Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
(Thomas de Quincey: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater)
I, too, love cows. Not enough to stop eating them, though.
I wonder how many of us flesh devourers would turn vegetarian if we had to slaughter the animals ourselves, instead of finding their meat neatly and innocently packaged at the supermarket, with nary a hint of the corresponding bovine assasination. I guess I could kill a pig: they are ugly and nasty, and would no doubt eat me if they had the chance. But a cow? That sweet, good natured animal?
Hunt your own food, coward, division of labor be damned! Take your spear and pursue the mammoth! Otherwise, wait until In vitro meat becomes a practical reality.
What I feared most, but perhaps only through ignorance of zoology, was, lest, whilst my sleeping face was upturned to the stars, some one of the Brahminical-looking cows on the Cambrian hills, one or other, might poach her foot into the center of my face. I do not suppose any fixed hostility of that nature to English faces in Welsh cows: but everywhere I observe in the feminine mind something of beautiful caprice, a floral exuberance of that charming wilfulnes which characterises our dear human sisters I fear through all worlds.
(Thomas de Quincey: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater)
No comments:
Post a Comment