Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-04

| fore softly singing fire was enough
to make you forget that there were such
words as rush and push.
"Ah, little inarticulate animal, you
little knew the psychology Of relaxa-
ton which your feline languor preached
to your busy mistress! You who toiled
not, and spun not, were our luxury anc
| like all the luxuries you added q splen-
did touch to the workaday world.
I'VE thought JEFF had more intelli-
gence than is usually credited to cats
Perhaps it was because he lived SC
far removed from catdom. You always
experienced feeling of being honoreo
even though you wore your best dress
when he selected your lap How
could you keep back the pang of heart
break, that last day, when he feebly
stretched out one cold paw against your
hand and leisurely winked. passing out
jeff -magnificently?"
There are people in the world who
think that only human beings are
worthy of love.
Love, they believe, is something which
requires two, and each must be human
There they err sadly.
Love Is in the mind and heart. and
chooses its own objects of affection.
others will any man or woman who
| ever lived.
There are some who give more true
affection to a collection of postage
stamps than thousands of human be-
ingS have ever been able to work up for
the members of their own families.
Love is not something to be measured
according to one standard, but comes to
life each time anew, and creates its own
standards.
Love is not in the one or thing loved
but in the one who does the loving,
This is a mystery which many will
never understand; that is why the fond
ness of some for animal friends is in
comprehensive.
But he or she who loves dog, or cat.
or canary. or 1t might even be certain
goldfish, does so in the divine mercy OF
giving.
Love Is gift, not compact.
1t requires just one, not two.
The French have saying, IF I love
you. what is that to you?"
The busy herd of human beings who
are intent on telling every one else
what he shall do, and how he shall dc
1t, can never see the point to that. They
believe that love is a mutual contract
sort of convenient give-and-take.
But any one who has loved an animal
friend knows better. The small friend
he realizes, had nothing to do with It.
1t did not ask to be loved nor could it
except vaguely, respond to the affec-
ton.
The love it received was a gift, and
might be and often was as intense as
affection can make itself in a world
where self-preservation is the first law
Where love had once passed." wrote
Emile lola, there was it passing again
Twas the eternal and endless renewal
with present joys and future tears -
And he spoke of it as "a bliss which
prompts and angers the jealousy OF
death"
Thus the joys Of love and affection
are always followed in the end by tears
1t is this latter end which mankind
refuses to admit, until it overtakes
him. And then its bitterness is the
same, If the love is the same, no mat
ter who or what the object.
For love Is to the lover and comes
back most to him, as Whitman said. II
Is scarcely ever the subject of theme
song" in the talkies. It has no theme
but service, no good but the good of the
beloved, no aim of itself but only In
another. That other may be a human
being, but also 1t may be q cat, or q
noble dog. Such an animal has shared
in divine mystery.