Punch likes Toby. Hitler loved Blondi. Argos was the first creature to recognise his master when Ulysses returned home after 20 years. And now Patty Hearst has Diva.
Diva is a French bulldog, which has won the Best of Opposite Sex rosette at the Westminster Kennel Club show in Madison Square Garden. This is the American equivalent of Crufts, but more exclusive. So satisfactorily concludes the transition from poor little rich girl to kidnap victim to revolutionary to celebrity dog-breeder. It would have saved a great deal of trouble if William Randolph Hearst's grand-daughter could have discovered dogs earlier.
For dogs are the only creatures that love revolutionaries more than revolutionaries love themselves. Or at least the dogs put up a decent show of doing so. And it is an axiom that women who dote on dogs are those who have failed to inspire sympathy in men. Byron, another ineffectual revolutionary, wrote the epitaph for his dog Boatswain: “All the Virtues of Man without his Vices...” Dogs have charms to soothe the savage breast. Isaac Newton was a revolutionary of the intellect, not the machinegun. His dog Diamond knocked over a candle and so destroyed the records of many years' experiments. Newton merely sighed and exclaimed: “Oh Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done!” and set to work to repair the loss.
For dogs teach impatient revolutionaries fidelity, perseverance, and not to bite the hand that feeds them. The Kennel Club may do more than soldiers can to calm the passions of insurgents - provided that the insurgents don't eat them.