THE CAT TRIUMPHANT 177 



ness. The same enviable instinct which prompts 

 them to offer their gentle tokens of regard, teaches 

 them sobriety and reserve. 



Mr. Arnold had a second and less distinguished 

 cat named Blacky, about whom we are told little, 

 save that he lost one of his legs by some sad acci- 

 dent, and went about contentedly on the remaining 

 three all the years of his life, the cheeriest and most 

 agile of cripples. Atossa was a very beautiful Per- 

 sian ; and who that has read the pathetic lament 

 for "Poor Matthias," can forget the description of 

 her compelling and sinister loveliness ? 



"Thou hast seen Atossa sage 

 Sit for hours beside thy cage ; 

 Thou wouldst chirp, thou foolish bird, 

 Flutter, chirp, — she never stirred ! 

 What were now these toys to her ? 

 Down she sank amid her fur; 

 Eyed thee with a soul resign'd, 

 And thou deemedst cats were kind ! 

 — Cruel, but composed and bland, 

 Dumb, inscrutable, and grand ; 

 So Tiberius might have sat, 

 Had Tiberius been a cat." 



And so Montaigne might have written, had Mon- 

 taigne been a poet. The attitude of the two men 

 towards the animals they loved, but could not hope 

 to understand, — an unmoral, unjudicial attitude, as 

 remote from vindication as from denunciation, shows 



