Original Sin

"Fox Terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature."*

I'm sure many of you will recognise this quote from Jerome K Jerome's 1888 novel, "Three Men in a Boat". The book is a humorous tale of 3 pals having a jolly good time on a boating holiday along the River Thames. They have various scrapes and mishaps along the way, accompanied by a rather mischievous fox terrier, Montmorency. The characters were based on JKJ and two of his real life friends but I was somewhat disappointed to discover recently that the dog was entirely fictional. 'Montmorency I evolved out of my inner consciousness,' admitted Jerome. 'Dog friends that I came to know later have told me it was true to life'.

I have thought about using at least part of the above quote on a greeting card for quite a while, and after much deliberation, here it is. My tribute to Montmorency

"Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse him steadily for an hour, is his highest aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable."*

Sounds like a typical terrier to me...

*Quotes and Montmorency illustration both from "Three Men in a Boat"