Part 4

Lie here, without a record of thy worth, Beneath a covering of the common earth! It is not from unwillingness to praise, Or want of love, that here no stone we raise; More thou deservest; but _this_ man gives to man, Brother to brother, _this_ is all we can. Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear Shall find thee through all changes of the year: This oak points out thy grave; the silent tree Will gladly stand a monument of thee.

Cowper, who tenderly loved all animals, did not fail to honour a dog with a poetical tribute in The Dog and the Water Lily, celebrating the devotion of “my spaniel, prettiest of his race.”

It was the time when Ouse displayed His lilies newly blown; Their beauties I intent surveyed, And one I wished my own.

With cane extended far, I sought To steer it close to land; But still the prize, though nearly caught, Escaped my eager hand.

Beau marked my unsuccessful pains With fixed, considerate face, And puzzling set his puppy brains To comprehend, the case.

But chief myself, I will enjoin, Awake at duty’s call, To show a love as prompt as thine To Him who gives us all.

But with a chirrup clear and strong, Dispersing all his dream, I thence withdrew, and followed long The windings of the stream.

My ramble finished, I returned. Beau, trotting far before, The floating wreath again discerned, And, plunging, left the shore.

I saw him, with that lily cropped, Impatient swim to meet My quick approach, and soon he dropped The treasure at my feet.

Charmed with this sight, the world, I cried, Shall hear of this, thy deed: My dog shall mortify the pride Of man’s superior breed.

Forster tells us fully of Dickens’s devotion to his many dogs, quoting the novelist’s inimitable way of describing his favourites. In Dr. Marigold there is an especially good bit about “me and my dog.”

“My dog knew as well as I did when she was on the turn. Before she broke out he would give a howl and bolt. How he knew it was a mystery to me, but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and would give a howl and bolt. At such times I wished I was him.” After the death of child and wife, he says: “Me and my dog was all the company left in the cart now, and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn’t bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when I asked him ‘Who said half a crown?’ He attained to an immense height of popularity, and, I shall always believe, taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be well on in years, and one night when I was convulsing York with the spectacles he took a convulsion on his own account, upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him.”

Mr. Laurence Hutton, in the St. Nicholas, has lately expressed his sentiments about dogs, as follows:

“It was Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, I think, who spoke in sincere sympathy of the man who “led a dog-less life.” It was Mr. “Josh Billings,” I know, who said that in the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy—to wit, the wag of a dog’s tail. And it was Prof. John C. Van Dyke who declared the other day, in reviewing the artistic career of Landseer, that he made his dogs too human. It was the great Creator himself who made dogs too human—so human that sometimes they put humanity to shame.

“I have been the friend and confidant of three dogs, who helped to humanize me for the space of a quarter of a century, and who had souls to be saved, I am sure, and when I cross the Stygian River I expect to find on the other shore a trio of dogs wagging their tails almost off in their joy at my coming, and with honest tongues hanging out to lick my hands and my feet. And then I am going, with these faithful, devoted dogs at my heels, to talk dogs over with Dr. John Brown, Sir Edward Landseer, and Mr. Josh Billings.”

Do dogs have souls—a spark of life that after death lives on elsewhere?

Many have hoped so, from Wesley to the little boy who has lost his cherished comrade.

It is certain that dogs show qualities that in a man would be called reason, quick apprehension, presence of mind, courage, self-abnegation, affection unto death.

At the close of this chapter may I be allowed to tell of two of my special friends—one a fox terrier, owned by Mr. Howard Ticknor, of Boston; the other my own interesting pet—who have never failed to learn any trick suggested to them? Antoninus Pius, called Tony for short, goes through more than a score of wonderful accomplishments, such as playing on the piano, crossing his paws and looking extremely artistic, if not inspired, dancing a skirt dance, spinning on a flax wheel, performing on a tambourine swung by a ribbon round his neck; plays pattycake with his mistress. And my own intelligent Yorkshire terrier mounts a chair back and preaches with animation, eloquence, and forcible gestures; knocks down a row of books and then sits on them, as a book reviewer; stands in a corner with right paw uplifted, as a tableau of Liberty enlightening the World; rings a bell repeatedly and with increasing energy, to call us to the table; sings with head and eyes uplifted, to accompaniment of harmonica—and each is just beginning his education.

I have read lately an account of a knowing dog, with a sort of sharp cockney ability, who used to go daily with penny in mouth and buy a roll. Once one right out of the oven was given to him; he dropped it, seized his money off the counter, and changed his baker.

COMPLIMENTS TO CATS.

You may own a cat, but cannot govern one.

TO A KITTEN.

But not alone by cottage fire Do rustics rude thy feats admire; The learnèd sage, whose thoughts explore The widest range of human lore; Or, with unfettered fancy fly Through airy heights of poesy; Pausing, smiles with altered air To see thee climb his elbow-chair, Or, struggling with the mat below, Hold warfare with his slippered toe. JOANNA BAILLIE.

CATS.

God made the cat in order to give to man the pleasurable sense of having caressed the tiger.

MÉRY.

Public sentiment is not so unanimously in favour of cats, yet they have had their warm admirers, while in Egypt they were adored as divine—worshipped as an emblem of the moon. When a cat died, the owners gave the body a showy funeral, went into mourning, and shaved off their eyebrows. Diodorus tells of a Roman soldier who was condemned to death for killing a cat. It is said that Cambyses, King of Persia, when he went to fight the Egyptians, fastened before every soldier’s breast a live cat. Their enemies dared not run the risk of hurting their sacred pets, and so were conquered.

Artists, monarchs, poets, diplomatists, religious leaders, authors, have all condescended to care for cats. A mere list of their names would make a big book. For instance, Godefroi Mind, a German artist, was called the Raphael of Cats. People would hunt him up in his attic, and pay large prices for his pictures. In the long winter evenings he amused himself carving tiny cats out of chestnuts, and could not make them fast enough for those who wanted to buy. Mohammed was so fond of his cat Muezza that once, when she was sleeping on his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve rather than disturb her. Andrew Doria, one of the rulers of Venice, not only had a portrait painted of his pet cat, but after her death had her skeleton preserved as a treasure. Richelieu’s special favourite was a splendid Angora, his resting place being the table covered with state papers. Montaigne used to rest himself by a frolic with his cat. Fontenelle liked to place his “Tom” in an armchair and deliver an oration before him. The cat of Cardinal Wolsey sat by his side when he received princes. Petrarch had his pet feline embalmed and placed in his apartment.

You see, the idea of the cat being the pet of old maids alone is far from true. Edward Lear, of Nonsense Verses fame, wrote of himself:

He has many friends, laymen and clerical; Old Foss is the name of his cat; His body is perfectly spherical; He weareth a runcible hat.

Wordsworth wrote about a Kitten and the Falling Leaves. A volume of two hundred and eighty-five pages of poems in all languages, consecrated to the memory of a single cat, was published at Milan in 1741. Shelley wrote verses to a cat.

It seems unjust to assert that the cat is incapable of personal attachment, when she has won the affection of so many of earth’s great ones. The skull of Morosini’s cat is preserved among the relics of that Venetian worthy. Andrea Doria’s cat was painted with him. Sir Henry Wyat’s gratitude to the cat who saved him from starvation in the Tower of London by bringing him pigeons to eat, caused this remark: “You shall not find his picture anywhere but with a cat beside him.” Cowper often wrote about his cats and kittens. Horace Walpole wrote to Gray, mourning the loss of his handsomest cat, and Gray replied: “I know Zara and Zerlina, or rather I knew them both together, for I can not justly say which was which. Then, as to your handsomest cat, I am no less at a loss; as well as knowing one’s handsomest cat is always the cat one likes best, or, if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is handsomest. Besides, if the point were so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill bred as to forget my interest in the survivor—oh, no! I would rather seem to mistake, and imagine, to be sure, that it must be the tabby one.” It was the tabby; her death being sudden and pitiful, tumbling from a “lofty vase’s side” while trying to secure a goldfish for her dinner. Gray sent Walpole an ode inspired by the misfortune, in which he said:

What woman’s heart can gold despise? What cat’s averse to fish?

and thus describes the final scene:

Eight times emerging from the flood, She mewed to every watery god Some speedy aid to send. No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred, Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard. A favourite has no friend.

Upon Gray’s death, Walpole placed Zerlina’s vase upon a pedestal marked with the first stanza.

Jeremy Bentham at first christened his cat Langbourne; afterward, Sir John Langbourne; and when very wise and dignified, the Rev. Sir John Langbourne, D. D. Pius IX allowed his cat to sit with him at table, waiting his turn to be fed in a most decorous manner. Théophile Gautier tells us how beautifully his cats behaved at the dinner table. A friend visiting Bishop Thirlwall in his retirement, thought he looked weary, and asked him to take the big easy-chair. “Don’t you see who is already there?” said the great churchman, pointing to a cat asleep on the cushion. “She must not be disturbed.” Helen Hunt Jackson devoted a large book to the praise of cats and kittens. We know that Isaac Newton was fond of cats, for did he not make two holes in his barn door—a big one for old pussy to go in and out, and a little one for the kitty?

Among French authors we recall Rousseau, who has much to say in favour of felines. Colbert reared half a dozen cats in his study, and taught them many interesting tricks. The cat supplied Perrault with one of the most attractive subjects of his stories, and under the magical pen of this admirable story-teller, Puss in Boots has become an example of the power of work, industry, and _savoir-faire_. Gautier scoffs at storms raging without, as long as he has

Sur mes genoux un chat qui se joue et folâtre, Un livre pour veiller, un fauteil pour devenir.

Béranger, in his idyl The Cat, makes an intelligent cat a go-between of lovers. Baudelaire returned from his wanderings in the East a devotee of cats, and addressed to them several fine bits of verse; they are seen in his poetry, as dogs in the paintings of Paul Veronese. Here is a sample:

Come, beauty, rest upon my loving heart, But cease thy paws’ sharp-nailèd play, And let me peer into those eyes that dart Mixed agate and metallic ray.

Again:

Grave scholars and mad lovers all admire And love, and each alike, at his full tide Those suave and puissant cats, the fireside’s pride, Who like the sedentary life and glow of fire.

How he enjoys, nay, revels in the musical purr!—

Those tones which purl and percolate Deep down into my shadowy soul, Exalt me like a fine tune’s roll, And yield the joy love philters make.

There is no note in the world, Nor perfect instrument I know, Can lift my heart to such a glow And set its vibrant chord in whirl, As thy rich voice mysterious.

Champfleury, another French writer, has recorded that, visiting Victor Hugo once, he found, in a room decorated with tapestries and Gothic furniture, a cat enthroned on a dais, and apparently receiving the homage of the company. Sainte-Beuve’s cat sat on his desk, and walked freely over his critical essays. “I value in the cat,” says Chateaubriand, “that indifferent and almost ungrateful temper which prevents itself from attaching itself to any one; the indifference with which it passes from the _salon_ to the housetop.” Marshal Turenne amused himself for hours in playing with his kittens. The great general, Lord Heathfield, would often appear on the walls of Gibraltar at the time of the famous siege, attended by his favourite cats. Montaigne wrote: “When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert each other with our play. If I have my hour to begin or refuse, so has she.” As George Eliot puts it, “Who can tell what just criticisms the cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation?” Chateaubriand’s cat Micette is well known. He used to stroke her tail, to notify Madame Récamier that he was tired or bored.

Cats and their friendships are not spoken of in the Bible. But they are mentioned in Sanskrit writing two thousand years old, and, as has been said before, they were household pets and almost idols with the Egyptians, who mummied them in company with kings and princes. They were also favourites in India and Persia, and can claim relationship with the royal felines of the tropics. Simonides, in his Satire on Women, the earliest extant, sets it down that froward women were made from cats, just as most virtuous, industrious matrons were developed from beer. In Mills’s History of the Crusades the cat was an important personage in religious festivals. At Aix, in Provence, the finest he cat was wrapped like a child in swaddling clothes and exhibited in a magnificent shrine: every knee bent, every hand strewed flowers.

Several cats have been immortalized by panegyrics and epitaphs from famous masters. Joachim de Bellay has left this pretty tribute:

C’est Beland, mon petit chat gris— Beland, qui fut peraventure Le plus bel œuvre que nature Fit onc en matière de chats.

The pensive Selima, owned by Walpole, was mourned by Gray, and from the Elegy we get the favourite aphorism, “A favourite has no friends.” Arnold mourned the great Atossa. One of Tasso’s best sonnets was addressed to his favourite cat. Cats figure in literature from Gammer Gurton’s Needle to our own day. Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four times—“the harmless, necessary cat,” etc. Goldsmith wrote:

Around in sympathetic mirth Its tricks the kitten tries; The cricket chirrups in the hearth, The crackling fagot flies.

Joanna Baillie wrote in the same strain.

In one of Gay’s fables about animals the cat is asked what she can do to benefit the proposed confederation. She answers scornfully:

... These teeth, these claws, With vigilance shall serve the cause. The mouse destroyed by my pursuit No longer shall your feasts pollute, Nor eat, from nightly ambuscade With watchful teeth your stores invade.

The story of Dick Whittington and his cat is doubtless true. All the pictorial and architectural relics of Whittington represent him with the cat—a black and white cat—at his left hand, or his hand resting on a cat. One of the figures that adorned the gate at Newgate represented Liberty with the figure of a cat lying at her feet. Whittington was a former founder. In the cellar of his old house at Gloucester there was found a stone, probably part of a chimney, showing in _basso-rilievo_ the figure of a boy carrying in his arms a cat. Cowper has a poem on A Cat retired from Business. Heinrich’s verses are well known, or should be:

The neighbours’ old cat often Came to pay us a visit. We made her a bow and a courtesy, Each with a compliment in it.

After her health we asked, Our care and regard to evince; We have made the very same speeches To many an old cat since.

This translation was by Mrs. Browning; many others have tried it with success. Alfred de Musset apostrophized his cats in verse. Paul de Koch frequently describes a favourite cat in his novels. Hoffman, the German novelist, introduces cats into his weird and fantastic tales, and Poe has given us The Black Cat. Keats composed a

SONNET TO A CAT:

Cat, who has passed thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroyed? How many tidbits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick Those velvet ears, but prythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me, and tell me all thy frays, Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick; Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists, For all thy wheezy asthma, and for all Thy tail’s tip is nicked off, and though the fists Of many a maid have given thee many a maul, Still is thy fur as when the lists In youth thou enteredst on glass-bottled wall.

Clinton Scollard writes tenderly of his lost

GRIMALKIN:

_An Elegy on Peter, aged Twelve._

In vain the kindly call; in vain The plate for which thou once wast fain At morn and noon and daylight’s wane, O king of mousers. No more I hear thee purr and purr As in the frolic days that were, When thou didst rub thy velvet fur Against my trousers.

How empty are the places where Thou erst wert frankly debonair, Nor dreamed a dream of feline care, A capering kitten. The sunny haunts where, grown a cat, You pondered this, considered that, The cushioned chair, the rug, the mat, By firelight smitten.

Although of few thou stood’st in dread, How well thou knew’st a friendly tread, And what upon thy back or head The stroking hand meant! A passing scent could keenly wake Thy eagerness for chop or steak. Yet, puss, how rarely didst thou break The eighth commandment!

Though brief thy life, a little span Of days compared with that of man, The time allotted to thee ran In smoother meter. Now with the warm earth o’er thy breast, O wisest of thy kind and best, Forever mayst thou softly rest, _In pace_—Peter.

Agnes Repplier, in her Essays in Idleness and Dozy Hours, tells us of Agrippina and her child. Charles Dudley Warner gave to the world a character sketch of his cat Calvin.

A young girl who was in the house with Mr. Whittier, and of whom he was very fond, went to him one day with tearful eyes and a rueful face and said: “My dear little kitty Bathsheba is dead, and I want you to write a poem to put on her gravestone. I shall bury her under a rose bush!” Without a moment’s hesitation the poet said:

Bathsheba! to whom none ever said scat! No worthier cat Ever sat on a mat Or caught a rat; _Requiescat!_

Cats are made very useful. The English Government keeps cats in public offices, dockyards, stores, shipping, and so on. In Vienna, four cats are employed by town magistrates to catch mice on the premises of the municipality with a regular allowance, voted for their keeping, during active service, afterward placed on the retired list with comfortable pension; much better cared for than college professors or superannuated ministers in our country. There are a certain number of cats in the United States Post Office to protect mail bags from rats and mice; also, in the Imperial Printing Office in France, a feline staff with a keeper. Cats are given charge of empty corn sacks, so that they shall not be nibbled and devoured. Cats are invaluable to farmers in barns and outhouses, stables, and newly mown fields.

There are many proverbs about the cat. Shakespeare says,

Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i’ the adage,

meaning, expressed in another proverb,

The cat loves fish, but does not like To wet her paws.

Good liquor will make a cat speak.

Not room to swing a cat.

They used to swing a cat to the branch of a tree as a mark to shoot at.

Honest as the cat when the meal is out of reach.

Let the cat out of the bag.

A cat was sometimes substituted for a sucking pig, and carried in a bag to market. If a greenhorn chose to buy without examination, very well; but if he opened the bag the trick was discovered, and he “let the cat out of the bag.”

Sick as a cat.

Touch not a cat without a glove.

What can you have of a cat but her skin?

To be made a cat’s paw of,

referring to the fable of the monkey who took the paw of a cat to get some roasted chestnuts from the hot ashes.

Who is to bell the cat?

alluding to the cunning old mouse who suggested that they should hang a bell on the cat’s neck to let all mice know of her approach. “Excellent,” said a wise young mouse, “but who will undertake the job?”