42 "HIGH LIFE."
practices of the mass of living beings simply depress his not
very strong spirits, and torture his keen sensibilities. He is
often rendered wretched by the mere coarseness of the world
in general; and this wretchedness bulks so largely in his
excited imagination that his peculiar trial shuts out from him
every other dog's trial. Carlo has fared delicately all his
days. He has never known what it is to want food and
shelter; the best and most suitable of everything has been
provided sedulously for his use by the men whose business it
is to wait upon him, instead of his having had to hunt hard
to satisfy his most pressing wants, and to submit to being
hunted in turn, kicked and abused for presuming to have
wants, and for seeking to satisfy them. He has hardly ever
heard a rough word addressed to him, so that he will mope
for hours if he is merely overlooked-if his master has not
smiled upon him, stroked his head, taken in his hand one fine
paw after the other. Naturally, Carlo has little sympathy
to spare from his own sentimental woes, which he plaintively
airs and nurses, for the matter-of-fact miseries of homeless
dogs, starved, beaten, done to death for the idle amusement
of the spectators.
 Yet Carlo is a gentle, generous dog, by natural tempera-
ment, and, so far from having no feelings, his feelings are only
of too fine a description. The truth is, there is a subtle-all
the more serious-danger to moral character in exquisitely
fine feelings, especially when they accompany a morbidly
fastidious taste and effeminate habits.
 When I say effeminate habits, I wish not to be mistaken.
 I do not mean that Carlo was a larger lap-dog, utterly idle
 and useless-that he sat and lay all day and all night in that