Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-10-05
NOTES AND QUERIES.

ments was under consideration Gas if it eve
were seriously considerably instead of choosing
the unpretending and lightsome tho not un
suggestive good old form of Notes and Querie
(Which somehow always reminds one of Frois
sart, De Quincy and the Old Curiosity Shop
all at once), this Inquisitor had adopted such
hard, exacting flourish as Short Studies OF
Great Subjects, what tremendous task il
would be to make the context come up to the
grandeur of the title, and how sharper than g
serpent's tongue needs must be the point Of
the pointed stick with which any respectable
number even of our Constant Readers might
be fetched up to their stent of perusing them,
day by day. If one presumes or pretends to
write on Great Subjects he must never be
caught dallying with any small wares of the
nature of those which the puff-monger. or the
gossip retailer, or the small-talker Of daily
journalism is licensed to dispense. What is
called dignity is an awful weight, at all events,
and under every circumstance and one
would rather be plain Bob or Seth or Bart
than be banished to the owlish realms of off
cial or personal Importance, handicapped with
a surplusage of that imposing magnifcence
which brings one up with round turn under
the enforcement of the bond that "noblesse
oblige." If this Notary's brief memory serves,
this column has not been deemed too exclu-
sive or lofty or grandiferous to deal with bees
and ants and even grub-worms and caterpil-
lars. One of these days we shall be moved,
no doubt, to write chapter on Dogs; treat
Use on the Dissolute Habits as developed in
the propensity of the Common Toad, for roam
ing about after Nightfall; discourse on the
Obstinate willfulness of Sitting Hens, Or what
not We value the license we have taken and
mean to extend its scope rather than be cir
cumscribed. Rarey, the horse-tamer, once
remarked in reply to the query If he thought
that horses thought, that he knew they did.
He was just as positive of it as if he had seen
the equine mental processes at work as palpa-
bly, as coffee mill We like his notion. We
believe he is right. How much similarity is
there between the language of yon raw China
man and this fellow citizen from the shadow
of Bunker Hill Monument Is there any more
resemblance than there is between the bray
ing of an ass and the singing of cantatrice ?
And yet that native of the Celestial Empire
and bathing and bedding and dying, just as
clearly as your Boston man. God knows |
what word he thinks of when he thinks tur-
nips, what sentence mashes through his
chocolate colored brain when he contemplates
bread and butter and tea and sugar, what
awful jaw breakers sieze upon the convolu-
tons of his cerebrum when he is vexed with
the problems aud emergencies of his infre-
auent additions or his final doom, but he does,
no doubt, " tackle" each of those objects or
ideas with quite as much directness as if his
skin were white, his hair auburn and his eyes
nearer parallel to the plane of the horizon.
And so, horse. That sagaoious and useful
quadruped just as certainly thinks Goats" as
his master or his groom does only the horse,
in his superior way, has no need for any little
complaining word, made out of the crude ma
terials of somebody's spelling book. The idea
is there among the rest of his stock of horse i
sense and if the skeptic thinks we are whlm- {
steal and absurd, let him test the first horse t
he can fnd-test him with fork-full of hay {
and hat full of grain and see if the beast
don't know the difference and indicate his
choice. If dog does not think, what makes
him dreaml If a cat does not think, what {
makes her teach herself not only to come 7
straight to the kitchen door to get into the .
house, but lift the latch and open the way for O
lerselfl Instincts Well isn't that an evasion p
"a lodging of the question, another name \
or thinking2 Don't your dog know you and v
your habits and when you have got as much O
Is your small wine bearing capacity will carry2 a
We know dog who knows when Sunday O
comes hen who will, in spite of all obsta- 7
lies, lay her eggs on the boys bed !; cat who p
S acquainted with his most sympathetic friend
md interprets his thoughts, not only thinks,
put interprets And we know a chipmunk .
who won't listen to the reading Of prose but -
Who has an absolute passion for hearing one :,
cad Tennyson, Browning, Shakespeare or -
.ucy Larcomb! Here, then is the religious ~
motion; the incentive to order and the fit IL
ess of things; the capacity for harboring :"
entiments of lofty and ennobling character; u
nd the critical gift-all within the limits of III
ne brief domestic experience, Wordsworth -