xylatra

“Today, at stake in the question of eating animals is not only our basic ability to respond to sentient life, but our ability to respond to parts of our own (animal) being. There is a war not only going on between us and them, but between us and us.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“I know what this little fellow wants,' I said. I grasped the calf by its fore legs and pulled it up to its mother's head. The cow was stretched out on her side, her head extended wearily along the rough floor. Her ribs heaved, her eyes were almost closed; she looked past caring about anything. Then she felt the calf's body against her face and there was a transformation; her eyes opened wide and her muzzle began a snuffling exploration of the new object. Her interest grew with every sniff and she struggled on to her chest, nosing and probing all over the calf, rumbling deep in her chest. Then she began to lick him methodically. Nature provides the perfect stimulant massage for a time like this and the little creature arched his back as the coarse papillae on the tongue dragged along his skin. Within a minute he was shaking his head and trying to sit up.
I grinned. This was the bit I liked. The little miracle. I felt it was something that would never grow stale no matter how often I saw it.”
― James Herriot, If Only They Could Talk by James Herriot

“By dint of constantly dwelling on the idea that repose was death, and, in order to punish, other tortures than death must be invented, he began to reflect on suicide. Unhappy he, who, on the brink of misfortune, broods over these ideas! It is one of those dead seas that seem clear and smooth to the eye; but he who unwarily ventures within its embrace finds himself entangled in the bituminous deposit that draws him down and swallows him. Once thus ensnared, unless the protecting hand of God snatch him thence, all is over, and his struggles but tend to hasten his destruction. This state of mental anguish is, however, less terrible than the sufferings that precede, and the punishment that awaits it — a sort of consolation that points to the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which is nothingness.

Edmond found some solace in these ideas. All his sorrows, all his sufferings, with their train of gloomy specters, fled from his cell when the angel of death seemed about to enter. Dantès reviewed with composure his past life, and, looking forward with terror to his future existence, chose that middle line that seemed to afford him a refuge.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“The prisoner followed his guide, who led him into a room almost underground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impregnated with tears.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo