I find a writer upon Cats who speaks thus in their praise:—
“It has been said that the Cat is one of those animals which has made the least return to man for his trouble by its services; but it is certain that it renders very essential service to man.”
And another says:—
“Authors seem to delight in exaggerating the good qualities of the Dog, while they depreciate those of the Cat; the latter, however, is not less useful, and certainly less mischievous, than the former.”
Indeed, it would be unfair not to state that Pussy has had many able defenders, who have argued her case in verse as well as prose; for example, in Edmond Moore’s fable of “The Farmer, the Spaniel and the Cat” the Spaniel, when Puss drew near to eat some of the fragments of a feast, repelled her, saying she does nothing to merit being fed, etc.:—
“‘I own’ (with meekness Puss replied)
‘Superior merit on your side;
Nor does my breast with envy swell
To find it recompens’d so well.
Yet I, in what my nature can,
Contribute to the good of man.
Whose claws destroy the pilf’ring mouse?
Who drives the vermin from the house?
Or, watchful for the lab’ring swain,
From lurking rats secures the grain?
For this, if he rewards bestow,
Why should your heart with gall o’erflow?
Why pine my happiness to see,
Since there’s enough for you and me?’
‘Thy words are just,’ the Farmer cried,
And spurned the Spaniel from his side.”
And, again, the same idea occurs in Gay’s fable of the “Man, the Cat, the Dog, and the Fly.” The Cat solicits aid from the Man in the social state.
“‘Well, Puss,’ says Man, ‘and what can you
To benefit the public do?’
The Cat replies, ‘These teeth, these claws,
With vigilance shall serve the cause.
The Mouse, destroy’d by my pursuit,
No longer shall your feasts pollute;
Nor Rats, from nightly ambuscade,
With wasteful teeth your stores invade.’
‘I grant,’ says Man, ‘to general use
Your parts and talents may conduce;
For rats and mice purloin our grain,
And threshers whirl the flail in vain;
Thus shall the Cat, a foe to spoil,
Protect the farmers’ honest toil.’”
Mr. Ruskin says, “There is in every animal’s eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange life through which their life looks at and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul!”
Poor Pussy! on the whole she has had but few champions in comparison to the number of her foes. Let us see what anecdotes we can find which will show her in a favourable light; but my chapter is long enough, and I will conclude it with the epitaph placed over a favourite French Puss:—