"She's there for me," he declared.  "I don't care whether she's
there for you or not.  Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or
dead, the cow will be there." 

It was philosophy.  They were discussing the existence of objects.
Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or
have they a real existence of their own? It is all very
interesting, but at the same time it is difficult.  Hence the cow.
She seemed to make things easier.  She was so familiar, so solid,
that surely the truths that she illustrated would in time become
familiar and solid also.  Is the cow there or not? This was better
than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity.  So at
Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What do our
rooms look like in the vac.?" 

"Look here, Ansell.  I'm there--in the meadow--the cow's
there.  You're there--the cow's there.  Do you agree so far?"
"Well?"