

If this is not the image of man, I have not known him nor I suppose ever will.
Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, Ramsey Richard Reinagle
A woman must never seek to trample upon, intrude into, or interlope in the slightest or, God forbid, “assume” herself into the image a man will share with his beasts. For in its glorious, even holy, even sanctifying light, with hound languishing gayly at the feet of her beloved, Lord whom she trusts with her food and her life but with ready gaze ever inclined to the slightest nod her master to toss all luxury aside to give chase to the death over headlong danger and travail, is that very same image and posture by which man has endeavored to live his life before his Creator and King whom he loves just as thoughtlessly and as faithfully, and breathlessly from one moment to the next.
If this is not the image of man, I have not known him nor ever will.
For man is a good dog. A rascal at times, sure, but a good dog on the whole. One whose faults you’re willing to put up with because his ferocity toward life, in the end, is infectious, even necessary. Perhaps his ferocity is the last thing that will ever be, perhaps it’s the only thing that’s ever been. Man the dog whom you couldn’t see yourself or even know yourself rightly without, one you might even be willing to die for if that moment ever came, the same as she would die without hesitation for you.