The Cat by Emily Bronte
I can say with sincerity that I love cats; furthermore I am going to give very good reasons why those who hate them are wrong.
The cat is an animal which has more human feelings than almost any other being. We cannot draw a comparison with the dog, which is infinitely too good: but the cat, while differing in certain human features, is extremely like us in disposition.
There may genuinely be people who will say this resemblance only holds with the most wicked men, that it is born of its excess of hypocrisy, cruelty and ingratitude, vices detestable in our race and equally odious in that of cats.
Without disputing the limits which these individuals set on our affinity, I reply that if hypocrisy, cruelty and ingratitude are exclusively the property of the wicked, this class encompasses everyone; our education develops one of these qualities in great perfection, the others flourish without being fostered, and far from condemning them, we regard all three with a great deal of complacency. A cat, in his own interest, sometimes conceals its misanthropy under a semblance of very engaging sweetness; instead of tearing what it wants out of the hand of its master, it comes up with a caressing air, rubs its pretty little head against him, and advances a paw whose touch is gentle as down. When this is finished, he resumes his character of Timon, and whereas this subtlety is called hypocrisy in him, among ourselves, we give it another name, it is politeness, and anyone who does not use it to conceal his real feelings will soon be chased from society.
'But,' says some genteel lady, who has murdered half a dozen lapdogs out of pure affection, 'the cat is such a cruel animal; not content with killing its prey, it tortures it before its death; you cannot make that accusation against us.' Not far from you, Madame, monsieur, your husband, for example, really loves the hunt; but foxes being rare in his area, he will not have means to pursue his amusement often, if he does not conserve his stock. Thus, when he has run down an animal to its last gasp, he takes it from the jaws of the dogs and preserves it to suffer again two or three times the same assault, ending finally in death. You spare yourself a bloody spectacle because it wounds your feeble nerves, but I have seen you embrace your child with transports, when it comes to show you a beautiful butterfly crushed between its cruel little fingers; and at this moment, I'd have liked to have a cat, with the tail of a half-swallowed rat hanging from its mouth, to introduce as the image, the exact copy, of your angel; you cannot refuse to kiss him, and if he scratches us both in revenge, so much the better, little boys are just as liable to recognise thus the caresses of their friends, and the resemblance will be all the more perfect.
The ingratitude of cats is another name for perspicacity. They know how to estimate our favours at their just price, because they divine the motives which make us give them, and if these motives may sometimes be good, without doubt they always remember, that they owe all their miseries and all their bad qualities to the great sin of the human race, for assuredly, the cat was not wicked in Paradise.
The cat is an animal which has more human feelings than almost any other being. We cannot draw a comparison with the dog, which is infinitely too good: but the cat, while differing in certain human features, is extremely like us in disposition.
There may genuinely be people who will say this resemblance only holds with the most wicked men, that it is born of its excess of hypocrisy, cruelty and ingratitude, vices detestable in our race and equally odious in that of cats.
Without disputing the limits which these individuals set on our affinity, I reply that if hypocrisy, cruelty and ingratitude are exclusively the property of the wicked, this class encompasses everyone; our education develops one of these qualities in great perfection, the others flourish without being fostered, and far from condemning them, we regard all three with a great deal of complacency. A cat, in his own interest, sometimes conceals its misanthropy under a semblance of very engaging sweetness; instead of tearing what it wants out of the hand of its master, it comes up with a caressing air, rubs its pretty little head against him, and advances a paw whose touch is gentle as down. When this is finished, he resumes his character of Timon, and whereas this subtlety is called hypocrisy in him, among ourselves, we give it another name, it is politeness, and anyone who does not use it to conceal his real feelings will soon be chased from society.
'But,' says some genteel lady, who has murdered half a dozen lapdogs out of pure affection, 'the cat is such a cruel animal; not content with killing its prey, it tortures it before its death; you cannot make that accusation against us.' Not far from you, Madame, monsieur, your husband, for example, really loves the hunt; but foxes being rare in his area, he will not have means to pursue his amusement often, if he does not conserve his stock. Thus, when he has run down an animal to its last gasp, he takes it from the jaws of the dogs and preserves it to suffer again two or three times the same assault, ending finally in death. You spare yourself a bloody spectacle because it wounds your feeble nerves, but I have seen you embrace your child with transports, when it comes to show you a beautiful butterfly crushed between its cruel little fingers; and at this moment, I'd have liked to have a cat, with the tail of a half-swallowed rat hanging from its mouth, to introduce as the image, the exact copy, of your angel; you cannot refuse to kiss him, and if he scratches us both in revenge, so much the better, little boys are just as liable to recognise thus the caresses of their friends, and the resemblance will be all the more perfect.
The ingratitude of cats is another name for perspicacity. They know how to estimate our favours at their just price, because they divine the motives which make us give them, and if these motives may sometimes be good, without doubt they always remember, that they owe all their miseries and all their bad qualities to the great sin of the human race, for assuredly, the cat was not wicked in Paradise.