The greatest captain of any age was the captain with his whiskers.
Let us not call this the tergiversation of history. Call it rather the tergiversation of nature.
The whiskers of the captain.
The whiskers of the cat.
The hirsute exponent of martial supremacy. The feline symbolism of the Bearded Lady, crossing her claws before the family fire.
Jealousy has been called the green-eyed monster.
The cat is the green-eyed monster.
Both lie in wait. Neither destroys its victim without toying with it. One is the foe, the other the friend, of the fireside. Either is to be met with in almost every family. Each is of both sexes.
“Old Tom” gin, in excess, is one of man’s bitterest bibulous foes; man is the bitterest bibulous foe of old tom cats.
Osculations between sky and earth! O lips of the Seen touching the lips of the Unseen! O wave of thought careering through the asymptotes of cloudland, crystalizing into angelic foci the tangents of humanity.