I can never think of Chinese dogs without remembering a story told by my cousin, Lord Napier of Magdala, of an incident which, he said, gave him more pain than anything that had ever happened to him in his life. When he was in China he chanced to admire a dog, which was immediately offered to him as a gift. He could not accept the offer, and next day he heard that the owner of the dog with all his family, five persons, had drowned himself in a well. Probably they imagined that he was offended by their offering him a mere dog.
In India, to return to that home of legend, the two most sublime Beast Stories are to be found in the Great Epic of the Hindu race, the _Mahabharata_. They are both stories of the faithfulness of man to beast, and they afford consolation for the sorry figure presented by the human actor in the martyred mungoose tale. The first of these stories is the legend of the Hawk and the Pigeon. A pigeon pursued by a hawk flies for protection to the precinct of sacrifice, where a very pious king is about to make his offering. It clings to the king’s breast, motionless with fright. Then up comes the hawk, which, perching on a near vantage-ground, begins to argue the case. All the princes of the earth declare the king to be a magnanimous chief; why, therefore, should he fly in the face of natural laws? Why keep its destined food from the hawk, which feels very hungry? The king answers that the pigeon came flying to him, overcome by fear and seeking to save its life. How can he possibly give it up? A trembling bird which enters his presence begging for its life? How ignoble it would be to abandon it! Surely it would be a mortal sin! In fact, that is exactly what the Law calls it!
The hawk retorts that all creatures must eat to live. You can sustain life on very little, but how are you going to live on nothing at all? If the hawk has nothing to eat, his vital breath will depart this very day “on the road where nothing more affrights.” If he dies, his wife and children will die too for want of their protector. Such an eventuality cannot be contemplated by the Law: a law which contradicts itself is a very bad law and cannot be in accordance with eternal truth. In theological difficulties one has to consider what seems just and reasonable and interpret the point in that sense.