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Memories and Portraits-Part15_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands,

as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came



"trailing clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field

of instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional;



and about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master

must conduct their steps by deduction and observation.



The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps

before the different duration of their lives, is that the one can



speak and that the other cannot. The absence of the power of

speech confines the dog in the development of his intellect. It



hinders him from many speculations, for words are the beginning of

meta-physic. At the same blow it saves him from many



superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher name for

virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog are many.



He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly

intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the



degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an

intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the



laborious communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he

lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting paw; and when he



rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is other than

appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of



the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary

meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet



when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of

meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this



necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the

sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own



conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between

formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his



legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has

told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body



but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling theft and

falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human,



gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne's "JE NE SAIS QUOI

DE GENEREUX." He is never more than half ashamed of having barked



or bitten; and for those faults into which he has been led by the

desire to shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under



physical correction, a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if

he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece.



Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog

has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of



language blunts the faculties of man - that because vain glory

finds no vent in words, creatures supplied with eyes have been



unable to detect a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled

dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate



interminably, and still about himself; when we had friends, we

should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his whining



jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he would

have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to



Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of

their own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans



Christian Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs,

thrilling from top to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting






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