12 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



the cat ; though we would give much to see her 

 watching with wise eyes Penelope's unfinished web, 

 or playing with the soft tangled wools in Helen's 

 silver work-basket. And what fitter companion for 

 Nausicaa than a white cat, beautiful, spotless and 

 urbane ? M. Henri Havard argues subtly that the 

 very essence of Greek civilization, as it slowly flow- 

 ered to perfection, was fatal to the domestication 

 of the cat. " What place could she fill," he asks, 

 " amid this restless glory ? What hold could she 

 hope to gain over a people enamoured of art, of 

 language, of eloquence ; over men who were at once 

 actors, athletes and poets ; and who — alternating 

 perpetually between physical and mental activity — 

 had elevated beauty of form to the height of a great 

 moral principle. This race so admirably endowed, 

 with ambitions ever unsatisfied, modelling, in insa- 

 tiable pride, its gods after its own likeness, and for- 

 cing Olympos to bear a part in its quarrels ; — this 

 superb race was far too arrogant to permit the cat 

 to participate in its apotheosis. Therefore the pru- 

 dent animal avoided a society unable to appreciate 

 or to understand her. What she required was a 

 people, gentle, submissive, prompt to obey, and ac- 

 customed, as were the Egyptians, to the inexorable 

 demands of tyranny." 



It is always painful to disagree with M. Havard ; 

 but he forgets that the cat, although she doubtless 



