My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.
I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets.
With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.
This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.
To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.
In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.
Not that she was ever serious upon this point-and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.