From philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu Fri Aug 12 19:53:49 1994
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Date: Fri, 12 Aug 94 19:53:45 -0400
From: Philip Greenspun <philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: ibic@sunsite.unc.edu
Subject: submission for Commonplace Book
Reply-To: philg@mit.edu
Status: RO


Although your book has no quotations from Travels with Samantha 
(http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/samantha/travels-with-samantha.html)
I am going to send you this submission anyway...

The best friend man has in the world may turn against him and become
his enemy.  His son, or daughter, that he has reared with loving care
may prove ungrateful.  Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those
whom we trust with our happiness and good name may become traitors to
their faith.  The money a man has he may lose.  It flies away from
him, perhaps when he needs it most.  A man's reputation may be
sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.  The people who are
prone to fall on their knees when success is with us may be the first
to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our
head.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish
world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves
ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.  A man's dog stands by him in
prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness.  He will sleep on
the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives
fiercely, if only to be near his master's side.  He will kiss the hand
that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come
in encounters with the roughness of the world.  He guards the sleep of
his pauper master as if he were a prince.

When all other friends desert, he remains.  When riches take wing, and
reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun
in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives his master forth, an outcast in the world,
friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege
than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight
against his enemies,.  And when that last scene of all comes, and
death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the
cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there,
by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his
paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true,
even in death.

Senator Vest, speaking to a jury about Old Drum, shot in 1869. 


