Potts
had gracefully described as "the golden age of Pericles."
To the end of his days he should be blithely, naively Greek; a dog of
wretched field manners, pointing cattle and quail impartially,
shamefully gun-shy, inconsequent, volatile, ignorant, forever paganly
joyous without due cause. For him I should do what no one had been able
to do for me--detain him in that "world of fine fabling" where
everything is true that ought to be; where the earth is a running
course, fascinating in its surprises of open road and tangled hedgerow;
where mere indiscriminate smelling is keenest ecstasy; and where the
fact that robins have eluded one's fleetest rush to-day, by an amazing
and unfair trick of levitation, is not the slightest promise that they
can escape our interested mouthing on the morrow.
Doubtless he would be a remarkably foolish dog in his old age; but I,
growing old beside him, would learn wisely foolish things from his
excellent folly. I knew we should both be happier for it; knew it was
best for us both to prove that my thin white friend had been born
chiefly to display the acute elegance of his bones and the beauty of
hopeful effort.
It was this last that kept him thin.
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