“A hound has a genuine and profound distrust of the general scheme of things in this life. Melancholy of an ancient and appealing sort is his. What makes his pessimism worthy of regard is the fact that it has its source in remarkably sagacity. His honest and steadfast refusal to be optimistic not only lends to his character a noble severity but also gives to his philosophy the serene charm of truth. He invariably seems to me to belong to an older and a wiser generation, which regards the behavior of all other living things as an exceedingly juvenile performance. A hound is the only dog that can make me self-conscious of my own ridiculousness. Fixed by his appraising eye, I shrink into my true stature.”