XIV. 

 SOME POETS' CATS. 



"A familiar beast to man, and signifies love." 



—J/. JF. of IF. 



Just as the dog is the poetical register of the out-of-door 

 life of man, the index of the pleasures and occupations of 

 the open air, the "power," so to speak, of the human 

 quantity, so the cat, in its differing moods and aspects, ex- 

 presses the various phases of domestic life, and stands for 

 the symbol of the alternations of existence within doors. 



The Chinese, so I have read, take their time from cats' 

 eyes. So the history of the family inside the house might 

 be hieroglyphically written in a series of cats. 



On the garden-wall, soliloquising at the top of its voice, 

 it means the household abed ; on the doorstep, with a too- 

 much-whisky-overnight expression of face, it denotes the 

 hour when the milkman and the sweep, like larks, " lead on 

 the merry hours and rouse the day ; " before the kitchen 

 fire, blinking at the ketde, it signifies breakfast; rubbing 

 itself, all on the slant, against the cook's petticoats, we know 

 that it is the hour of noon — of scraps from the early 

 dinner ; asleep on the hearth all the afternoon, it wakes up 

 with a start when the jack cracks under the twirling joint 

 for the later meal; the children's tea-hour finds it in the 

 nurser}' ; as evening closes in it sits before the fire musing — 

 " Shall I go to the club ? or what shall I do with myself 



Y 



