...of a dialogue with animals

- 'Twas by a poor ass who had just turned in with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosunary turnip tops and cabbage leaves; and stood dubious, with his two forefeet 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 classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots, jackdaws, etc. - I never exchange a word with them - nor with the apes, etc. 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 some how 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 going 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 tamest 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.

[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Sterne, L.]