The 18th and 19th centuries were the golden age of Dalmatian rule, and when their dynasty was finally overthrown, it was not by a new upstart race of dogs, but by a new upstart production of that blind and ugly mother of strong and hideous children--progress. Motors were invented.
If machinery had a conscience, what a procession of ghosts would it not be haunted by--ghosts of white fingers and humming spinning wheels, ghosts of parasols--stiff pagodas of taffetas or rippling fountains of lace--ghosts of victorias and barouches and tandems--ghosts of spotted streaks of lightning bounding forward with the grace of cats and the speed of Derby winners, capering with fastidious frivolity between yellow wheels.
Dalmatians, console yourselves, you are in good company. Beside you walks the ghost of civilisation herself--surrounded by the phantom forms of courtesy and leisure and all the lost company of the divine superfluous.
Cause and effect, demand and supply, where does the vicious circle begin and end? Certain it is that when motors began to drench the countryside in dust and suppress reflexion by providing our afterthoughts with transport, Dalmatians disappeared. Silently, imperceptibly, putting down their paws with all the old fastidious grace, they crept out of a world that had betrayed aristocracy. Only Fido remained--to die of a broken heart.
When I first saw him, he was a puppy--a thin lanky puppy, waiting to be filled in by life, a mere sketch of the masterpiece he was to become. Even in those days he had heavy black charmeuse ears, marvellous thick rich satin they were, and tiny dark rims to his eyes--a setting of pencilled shadow. How am I to describe his spots? The wonderful distribution of black and white, the ruffle at the side of his arched neck made by the meeting of two competitive rhythms of hairs, the looseness of his skin, his long lithe legs that would tie themselves into a tangled heap of grace when he lay down.
To see him move was to see motion made concrete--to see him run was to realise that even Pavlova had never quite overcome the obstacle of being a human.
At night he seemed phosphorescent, the dark itself was defeated by his whiteness. His bark was low and deep and resonant--a church bell of a bark--it reminded [Transcriber's note: original reads 'remainded'] you less of a 'cello than all 'cellos--except M. Casal's--remind you of a bark.