Prelude to a disquisition on The Draby Portion

[leisure_product]

"But I must freely confess, that the many Virtues of those excellent Quadrupeds placed in oppposite View to human Corruptions, had so far opened my Eyes, and enlarged my Understanding, that I began to view the Actions and Passions of Man in a very different Light; and to think the Honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was impossible for me to do before a Person of so acute a Judgment as my Master, who daily convinced me of a thousand Faults in my self, whereof I had not the least Perception before, and which with us would never be numbered even among human Infirmities."

--Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift