Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1915-01-09
IN PRAISE OF CATS.
The Most Individual and SeIf-Con-
n talned of Animals.


learned to understand the cat. In no
country, since the dog-loving Greeks
overthrow the maturer culture of
Egypt, has she been a popular idol or
extorted the reverence of crowds. But
In France, at least, there is literary
testimony in her favor, and the French
intellect has bestowed upon the task
of compromising her talent and
devotion which We have squandered
on the horse and dog. Balzac de-
scribed the passion of one of Ma
poleon's veterans in Egypt for a Loop
ardess, with a sureness of insight and
a depth of feeling that proclaim him
a devotee of the cat tribe. Gautier
has been eloquent and fantastic about
the cat. Lott has been tender and
graceful, and his essay on the death
of an aged cat has a sincerity and
truth which are wanting in his sugar
ed writing about Oriental women. A
woman must put self aside who loves
cat; there is in all the range of
sentiment no emotion so entirely dis
interested We have before us a
small volume of minor verse which
carries this distinguished tradition
yet a little farther. 1t is eulogy, re-
lieved by humor and marked by what
is rarer still, a nice and accurate
study Of cats. M. Alfred Ruffin nov
only loves CATS he loves them for the
true reasons. He loves them for their
grace and their elegance, reverences
their self-sufficiency and their sublim-
ity, accepts their egotism and feels
a becoming awe at the concentration
of diabolic vigor which can reveal it
self, under the stress of passion, in
the limbs of a fireside Tom. He sings
the mistress whom no praise can cor
rupt. the friend whose intimacy fiat
ters no human vanity He paints her
amid rare vases and works or art, al
miring herself more than any mas
terpiece. He delights to tell her of
ravages among his precious china, and
exclaims as he contemplates the sub
Unity of her Indifference "One might
as well accuse the pyramids" He tells
of the mingled prudence and courage
with which she meets the perils of
street where every journey is an ana
basis through barbarian lands. He
dwells with a sane and restrained
tenderness on the rare movements in
her relations with her human servants
when her tolerance warns into an
almost maternal affection.
To respect the cat is the beginning
of the esthetic sense. At a stage of
culture when utility governs all its
judgments, mankind prefers the dog.
Let it advance to a level at which it
can admire an object of beauty with
a disinterested passion, and it will
venerate this egoist among animals,
who suffices for himself. Only in the
mouth of the egoist is egoism in
others a matter of reproach. To the
cultivated mind the cat has the charm
of completeness, the satisfaction
which makes a sonnet more than an
epic, a fugue more than a rhapsody.
The ancients figured eternity as a
snake biting its own tail. There will
yet arise philosopher who will con-
ceive the Absolute as a gigantic and
self-satisfied cat, purring as it clasps
in comfortable round it's own per-
fections, and uttering as it purrs that
line of Edmund Sponsors about the
Cosmos-'It loved itself, because it
self was fair"
There is, however, deeper reason,
why the cat is, in the domestic heir
1t is not content to stand afoot from
all human activities; it views them
with a disquieting disdain. 1t is the
anchorite who makes our luxuries
foolish, the anarchist who rebukes
our organizations and our politics.
The dog, within the limits of his
understanding, pust share in all we
do. scratch when we dig and retrieve
when we hunt. When his under
standing fails him, he looks at us
with a mute appeal for enlightenment,
like some Galatea waiting for the
breath of life. The cat in the same
circumstances stares severely, winks
one eye, and goes to sleep. More
than the lilies of the field she rebukes
us for our care for the morrow. The
student Faust in the old engravings
had always a human skull among the
vain instruments and the barren alem-
bics in his study A cat blinking at
midnight among your papers and
books declares with more eloquence
than any skull the vanity of knowl
edge and uselessness of striving.
Mohammed, nursing a cat one day,
was minded to rise upon some great
errand of revelation and conquest.
But, man of action though he was, he
was oriental enough to value her pas
sivity. He cut off the sleeve of his
robe. and left her seated on it. There
comes to those who love a cat
further questioning, which is the par
alysis Of all morality. Why, after all,
should one rise at all, and what is
worth the sacrifice OF a sleeve? The
cat enjoys the march of seasons, spins
through Snace with tho stars and