Life is not shorn of loves and hates
While there are sparrows on the slates
And keepers in the Park.
And you yourself will come to learn
The ways of London; and in turn
Assume your Cockney cares
Like other folk that live in flats,
Chasing your purely abstract rats
Upon the concrete stairs.
That is like Hood at his best; but it is, moreover, penetrated with a profound and true appreciation of the fundamental idea that all love of the cat must be founded on the absurdity of the cat, and only thus can a morbid idolatry be avoided. Perhaps those who appeared to be witches were those old ladies who took their cats too seriously. The cat in this book is called “Four-Paws,” which is as jolly as a gargoyle. But the name of the cat must be something familiar and even jeering, if it be only Tom or Tabby or Topsy: something that shows man is not afraid of it. Otherwise the name of the cat will be Pasht.