Life – A painful struggle

"To love animals as well as humans increases one's capacity for suffering; sometimes I have envied those who are indifferent to mammals of other species than their own, but perhaps it increases, too, a general perception and understanding, the compassion and tenderness that is all too latent in most humanity – so latent that by now we threaten the survival even of our own species. These things which constituted my attitude towards the two otters made my decision the outcome of a painful struggle, more painful than I would care to describe. But the struggle was over, the decision made. The otters were going, Camusferàrna would be closed; somewhere I would find a new life."
Gavin Maxwell, Raven Seek Thy Brother