feel an inarticulate wrath which they will be unable to express, at these forced Mrs. Markhamisms in stories about dogs, we are quite ready to praise warmly the dog stories themselves, and the admirable illustrations by which they are accompanied. " Papa " is evidently really fond of dogs, and able to appreciate them with more humour than might be expected from his tendency to invent fictitious laws of the universe for children. But he is not at all up to Dr. John Brown as a narrator of dog stories. He applies just a shade of that arti- ficial and conventional morality to his dogs which he evidently thinks clue to his children. Thus, after demonstrating the many high intellectual qualities and profound affections of his dog Nic, he remarks heartlessly that at one time Nic strayed so much from him that he thought of "getting rid of him,"—which shows with
What levity he really regards the relation of master and dog, and this, too, of a dog who, according to his own story, besides his other virtues, knows the Lord's Prayer quite well, though, we admit, only regarding it as the signal for the cessation of the morn- ing prayer. One of the best stories in the book is that of Fan's humorous ruse to evade punishment for her escapades with "'pariah" dogs, that is, dogs of the lowest caste in India, which ran wild without any particular master. " Papa " applied his
theory of obedience for dogs to interdict this social intercourse, but Fan had more catholic views, holding a theory of canine liberty, equality, and fraternity, and evidently basing herself on the maxim, " canis sum, et nihil canini a me annum puts ;" so she continued to consort with the pariah dogs, and to evade her master's wrath by the following stroke of playful humour :—
" 'The grounds belonging to my house were surrounded by a hedge of cactus, or prickly pear, with a curious many-pronged thorn, which it shed all about its neighbourhood. Fan used constantly to get these thorns into her feet, and if, when I was out riding, I saw her limping, I dismounted and took out the thorn. She waited with her paw up for , me to extract it, and always got a pat and a "Poor old Fan! ' on these occasions. She had also a bad habit of running after pariah dogs, that is to say, dogs without any particular owner, which infest all villages in India, and being usually very much knocked about, and not kindly used, always expect bad treatment, and are therefore often savage and ill- tompered.'—"Are they wise dogs ?"—"Yes, I believe all dogs are; and I have known many cases of sagacity among these. For example, they will hunt deer of their own accord in packs and will purposely drive the deer they have selected to tank or pond, and as soon as the pdor beast has taken the water, a portion of the pack will go round and watch for his landing. But, to return to Fan. To curo her of running after pariah dogs, I used, if she did so when I was riding, to dismount, and give hor a cut with my whip ; not very hard, you know, but enough to show her she was naughty. One day, Fan set off after a sour-looking pariah. I called, but Miss Fan was too intent on her chase to take any notice for some time. When at last she did stop, I got off myherse and walked up to her, very deliberately, whip in hand. As I got near her
she lifted up one foot and went very lame, looking up piteously into any face, as if she was in great pain. I thought no more of flogging her, but called out, "Poor old dog, have you got a thorn in your foot?' But as I stooped to take it out, she frisked away from me, and ran off barking and positi•-3Iy laughing with glee at having taken me in, and changed her punishment into a petting.'"
That Fan did not mean it as a serious deception, but as a pleasant joke, we may infer with some certainty from the following repeti- tion of this ruse. Fan had been with her master in his palanquin, but he had turned her out for a run through a shady part of the journey where there were trees :— "Presently I looked out, and found that we had left the trees and the monkeys, and poor Fan was toiling along in the deep sand, keeping in the shadow of the palanquin looking very tired, with her tongue hang- ing out of her mouth. I watched her for a little as she trudged along, when she suddenly saw me, and immediately lifted up her foot, and looking up in a very melancholy manner, became so lame she could hydly walk. I called out You old fool, Fan!' and down went the paw, and she raced along, laughing and barking at me. So I took her into the palanquin again, to her great delight."
It would be impossible to show a true sense of humour more per- fectly than this. " Papa " asserts, and gives some instructive examples of his assertion, that wise dogs dislike to have their por- trait taken, but his theory strikes us as very inadequate :—" 'Why do dogs dislike being drawn ? All dogs do. I think it is that drawing them involves a good deal of staring at them, and no one likes that. Singh always threw himself on his back if he caught any one trying to draw him.'" We doubt very much whether it is the minute inspection to which they object. They rather like minute notice, unless they are made to look the inspector straight in the face, which always puts them out of countenance, but this is not at all necessary for portrait-taking. We suspect the truth to be that they are always suspicions of elaborate preparations made in connection with themselves. They detect directly if a medicine is being mixed for them, or any preparation for washing them being made, by the glances of those who are preparing ; and as they at once see some connection between the strokes of the por-
trait-taker's pencil and themselves, they regard it as a prac- tical plot (kind unknown) against their • immediate well-being.
And as all dogs are conservative and don't like the look of any conspiracy in which they are mixed up, the object of which they do not know, they resent the painting or drawing simply on this account,—that it is a scheme in which they are concerned, and the object of which they do not understand.
The stories of Singh, too, are very good, and we can cordially commend the substance of this book, as distinguished from its form, as eminently adapted to raise the standard of primary education for dogs, and even to throw out a few hints as to their secondary education which well deserve attentive consideration.
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