a family will make the rest unhappy! A single drunkard, or thief, or
violent person, will bring shame and misery on all the rest. The world
is full of troubles; but I do not think that we often find, even among
those of our own nature, men, women, boys, and girls, not related to us,
a person with so little selfishness as to be always sorry and sad when
we are so, and because we are so. When we meet with any one so
kind-hearted, we love that person, and would do a great deal to serve or
oblige such a feeling friend.

Now, I always observed that a dog, when kindly treated and taken care
of, will show his concern for the troubles of his master or mistress, in
a wonderful way. Indeed, I never, in my life, had a dog that would not
do so; and seeing this has convinced me that it is worse than cruel to
treat a dog ill--it is most ungrateful. It does sometimes happen that a
dog has a bad and violent temper, even from a puppy; and if very careful
treatment does not soon cure this, I should say that such a dog ought to
be destroyed, by a quick and easy death; not making the poor brute
suffer for what it cannot help. But in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred, a dog's savageness is the fault of those who have brought him
up: and few things are more wicked than to teach or encourage a dog to
fight his own race, or to bark and fly at human beings. When the world
was as God made it, there was no hatred in it, no quarrelling, no wish
in any living creature to frighten or hurt any other living creatures;
but when Adam became a sinner, his sin broke through all this beautiful
order, and peace, and love, and set the animals against each other, and
against himself. I am trying always to remember this; for when they
alarm or distress me, and I am thinking to punish them, I ought not to
forget what first made the brutes vicious, and brought so much suffering
on them. It was man's sin alone: man should therefore do the best he can
to make them amends; and not increase their misery, as he often does, by