A Rose by Several Other Names Would Smell Sweeter

I HAD a name before I had a dog to go by it. The name was Joli-Coeur (I was thirteen), Jolly for short. Then at the kennels the dog that chose me had three-cornered tan eyebrows that gave her a look of perpetual dismay. Jolly would n’t do, so I decided on Pixy, which soon grew too small for her.

For many years she remained Pixy, however, except to visitors, to whom she was always Trixie. In the family she was also known by various logical derivations such as Puff, Bump, Silly One, Pax, and Pig.

It was only a few months ago that we had our idea, and I hate to say it was due to any lack in Pixy’s charms. But you know how it is: a dog of ten is scarcely a puppy. Gone are her infant capers, gone her entertaining instability. Nowadays you could set your watch by her. She rises at seven and begins to pound the cellar door, which she has reduced to about half its original thickness. She stands underfoot in the kitchen till given her breakfast, which she sniffs at disdainfully; then trots, businesslike, off to bed. She stays in bed until nine and then comes to be taken out. She follows the sunshine through the house until dinnertime, sniffs disdainfully at her dinner, eats her breakfast, and then settles in the middle of the living room to be ready if anyone suggests a ride or a walk. She’s upset if her bedtime is postponed five minutes. During the night she eats her dinner.

This, day in and day out, until she became of no more emotional value than a foliage plant.

But one day I looked at her and the thought came into my mind: ‘Louise.’ She stared searchingly from her dish to me in her usual way; but she was no longer Pixy, she was Louise. I can’t tell you the difference it made. The dull things she had done as Pixy were piquant in Louise. When Louise wove her head back and forth to sniff the steam rising from her dish of warmed-up Pal, it was definitely amusing. When Louise sat down and scratched her ear with her hind leg, pulling a long smile on the opposite side of her face, life seemed delicious. When Louise had nightmares and growled in her sleep, twitching her upper lip and trembling her paws, I felt a warm fondness for her like nothing I had felt since she was a puppy and ate the cover of The Mill on the Floss, looking at me innocently out of the ruins.

The family was affected likewise, and it became the custom to name her in rotation: Grandma on Monday, Mother on Tuesday, Dad on Wednesday, Eleanor on Thursday, and begin again. Grandma chooses names of people she has known and towns she has lived in: Corning, Luverne, Hattie, and Grace. Mother is poetic and literary: Moonflower, Fantasy, Artful Dodger (Pixy steals handkerchiefs), Wackford Squeers. Father chooses feminine names like Patricia and Lucile, whereas I run to short, brisk, male names like Thomas, Charles, and George. Occasionally she suggests the names herself: to-day she is Hoover, because she picks up crumbs.

It is like living over her puppy days. And more: it is like living with a hundred puppies, one by one. One day she is subtle, as Pompadour; another frank and open, as Cheeryble; another intellectual, as Jeeves. And when I think of all the names there are still in the calendar, and look forward to the many days which Pixy (as we used to reflect resignedly, for she is in perfect health) has yet to live, my soul feels rich and blessed.

You may ask: How about her? One would think it might unsettle the temper, being a different creature every day. But it does n’t work that way. I think Pixy was becoming lonely, lonelier than she knew, in her self-contained monotony. She asked no attention (beyond mere decent service), but I think she needed it. At any rate, she frisks almost puppy-like again when we joyously discover her as Theodora, Gift of God. And when we call ‘Here, Blessing’ or ‘Here, Quackenbush,’ she understands instinctively that we mean her.

It has made me think about life, these new doors opening to us so unexpectedly. How would it be if, when domestic life grows heavy, a fresh set of names were bestowed all round? The husband you had grown to tolerate as Henry might develop into something rich and strange as, say, Jonathan. And the wife whose requirements irked when she was Mattie might seem adorable as Jennifer — or vice versa. The thing is subject to endless mutations. Perhaps it would even reconcile the stubborn polygamous instinct of mankind. The weary spouse of Arthur could renew her youth with Lancelot; the lad who married Mary might have Amaryllis yet.

I’ve never liked the word ’rose,’myself. Think of the glowing syllables one might use, curving, joined clearly, plunging at last into the mysterious heart! And this new flower would smell sweeter.