A century of children's books

by Florence V. Barry

The Autobiography of a Cat was a more delicate task, a psychologist could not explain the workings of its mind, although a careful observer might record its more intelligible movements; but since every cat is a critic of human character, there was nothing in the way of sermon or satire that it could not achieve.

Elizabeth Sandham’s Adventures of Poor Puss[118] is a very literal story, setting off the philosophy of “two four-footed moralisers” on a sunny wall; but the anonymous author of Felissa; or, the Life and Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment[119] produced a masterpiece in this kind.

Felissa is a Kitten of Satire as well as of Sentiment. This Author adopted the form of Pompey the Little in order to ridicule cant and affectation in general, and Rousseau’s doctrine in particular; yet the chief aim of the book (as the title-page shows) is to turn a child’s thoughts from the hackneyed problems of juvenile conduct:

“We’ll have our Mottoes and our Chapters too,

And brave the Thunders of the dread Review:

Misses no more o’er Misses’ Woes shall wail,

But list attentive to a Kitten’s Tale.”

The heroine’s pedigree goes back to Perrault; she actually claims descent from “that noble, excellent and exceeding wise Cat ... who owed his honours to the liberality and gratitude of the celebrated nobleman the Lord Marquis of Carabas”; and indeed she resembles her ancestor as much in “Genius and Discretion” as she excels him in Morals. She is one that might have sat on Dr. Johnson’s knee; her remarks upon Rousseau would have delighted him. Describing the Countess of Dashley, her little mistress’s mother, she says that this lady “had been advised by a French gentleman, one Mr. Rousseau, to suffer her children to remain foolish till seven or eight years of age, when, he said, they would grow wise of their own accord”, a plan “so easy and delightful” that she immediately adopted it.

Felissa’s satire has the prettiest effect of innocence. One moment she is all kittenish mischief, the next, lost in wonder at the lady of fashion who spares half a moment on the way to her carriage to peep in at her little girl.