The Tiger in the House

Carl Van Vechten

Description

This great treatise on cats describes the history, manners, habits of the cat and explores its relation to folklore, music, painting, law, poetry, and fiction. It has long been considered the best book ever written about the cat.

Sujets

• Cats
• Pets

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 08 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781774643679
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Tiger in the House
by Carl van Vechten

First published in 1920
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.





















THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE

by

Carl van Vechten

Chapter One
By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice
WHENEVER the subject comes up, and it may be said, speaking with moderation, that it comes up forty times a day, some one invariably declares, “No, I don’t like cats, I like dogs.” The cognate dichotomous remark, which is equally popular, prevalent, and banal, is “No, I don’t like Dickens, I like Thackeray.” As James Branch Cabell has conveniently pointed out for all time, “to the philosophical mind it would seem equally sensible to decline to participate in a game of billiards on the ground that one was fond of herring.” Nevertheless both controversies continue to rage and careless thinkers continue to force Dickens and the cat into categories. The dog-lovers, in the opposition sense (for it is really possible to care for both dogs and cats, just as it is possible to read “Pendennis” and “Bleak House” with equal delight), say of the soft puss that he is sly and deceitful, thieving and ungrateful, fickle and cruel, and friend to home and not to man. From this inconsiderate, and unconsidered, opinion the derogatory and catachrestic adjective “catty” has been derived, an adjective which when used in its ordinarily accepted sense I find particularly abhorrent, for who should be described as catty unless it be some gracious and graceful female, dignified and reserved, redolent of beauty and charm and the mystery of love? The catlovers on their side, so ardent, indeed, that in France they have earned the sobriquet of félinophiles enragés, have not been guiltless. Affectionate, intelligent, faithful, tried and true are some of the adjectives they lavish indiscriminately on their darling pets. It would seem, indeed, after reading some of the books, that cats spend their nine lives caring for the sick, saving children from burning buildings, and helping Mrs. Jellyby make small-clothes for the heathen in Africa.

The cat himself might have settled the question long ago, had settling such matters been a part of the cat’s purpose in life. You cannot reasonably expect a near relative of the king of beasts (whom he much more closely resembles, by the way, than a Japanese spaniel resembles a Newfoundland dog), an animal who has been a god, a companion of sorceresses at the Witches’ Sabbath, a beast who is royal in Siam, who in Japan is called “the tiger who eats from the hand,” the adored of Mohammed, Laura’s rival with Petrarch, the friend of Richelieu’s idle moments, the favourite of poet and prelate, to regard the stupidity of humankind in regard to him with anything less than disdain. The cat, indeed, makes no advances. He cares for the hearth and often he condescends to display affection to human friends, just as he has been known to entertain a vast liking for horses, parrots, and tortoises, but even in the most heated of such relationships he preserves a proper independence. He stays where he likes to stay; he goes where he wants to go. He gives his affection where it pleases him to give it (when, also, it might be added) and he withholds it from those whom he deems unworthy of it. In other words with a cat you stand on much the same footing that you stand with a fine and dignified friend; if you forfeit his respect and confidence the relationship suffers. The cat, it is well to remember, remains the friend of man because it pleases him to do so and not because he must. Resourceful, brave, intelligent (the brain of a kitten is comparatively larger than that of a child), the cat is in no sense a dependent and can revert to the wild state with less readjustment of values than any other domestic animal. Therefore he is easily enabled to determine his own end and purpose and to lead his own life. “I love in the cat,” said Chateaubriand to M. de Marcellus, “that independent and almost ungrateful temper which prevents him from attaching himself to anyone; the indifference with which he passes from the salon to the housetop. When you caress him, he stretches himself out and arches his back, indeed, but that is caused by physical pleasure, not, as in the case of the dog, by a silly satisfaction in loving and being faithful to a master who returns thanks in kicks. The cat lives alone, has no need of society, does not obey except when he likes, pretends to sleep that he may see the more clearly, and scratches everything he can scratch. Buffon has belied the cat; I am labouring at his rehabilitation and I hope to make of him a tolerably good sort of animal, as times go.”

Without some such guide to the nature of the most interesting of animals it is impossible to approach the subject from any angle whatever. But with these few facts in mind I must at once beg to insist upon a paradox. Stated simply the case is this: each individual cat differs in as many ways as possible from each other individual cat. Any unprejudiced observer, interested enough in cats to inspire their devotion, will have found this out for himself if he has ever become acquainted with several cats at one time. Doubtless there are seraph cats and demon cats as well but the characters of most pussies lie somewhere between these intense blacks and whites. Cats differ so much, indeed, that some of them even lack the most generally distributed feline characteristics. It can be said of cats in general, however, that they are all independent, most of them amorous (their love habits, inspired by the hardiest desires, are often supremely cruel, and mystic. On this last point there is little reason for doubt. Cats have gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops as I shall attempt to show in a later chapter. As for their independence it is simply the aristocratic quality of being natural. Cats do not force their attentions upon others and they do not care to have attentions forced upon them. But when a cat is hungry or wishes to go out of doors or has amorous desires he plainly declares his feelings. “Why not?” asks Colette’s Kiki-la-Doucette, “Why not? People do.” These are reminiscences, inheritances, of the wild life which the cat has never lost and never will lose. For in keeping with his royal brother, the lion, he also has a strong racial instinct which survives to be awakened when it is called. He has a longer memory than Monna Lisa.

Yet in the degree in which they react to these instincts individual cats differ, and these differences are accentuated by treatment and by breeding, for cats inherit many traits, and although it almost seems unscientific to say so, there is strong evidence to the effect that they inherit acquired characteristics. You will find it stated in some of the books that a cat who has been deprived of her tail will occasionally produce tailless kittens.

Many observers have recorded the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of cats. Wynter speaks of a cat of his who selected blotting paper on which to sit or lie. Meredith Janvier’s Major Pussman contracted tuberculosis from sleeping on a hot radiator. Clara Rossiter describes a puss whose favourite occupation was to pull all the pins out of a cushion and lay them out on the table, “and when the last was taken out, looking up into our faces with the most comical expression and making us understand she wanted them replaced. However many times we stuck the pins in she would pull them out.” This cat also took pleasure in devouring flowers, which she removed from the vases. The Reverend J. G. Wood tells us of a tom cat who was such an aristocrat that “nothing would induce him―not even milk when he was hungry―to put his head into the kitchen, or to enter the house by the servants’ door.” Wynter had a cat who rose suddenly one day and sprang up the chimney, a fire burning in the grate all the while. A couple of hundred years earlier the writer would have been burned for relating this incident. This cat would eat pickles and liked brandy and water. Lindsay mentions a cat with a fondness for porter and Jerome K. Jerome writes of another who drank from a leaky beer-tap until she was intoxicated. In a letter to Samuel Butler, dated December 24, 1879, Miss Savage remarks, “My cat has taken to mulled port and rum punch. Poor old dear! he is all the better for it. Dr. W. B. Richardson says that the lower animals always refuse alcoholic drinks, and gives that as a reason why humans should do so too.”

It is the popular belief that cats have an inherent dislike for water and in general they are catabaptists, but my Ariel had no aversion to water; indeed, this orange Persian puss was accustomed to leap voluntarily into my warm morning tub and she particularly liked to sit in the wash-hand-bowl under the open faucet. Artault de Vevey also had a cat, Isoline, who took baths, jumping into the full tub. “Cats are popularly supposed to dislike wet,” writes Olive Thorne Miller, “but I have seen two of them in a steady rain conduct an interview with all the gravity and deliberation for which these affairs are celebrated.” There are innumerable recorded examples of cats swimming rivers to return to their old homes and St. George Mivart tells us of a cat who plunged into a swiftly running stream and rescued