共享题干题【2018年真题】From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.
 To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful dog, I hardly need to take the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of the person who has had frequent occasions to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
 I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion of the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious about this pointand I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
 Pluto一this was the cat’s name  was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him,and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted, in this manner,for several years, during which my general temperament and character  through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance  had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language with my wife. At length, I was even violent with her. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way.
 But my disease grew upon me, and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old,and consequently somewhat peevish  even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at any violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth.