It was bad enough, and then Jack,
curious about these visits to the lawn, came to investigate
and finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up. I tried
to make him understand better by feeding him before I fed the
birds; then by scolding and even hitting him, but he would not
see it; he knew better than I did; he wasn't hungry and he
didn't want bread, but he would eat it all the same, every
scrap of it, just to prevent it from being wasted. Jack was
doubtless both vexed and amused at my simplicity in thinking
that all this food which I put on the lawn would remain there
undevoured by those useless creatures the birds until it was
wanted.
Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with
his dog mind he could not, understand me. I also remembered
the words of a wise old Cornish writer with regard to the mind
of the lower animals: "But their faculties of mind are no less
proportioned to their state of subjection than the shape and
properties of their bodies. They have knowledge peculiar to
their several spheres and sufficient for the under-part they
have to act."
Let me be free from the delusion that it is possible to raise
them above this level, or in other words to add an inch to
their mental stature. I have nothing to forgive Jack after
all. And so in spite of everything Jack was suffered at home
and accompanied me again and again in my walks abroad; and
there were more blank days, or if not altogether blank, seeing
that there was Jack himself to be observed and thought about,
they were not the kind of days I had counted on having.
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