# Subject to Vanity

Author: Benson, Margaret, 1865-1916

Genre: Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches

Language: English

License: Public domain

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66780

Amazon editions: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Subject+to+Vanity+Benson&tag=cyberlibrar00-20

## Summary

Why were cats created? I do not mean this as a sceptical question, doubtful of any end in their creation; no answer about adaptation and environment would be adequate, nor any statement of specific use. For with all the higher animals--that is to say, with all the animals one intimately knows--there is some beauty of intelligence, physique, or character which renders them, as one must necessarily believe they are, ends in themselves, not only means to the perfection of our very egotistic species. The dog, for instance, has at anyrate moral beauty, and the stag physical; but the cat, who so often loses her physical beauty after the first year of her life, and who slinks about with a weight...

## Chapters

- [Part 3](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/subject-to-vanity-66780/chapters/3/index.md)
- [Part 4](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/subject-to-vanity-66780/chapters/4/index.md)
- [Part 1](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/subject-to-vanity-66780/chapters/1/index.md)
- [Part 2](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/subject-to-vanity-66780/chapters/2/index.md)
- [Part 5](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/subject-to-vanity-66780/chapters/5/index.md)