"Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in!"
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish author. The Celestial Surgeon (l. 9-14). . .
Modern British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (7th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company. |
"It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected."
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish author. "The Character of Dogs," Memories and Portraits, Scribner (1916). |
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Robert Louis Stevenson
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