Page:Essays in miniature.djvu/186



E have grown to be very narrow-minded, very exclusive, and hopelessly unimaginative in our choice of domestic pets. We love and cherish the dog, and we have a sentiment, less universal but far more disinterested, in favor of the beautiful and cold-hearted cat. We keep canaries in gilded cages—and there the matter practically ends. A few rabbits in a hutch—which are never petted—an occasional parrot feared by its master and hated by its master's friends; a little song-bird imprisoned now and then, and slowly dying of despair; these are instances, happily too infrequent to count very heavily in the scale. As a fact, many people value the dog and cat for their serviceable qualities alone; exiling the first to the kennel and the second to the kitchen, and liking both, as Miss Mitford confessed she liked children, "in their place"—meaning any place where she was not. 182