“You ask of my companions.

Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me.

They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell.”

Emily Dickinson, responding to Thomas Wentworth Higginson question in a letter, April 25, 1862: 
“Who are your companions?” She became a recluse when only 32, preferring her Newfoundland’s company to that of humans.