ith his two fore-feet on the inside
of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as
not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to
strike--there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so
unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for
him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not
like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I
will--whether in town or country--in cart or under panniers--whether
in liberty or bondage--I have ever something civil to say to him on my
part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as
I)--I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my
imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his
countenance--and where those carry me not deep enough--in flying from my
own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think--as
well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature
of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for
parrots, jackdaws, &c.--I never exchange a word with them--nor with
the apes, &c. for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the
others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my
cat, though I value them both--(and for my dog he would speak if he
could)--yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents
for conversation--I can make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond
the proposition, the reply, and rejoinder, which terminated my father's
and my mother's conversations, in his beds of justice--and those
utter'd--there's an end of the dialogue--

--But with an ass, I can commune for ever.

Come, Honesty! said I,--seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him
and the gate--art thou for coming in, or going out?

The ass twisted his head round to look up the street--

Well--replied I--we'll wait a minute for thy driver:

--He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite
way--

I understand thee perfectly, answered I--If thou takest a wrong step
in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death--Well! a minute is but a
minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be
set down as ill-spent.

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and
in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and
unsavouriness, had