The Purely Parasitic Or Degenerate Pet Dog Moves
Me To Compassion, But The Natural Vigorous Outdoor Dog I Fear
And Avoid Because We Are Not In Harmony; Consequently I Suffer
And Am A Loser When He Forces His Company On Me.
The outdoor
world I live in is not the one to which a man goes for a
constitutional, with
A dog to save him from feeling lonely,
or, if he has a gun, with a dog to help him kill something.
It is a world which has sound in it, distant cries and
penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects
and corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper
warblers - sounds like wind in the dry sedges. And there are
also sweet and beautiful songs; but it is very quiet world
where creatures move about subtly, on wings, on polished
scales, on softly padded feet - rabbits, foxes, stoats,
weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and
slow-worms, also beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity
with each other, but on account of their quietude there is no
disturbance, no outcry and rushing into hiding. And having
acquired this habit from them I am able to see and be with
them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking
adder - they are as little disturbed at my presence as the
butterfly that drops down close to my feet to sun his wings on
a leaf or frond and makes me hold my breath at the sight of
his divine colour, as if he had just fluttered down from some
brighter realm in the sky.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 287 of 298
Words from 79060 to 79328
of 82198
