Leonard Budgell

Nature allows one kind to kill another, it's part of the law ... you wonder if man might not be the most savage of all creatures. He's among the few that preys on nearly every other being, that constantly preys on his own species.

Perhaps I am like you. I love the byways, the tiny adventures, the faces that smile for an instant and are gone, a little boy with his face between the railings of a fence, watching the shoes go by. What is he thinking about? The people and their joys and sorrows? No way, he is seeing the shoes, shoes that tramp, limp, scuffle along, and perhaps his greatest concern is the tiny bug they might step on.It is probably the true meaning of compassionate, wondering about people's passions, thier feelings. Passion, one of the loveliest words in the language, one of the most misunderstood. One can have a love for so many things, but novelists sometimes overwork the word. Perhaps one can have a passionate belief, but not a passionate love for a car or asparagus. Passion is private, gentle, consuming, understanding and personal. It expresses so many things but does not belong to lipstick. It is in nature, pictures, people, always people. I suppose compassion begins when you watch the shoes and worry about the bug.