Fragment from "The Monkey-Lover"

"She loved animals. More than humans. Animals knew their place in the Universal Scheme.  Animals (insects too) had their jobs, their reasons for being, and they did their jobs without complaint. Animals were consistent, and trustworthy.  A dog did his dog things. Cats, birds, hamsters, and all the wild things, did their particular things too.

Not only did she love animals more than humans, she thought they were smarter too.  Sometimes she had to bury this belief deep in her soul, especially when in polite conversation.  But she never changed her mind on the superiority of animals over humans. 

She was basically a "misanthrope" - one who hates or mistrusts mankind.  Maybe "hate" was too strong a word "disliked" might be closer to the truth, but the "mistrusts" part was right on. Of course this meant she mistrusted herself too.  This was part of the complexity of the human thing.  Humans were variable and complex; also untrustworthy, disloyal, unreliable, fungible. And they lied. To others, and most especially, to themselves. And often they could even believe in their own lies.

And they did not know their place in the Universal Scheme.  They did not have clear-cut jobs. They struggled for a purpose. They were lost. They were capable of amazing things, and terrible things too.  For every Dali Lama you could find a Stalin.  It was sometimes very disappointing, and disheartening, when she thought about humans, and remembered that she was one of them too."