Life, 1911-04-20 · page 11 of 52
Life — April 20, 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page celebrates dogs' loyalty to humans. The article argues that dogs possess an almost unique capacity for unconditional loyalty—a quality the author suggests is increasingly rare among people. The text contrasts the dog's faithful companionship with human selfishness and hypocrisy. It notes that even cynical "vivisectionists" (animal experimenters) must acknowledge dogs' genuine devotion. The illustrations show dogs in various domestic scenes and a photograph of dogs resting. The accompanying vignettes—including one labeled "Speak, Sir!"—humorously depict human-canine interactions. The overall message appears to be *sentimental social criticism*: by elevating dogs' moral virtue, the author implicitly critiques human failings in loyalty and integrity. This reflects Progressive Era sentimentality about animals as moral exemplars for corrupted society.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
This Number HE peculiar service which the dog has ren- dered to man consists in keeping intact, in its purity, the spirit of loyalty. It would be diffi- : cult to find anywhere else in the animal kingdom an idea of loyalty which is not tinctured by some selfish motive. It has alone remained for the dog to present man with this idea, and it is because of this idea that our standard of loyalty has never wholly degenerated. To raise the standard of any action re- quires that behind it there shall be an idea; but when we come to search for an idea of pure loyalty among mankind alone, there is always some blur on the picture. Either the man has a selfish reason for being loyal, or he is impelled to it by some motive out- side of himself. There are so many cases, however, where the cog has been loyal without the slightest shadow of reason, that we have a permanent contribution to our sentiment on the part of this animal—almost a greater t than any other human being has been able to bestow on mankind. So long as the dog, following his erring master, is ever ready to lay down his life for him—so long as this is an eternal object lesson for us and stands ever ready to shame us, we never can be as wholly self-centered as we would be under other circumstances, In this respect the dog is infinitely our superior. When we have stripped the world, as we come to know it through our experience, from all of its superficialities— that is to say, from the network of impressions which go to make up the sum total of it, we come down, after all, to a few fundamental feelings. One of these feelings happens to be the one which is expressed through the kindly eyes of our dog, as, wagging his tail, he looks into our eyes. There is something there that is fundamental, and which somehow we may rot fully explain. It al- ways makes us more or “ speak, sir!” less ashamed of ourselves. This is why the vivisectionist may bolster up his argument with all the tangle of scientific data and fabrication that he can mass together in its defense, and it shall avail him nothing. It still remains true that our dog, an animal scientifically declared to be lower in the scale than we are, has furnished us with a permanent ideal, the superiority of which we are bound to acknowledge every time we feel our hearts respond to the friendly wagging of his tail. If, during these moments, we did not fecl that the vivisectionist was a blundering hypo- crite, we should not then be even worthy of the companion- ship of the dog In this number of Lire we present to our readers various kinds of dogs—humorous, pathetic, sentimental and more of less human. While this number is intended to be amusing, it is also intended to be more than frivolous. We regard it as a kind of dedication to man’s best friend. And we trust that all dogs will accept our tribute in this loving spirit. comicbooks.com