The Puppies Of Terra

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My name is White Fang, though of course that is not really my name. My name is really Dennis White, now. I like the old name better; it is more in keeping with the image I have of myself. But perhaps such an attitude is just a hangover from the time I was a pet. Some people would say that once you’ve been a pet, once you’ve grown used to the Leash, you’re never quite human again—in the sense of being free. I don’t know about that. Of course, it is more fun to be Leashed, but one can learn not to want it so badly. I did. And this, in one sense, is the story of how I did it.

As a puppy…

But already I have made a botch of it! For will not most of my readers resent such a phrase? Puppies, Pets, Masters, Leashes: the old way of speaking has come to have almost the force of obscenity among the zealous. And who in these times dares not to be among the zealous?

Yet, how am I to tell the story of my life as a pet without using a pet’s language, without adopting his attitudes? Surely the time must come to an end when every politician and philosopher must conceal himself behind the mask of a bare-bones, know-nothing prose. And am I then required to tell White Fang’s story from the point of view of a Dingo? No! The memoirs of a member of Louis XVI’s court could not be set down in the rough accents of a sansculotte—and I must be allowed to write of White Fang as White Fang would have written of himself. For the time being, let us leave Dennis White in abeyance—and let me say, without more preamble, that as a puppy I was uncommonly happy.

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