[ Sullivan / Stronger than Death ]
This novel was serialized in The New Monthly Magazine (edited and owned by the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth), during 1869 -1870, but I can find no record of its being republished as a book. Nor can I find any information on "M. Sullivan."
The reference to a Newfoundland dog comes in Chapter XXXIII, published in the October 1870 (vol. 147) issue. The reference occurs as two characters are discussing tea-trays; one of the women is planning to return a tray she bought because her husband does not like it, for it has the image of a naked
Venus rising from the sea. When she shows the tray to her friend, the latter responds to the image as follows:
"Well, my dear," I says, "of all the unlikeliest things to choose, if that ain't the strangest! You're sure she wasn't anyway respectable to go and have her picture took like that, and the sight of her would give me the shivers faster than the tea could warm me; and only think if you was to have company here, how could you look down at that there brazen hussy while you was a-pouring out the tea?"
She only laughed, and said as it was meant for Venus, and was copied from some picture.
"I dare say," I says; "I'd Venus her if I'd had the bringing of her up. There wasn't no police in them days, nor no bathing regulations like there is at Brighton now, or she'd ketch it pretty heavy for going on the beach like that; and what folks wants to go into the water at all for is more than I can tell, as if they was Newfoundland dogs, or sea-serpents, instead of being thankful for nice dry ground to walk about on, as the Lord meant us to do." (374)