Fine as the line may appear which separates instinct from the
divine gift of reason, we must see that progress, an essential
consequence of the latter, is denied to the former. It is quite
possible that the dogs which accompanied the first mariner in the first
argosy were educated to fetch and carry, or were even so far
accomplished as to sit up and beg; and it is but little more their
descendants can do at the present day. But what of Man, who weathered
safely the storm of storms in that same Ark? Compare that venerated
bark, as imagined by us from traditionary description, with the least
eligible of the ferry-boats which scud across our crowded rivers, and
we have answer enough for the present, so far as progress is concerned.
Well, if Dog has never invented so much even as a patent rat-trap,--a
thing, you see, that might have saved him some labor,--if he persists
in disregarding the majesty of Fashion, and continues to move about in
society with the same kind of coat on his back as that worn by his
first ancestor, hatless, disaffected of shoes, and totally obtuse to
the amenity of an umbrella,--if, in fact, his only approach to
humanity, as distinguished by apparel, is his occasional adoption of a
collar precisely similar in general effect to those in which Fashion,
empress of Broadway and of a great many other ways, condemns her
wretched votaries to partial strangulation,--well, say I again, in
spite of all this, Dog is prime company.
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