Chesterton and dogs
February 16th 2011 18:35
I picked up Chesterton's New Jerusalem this morning, and on the second page, where he's talking in his usual mystical/fantastical way about a dog and a donkey, he writes:
The dog's very lawlessness is but an extravagance of loyalty; he will go mad with joy three times on the same day, at going out for a walk down the same road. The modern world is full of fantastic forms of animal worship; a religion generally accompnaied with human sacrifice. Yet we hear strangely little of the real merits of animals; and one of them surely is this innocence of all boredom; perhaps such simplicity is the absence of sin. I have some sense myself of the sacred duty of surprise; and the need of seeing the old road as a new road. But I cannot claim that whenever I go out for a wlalk with my family and friends, I rush in front of them volleying vociferous shouts of happiness; or even leap up round them attempting to lick their faces. In this power of beginning again with energy unpon familiar and homely things the dog is really the eternal type of the Western civilization. [pg 10]
As always, Chesterton is saying a great deal more than meets the eye, and using familiar words to convey meanings far beyond their day-to-day usage.
The dog's very lawlessness is but an extravagance of loyalty; he will go mad with joy three times on the same day, at going out for a walk down the same road. The modern world is full of fantastic forms of animal worship; a religion generally accompnaied with human sacrifice. Yet we hear strangely little of the real merits of animals; and one of them surely is this innocence of all boredom; perhaps such simplicity is the absence of sin. I have some sense myself of the sacred duty of surprise; and the need of seeing the old road as a new road. But I cannot claim that whenever I go out for a wlalk with my family and friends, I rush in front of them volleying vociferous shouts of happiness; or even leap up round them attempting to lick their faces. In this power of beginning again with energy unpon familiar and homely things the dog is really the eternal type of the Western civilization. [pg 10]
As always, Chesterton is saying a great deal more than meets the eye, and using familiar words to convey meanings far beyond their day-to-day usage.
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