[Mary Ansell / Dogs and Men ] (1924)
Ansell (1861 - 1950) was an English actress and writer, perhaps best remembered today as the wife of J. M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan. (Ansell and Barrie met when Barrie was casting one of his plays; they were introduced to each other by the writer Jerome K. Jerome, who is also discussed here at The Cultured Newf.) Marrying in 1894, Barrie and Ansell divorced in 1909 after Barrie discovered Ansell was having an affair, perhaps because her marriage to Barrie was never consummated; despite these complications Barrie provided financial support to Ansell for the remainder of her life.
In 1924 Ansell published the third of her three works of non-fiction, Men and Dogs (London: Duckworth, from which edition the quotations below are taken). (Her first two books dealt with her other passions: interior design and gardening). The title of this book reflects the fact that, as Ansell notes in the book's first pages, she only owned dogs when she was married (both to Barrie and then to her second husband, the Scottish writer Gilbert Canaan). As Ansell wryly remarks:
I go so far as to assert that no married woman should be without [a dog]. And every husband — that is, if he values his future comfort and repose — should see to it that a dog forms part of the equipment of the house to which he purposes to bring his bride. For a dog makes a most admirable accompaniment to a husband. He supplies those darling little ways, so dear to a woman's heart, and so necessary to her well-being, that come tripping along so gracefully before marriage, but by the end of the first year have tripped away — less gracefully — into oblivion. My women readers will, I am sure, see my point at once. (46 - 47)
Ansell discuss several of the dogs she owned during her life to this point, beginning with Porthos, the St. Bernard she and Barrie purchased on their honeymoon in Switzerland. Yet most of the book is devoted their Newfoundland, Luath (who lived with Mary after the divorce) and who was the model for Nana in Barrie's classic stage play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904) and the novel Peter and Wendy (1911).
In the extensive section of this book devoted to Luath (named after one of the dogs — the one that is not a Newfoundland, oddly — in Robert Burns' poem The Twa Dogs), Ansell recounts multiple detailed stories of Luath's life, from the time he arrived as a sick puppy through his role as the model for Nana in Peter Pan. Indeed, this aspect of Luath is one of the first characteristics Ansell remarks on:
Domesticity is what he was cut out for. He should have been a nurse; he should have been the father of a large family; above all, he should have been a mother. An adverse fate denied him these delights; but he managed to manœuvre something of them all into the fourteen years of life that never failed to bring him an unreasoning happiness. . . . Luath's proper place was the nursery. How happy he would have been if there had been one, full of gloriously noisy children! (52; 59)
Ansell doesn't neglect to tell her readers about Luath's involvement in the development of Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan; or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Luath served not only as inspiration for the role of Nana, but for the actor playing the part (in a dog costume), who visited Luath to study his movements and behaviors. Luath also had the opportunity to see the play first-hand:
One afternoon he went down to the theatre, and saw a part of the real performance. At the end of the nursery scene, he took a call, led on by Peter Pan. At first the audience still thought they were looking at the man-dog. When they found out the difference a mighty shout went up. Luath stood for some moments wondering what it was all about. Then, thinking it was time he did something in the matter, he lifted up his head, and in a loud voice asked for an explanation. Happily at this moment the curtain fell. . . . he made a "handsome picture," they said, and gave no trouble. Sat or stood, wherever they wanted him, and showed no signs of fatigue, or boredom. He really became a professional beauty. It says much for him that his head remained steady under all the adulation. (71 - 74)
There are too many anecdotes regarding Luath — who is the main subject of this book, after all — to be recounted here. The full text of this work can be found online here.