"Well, don't you love dogs better?"
"No, I prefer cats every time."
"Oh, that's very queer!"
The truth is, I would rather have neither cat nor dog. But when I am obliged to live with one of these beings, I always choose the cat. I will tell you why.
The cat seems to me to have the manners most necessary to good society. In her early youth she has all the graces, all the gentleness, all the unexpectedness that the most artistic imagination could desire. She is smart; she never loses herself. She is prudent, going everywhere, looking into everything, breaking nothing.
The cat steals fresh mutton just as the dog steals it, but, unlike the dog, she takes no delight in carrion. She is fastidiously clean—and in this respect, she might well be imitated by many of her detractors. She washes her face, and in so doing foretells the weather into the bargain. You may please yourself by putting a ribbon around her neck, but never a collar; she cannot be enslaved.
In short, the cat is a dignified, proud, disdainful animal. She defies advances and tolerates no insults. She abandons the house in which she is not treated according to her merits. She is, in both origin and character, a true aristocrat, while the dog is and always will be, a mere vulgar parvenu.
The only serious argument that can be urged against the cat is that she destroys the birds, not caring whether they are sparrows or nightingales. If the dog does less, it is because of his stupidity and clumsiness, not because he is above such business. He also runs after the birds; but his foolish barking warns them of his coming, and as they fly away he can only watch them with open mouth and drooping tail.
The dog submits himself to the slavery of the collar in order to be taught the art of circumventing rabbits and pigeons—and this not for his own profit, but for the pleasure of his master, the hunter. Foolish, foolish fellow! An animal himself, he delights in persecuting other animals at the command of the man who beats him.
But the cat, when she catches a bird, has a good excuse for her cruelty—she catches it only to eat it herself. Shall she be slandered for such an act? Before condemning her, men may well think of their own shortcomings. They will find among themselves, as well as in the race of cats, many individuals who have claws and often use them for the destruction of those who are gifted with wings.