Great Dane

“ The Great Dane, or boarhound, is a powerful and active dog. His appearance is suggestive almost of a wild beast, and he is particularly well fitted to act as guard. He is gentle and manageable with those he knows, and his great courage, intelligence, and strength make him a most desirable companion. ”

“ The Great Dane is at the present time the most popular of the very large dogs. As you can see by looking at Hamlet, he is a powerful, graceful animal. The breed was used in Germany, I don't know how long ago, for hunting the wild boar and was introduced into England in the '80's as the German boarhound. ”

“ The Great Dane is not a “long-haired” dog, but he is large and strong, and should be wanted in the Klondike country. His size352 and strength would there be his best recommendations; here they are his worst. Having a giant’s strength he uses it as a giant, and his multiplication in the land is a terror and a curse. ”

“ Dane-king, thou hast lost thine honour thereby.”
The Dane-king so fitting an answer returned:
“Thy brother full richly his death had earned.
“When the great with sword can oppress the mean
The law is not worth a rotten bean.” ”

“ Always it was north, north with the white man first, north with the Cree, and then wit h the Chippewayan, until in the end the dog born in a Vancouver kennel died in an Eskimo igloo on the Great Bear. But the breed of the Great Dane lived on. Here and there, as the years passed, one would find among the Eskimo trace-dogs, a grizzled-haired, powerful-jawed giant that was alien to the arctic stock, and in these occasional aliens ran the blood of Tao, the Dane. ”

“ The name of Dane has in fact [Pg xv] for centuries been one of those convenient words which so often take the place of ideas and save the trouble and inconvenience of reasoning. Yet this theory of a Danish origin for nearly all native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It pervades both the Scottish and English Archæologiæ, and the great majority of works on every department of British antiquities, and has till recently proved a perpetual stumblingblock to the Irish antiquary. ”

“ All the boys do."
"Well," said Mr. Hartshorn, "you never can tell what a boy will like, I guess. If you had to learn all that in school, I'll bet you'd hate it. But I don't want to overdo it. I'll tell you about just a few this time."
The boys crowded around him expectantly as he sat down again on the porch.
"The Great Dane," he began, "though once a hunting dog, a boarhound, is now classed among the non-sporting breeds, and I'll tell you something about those. They include the very biggest dogs—the mastiff, the St. Bernard, the Newfoundland, and the Great Dane. ”

“ So that it is manifest, that the said William Bastard descended lineallie from Rollo the Pagan Dane, and was the sixte Duke of Normandie. The Danes were mightie stoute and tall men, proud and very lecherous, for the most parte red complexioned and red heared. They fought most of all with greate Halbards and great Pollaxes, and eache Lord Dane had his Man to carrie his Axe or Weapon after him, who also carried the like Weapon for himselfe, [2] the Brutaines called boye lleys yn Danes. ”

“ Some are protected from the claim that they are indigenous by the fact that their origin is indicated in their names. No one would pretend that the St. Bernard or the Newfoundland, the Spaniel or the Dalmatian, are of native breed. They are alien immigrants whom we have naturalised, as we are naturalising the majestic Great Dane, the decorative Borzoi, the alert Schipperke, and the frowning Chow Chow, which are of such recent introduction that they must still be regarded as half-acclimatised foreigners. But of the antiquity of the Mastiff there can be no doubt. ”

“ In this neighbourhood we have as yet been preserved from the evils of war, but for many years past the Danes, those evil men, have renewed their inroads, as they used to make them before the great King Alfred pacified the country. They began again in the year 980, and, with but slight intermission, have continued year by year.
The awful prophecy which God forced from the lips of Dunstan {ii}, at the coronation of our most unhappy king, has been too sadly fulfilled. Ah me! I fear the curse of the saints is upon him. ”

“ As they rode along mile after mile toward the north 55 the road mounted gently; hills rose up one by one out of the desert floor, crowned with towering sahuaros, and in the dip of the pass ahead a mighty forest of their misshapen stalks was thrust up like giant fingers against the horizon. The trail wound in among them, where they rose like fluted columns above the lesser cactus––great skin-covered tanks, gorged fat with water too bitter to quench the fieriest thirst, yet guarded jealously by poison-barbed spines. ”

“ Great Danes, though mostly classed amongst Non-sporting Dogs, have much of the hound in their bearing and appearance. The whole-coloured are not so popular as the various {105}shades of brindle and harlequin, but I have seen many beautiful fawns, blues, and other whole colours. They are being bred with small natural drooping ears. ”

“ Moreover, Heregar, these Danes come to fight, and our men do but fight because they must. Now I will send one after you to Glastonbury to let you know how this matter goes; but it will be, I fear, no pleasant message."
Then would I not ask him for men as I had been minded to do, knowing what a strait he was in, and that his words were only too true. Those two differences between Dane and Saxon in those days of the first fighting left the victory too plainly on the side of the newcomers. ”

“ Our king on the west coast of Denmark, where the story of Havelok the Dane must needs begin, was Gunnar Kirkeban—so called because, being a heathen altogether, as were we all in Denmark at that time, he had been the bane of many churches in the western isles of Scotland, and in Wales and Ireland, and made a boast thereof. However, that cruelty of his was his own bane in the end, as will be seen. Otherwise he was a well-loved king and a great warrior, tall, and stronger than any man in Denmark, as was said. His wife, the queen, was a foreigner, but the fairest of women. ”

“ Below him lay the panorama of a mountain valley––the steep and rocky walls; the silvery stream writhing down the middle; the green and yellow of flowers along the lowlands; and in the middle, to give it life, a great herd of cattle on the parada ground, weaving and milling before the rushes of yelling horsemen, intent on cutting out every steer in the herd. Beyond lay the corrals of peeled cottonwood, and a square house standing out stark and naked in the supreme ugliness of corrugated iron, yet still oddly homelike in a land where shelter was scarce. ”

“ In a moment all his savage instincts were aroused. He flitted across the snow like a flash of moonlight, and, with a great leap, seized it by the neck. Mumbling and snarling, he devoured the poor bird. ”

“ But now the last lurking doubt was gone, and there was no more delay, for the chiefs crowded with shouts of joy to the high place, and they knelt to Havelok and hailed him as king then and there; and so they led him to the great door of the hall, and the mightiest of them raised him high on a wide shield before all the freemen who waited on the green that is round the jarl’s house, and they cried, “Skoal to Havelok the king!”
And there was in answer the most stirring shout that a man may hear—the shout of a host that hail the one for whom they are content to die. ”

“ But by the trenches, and in the rear of the black tank, the great crowd of onlookers persisted, ducking as each successive bullet hit the tank and shouting encouragement as the defenders emptied their rifles and reloaded with clip after clip.
The rifles rattled a continuous volley; spent bullets leaped like locusts across the flat; men ran to and fro, now crouching behind the tank, now stepping boldly into the open; and the defiant shouts of the defenders almost drowned the wails of the women. ”

“ On that stirring day in Brussels, which witnessed the departure of the King to join his troops at the front, the sentiment uppermost was in truth “faith in the nation’s destinies.” Great Britain had sent her ultimatum to Berlin in defence of Belgian rights. Not merely reservists called to the colours, but volunteers in multitudes were anxious to take up arms. Crowds besieged the recruiting offices. The public feeling in the Belgian capital reflected the public feeling everywhere. ”

“ Painters and sculptors wandered anxiously by the sea-shore; not alone in Denmark, but in many other countries, seeking thus to obtain a glimpse of one of the mermaidens—whose whole race has been for ever immortalized by the gentle Dane—longing to depict on canvas, or to carve in marble, the fair lineaments of the faithful sea-child who gave her voice and her life for the Prince she loved. ”

“ He will at times be induced to forget that he is at a distance from his native land and from his nearest relatives; for the highly-striking agreement between the character of the English and that of their Scandinavian kinsmen causes a Dane to imagine that he is still among his own friends, in the home which he has long since left. ”

“ But now the sand lay dry and powdery, the willows and water-moodies were dead to the roots, and even the ancient cottonwoods from which it derived its name were dying inch by inch. A hundred years they had stood there, defying storm and cloudburst, but at last the drought was sucking away their life. On the mesa the waxy greasewood was still verdant, the gorged sahuaros stood like great tanks, skin-tight with bitter juice, and all the desert trees were tipped with green; but the children of the river were dying for a drink. ”

“ In the manœuvre they exposed the vulnerable point of their line, its right flank, to the powerful onset, which General Joffre, who had foreseen the situation, at once launched against it.
Defeated on the Marne, the Germans lost the military initiative—the power to decide upon their movements and to compel the enemy to conform to them. To the soldier the initiative is the practical embodiment of military superiority. It is the first great step to victory. In every war the struggle has been to seize and to hold it. ”

“ We will not follow him on his return to his northern home, to grieve over the extinction of his brilliant youth, and the deplorable end of his reign; but leave in our readers’ fancy the bright image of the gallant, light-hearted, kindly boy, who visited our English shores—a royal and beloved Dane—one hundred years ago. ”

“ Not France was the obstacle feared, but Great Britain. If we are to seek for the true reason of the anti-British spirit fostered in Germany, and certainly not discountenanced by official influence, it will be found in Great Britain standing in the way of this design. Colonies and welt-politik were the open talk of Pan-Germanism, but expansion east and west on the Continent of Europe was the definite objective of the plans so minutely prepared at Berlin; and of the costly and extensive apparatus of espionage spread like a network over Europe. ”

“ He is, as you shall see, a cur fierce, jealous, implacable, and desperately wicked. He is hopelessly enamoured of the beautiful Zemire, who treats the attentions of this northern boor with scorn. What does the Dane do? He, of course, dissembles with such craft one would imagine he had forgotten the insults heaped upon him. Alas! the traitor is only biding his time. One day he finds Azor in the castle moat, looking fondly towards his lady’s nest. “Azor, follow me,” says the Dane. He obeyed, and followed with his tail hung pensively between his legs. What does the Dane then do? ”

“ So I kissed her and brought her, my Dane, my Dane,
Through the waving wonderful crowd:
Thousands and thousands, they shouted amain.
Like mighty thunders and loud.
And they said, 'He is young, the lad we love,
The heir of the Isles is young:
How we deem of his mother, and one gone above,
Can neither be said nor sung. ”

“ Never again could that force be levelled up to those armies which had crossed the Marne in the confidence of prospective victory.
The effect was not moral merely, though moral had not a little to do with it. The effect was in the main material. War wastage arising from fatigue and privation must have reduced the effective strength of the German armies in nearly as great a degree as losses in killed and wounded. If on September 12 we put the armies which turned to hold the new line from Compiègne to Verdun at 600,000 men still fit for duty, we shall be adopting probably an outside figure. ”

“ Once a Dane has laid his hand upon anything—no matter what it is—a guinea, a shilling, a silver spoon, or an acre of land, he reckons that it is his—his alone—and belongs to him from the first clutch he has made of it until the Day of Judgment ”

“ The Danes, clad in black armour, with their ponderous battle-axes, and fierce visages, upon which no gentle ray of mercy had yet shone; the English, their minds set upon avenging the outraged national honour, the desolated homes, the slaughtered families: the Danes bent on maintaining their cruel superiority; the English bent on reversing it or dying: the Danes hitherto victorious on nearly every field; the English turning upon their oppressors as men to whom the only thing which could make life tolerable was victory. ”

“ Belgian independence would be a shadow.
In their extremity King Albert and his Ministers turned to Great Britain. They had good reason. The independence of modern Belgium is the work of British statesmanship. Great Britain had, in 1831, initiated the Guarantee although France was the first Power to sign it, and Great Britain had always looked upon the Guarantee as a solemn obligation. “We are bound to defend Belgium,” Lord John (then Earl) Russell said in the House of Lords in explaining the policy of the Government in 1870. “I am told that may lead us into danger. ”