Miss Frances Brunker, the Honorary Secretary of the Curly Poodle Club, thus describes her "ideal" poodle:—
He may be a dense, jetty black, that displays no sign of rustiness however strong the light; he may be a rich red, with eyes and nose to match exactly; or a shimmering silver grey that glistens in the sun; or white as the driven snow, only with a coalblack nose and eyes put in with smutty fingers; but, whatever his colour, his style—that attribute which belongs par excellence to the poodle—must be supreme!
He is chic from top to toe. His expression is usually a supercilious and haughty one—at least to the world in general. The tender, speaking glance that I know so well is for his mistress only.
His coat is long, and so crisply curly that when combed out (and, of course, his daily toilette is an affair of grave importance) his head and shoulders are grotesquely large in proportion to his slender, shaven flanks, that are garnished with rosettes to accentuate their grace. His straight, elegant legs are encircled with the neatest of frills around the wrists and ankles, and the poodle de luxe is never without his pretty golden bangles.
Um. To me, this reads like something out of P.G. Wodehouse.
From The Twentieth Century Dog (Non-Sporting), vol. 1, by Herbert Compton (London: Grant Richards, 1904), pp. 184-5
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