The Story of Doctor Dolittle | Page 4

that he is quaint but that he is wise
and knows what he is about. The reader, however young, who meets
him gets very soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not necessarily
medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice about it. Dolittle
seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that of his reader,
and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of Pied Piper with
thousands of children at his heels. But not only is he a darling and alive
and credible but his creator has also managed to invest everybody else
in the book with the same kind of life.
Now this business of giving life to animals, making them talk and
behave like human beings, is an extremely difficult one. Lewis Carroll
absolutely conquered the difficulties, but I am not sure that anyone
after him until Hugh Lofting has really managed the trick; even in such
a masterpiece as "The Wind in the Willows" we are not quite
convinced. John Dolittle's friends are convincing because their creator
never forces them to desert their own characteristics. Polynesia, for
instance, is natural from first to last. She really does care about the
Doctor but she cares as a bird would care, having always some place to
which she is going when her business with her friends is over. And
when Mr. Lofting invents fantastic animals he gives them a kind of
credible possibility which is extraordinarily convincing. It will be
impossible for anyone who has read this book not to believe in the
existence of the pushmi-pullyu, who would be credible enough even
were there no drawing of it, but the picture on page 145 settles the
matter of his truth once and for all.

In fact this book is a work of genius and, as always with works of
genius, it is difficult to analyze the elements that have gone to make it.
There is poetry here and fantasy and humor, a little pathos but, above
all, a number of creations in whose existence everybody must believe
whether they be children of four or old men of ninety or prosperous
bankers of forty-five. I don't know how Mr. Lofting has done it; I don't
suppose that he knows himself. There it is--the first real children's
classic since "Alice." HUGH WALPOLE.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I PUDDLEBY II ANIMAL LANGUAGE III MORE MONEY
TROUBLES IV A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA V THE GREAT
JOURNEY VI POLYNESIA AND THE KING VII THE BRIDGE OF
APES VIII THE LEADER OF THE LIONS IX THE MONKEYS
COUNCIL X THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL XI THE BLACK
PRINCE XII MEDICINE AND MAGIC XIII RED SAILS AND
BLUE WINGS XIV THE RATS WARNING XV THE BARBARY
DRAGON XVI TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER XVII THE OCEAN
GOSSIPS XVIII SMELLS XIX THE ROCK XX THE FISHERMAN'S
TOWN XXI HOME AGAIN

THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE

THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE
THE FIRST CHAPTER
PUDDLEBY
ONCE upon a time, many years ago when our grandfathers were little
children--there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle-- John Dolittle,

M.D. "M.D." means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.
He lived in a little town called, Puddleby- on-the-Marsh. All the folks,
young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down
the street in his high hat everyone would say, "There goes the
Doctor!--He's a clever man." And the dogs and the children would all
run up and follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the
church-tower would caw and nod their heads.
The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small; but his
garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and
weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was
housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.
He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the
gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the
pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a
hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame
horse-twenty-five years of age--and chickens, and pigeons, and two
lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the
duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the
owl Too-Too.
His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made
the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came
to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the
sofa and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all