122 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



If Mme. Ronner's family groups are distinctly 

 artificial in composition, each kitling playing its 

 little part in a manner too effective for individual 

 caprice, her simpler studies are open to no such 

 untimely criticism. She has painted placid medi- 

 tative cats, immersed in thought or sinking sweetly 

 into slumber, that charm our souls with the dignity 

 of their egotism, the frank expression of their 

 supreme self-love. The weakness of her work is 

 possibly its aristocratic narrowness of field. Like 

 Watteau, she is a "Prince" — or Princess — "of 

 Court Painters," never wandering from the sump- 

 tuous atmosphere of ease and elegance and repose. 

 Her earlier pictures were not cast in this mould ; 

 but for many years her pussies have been soft pam- 

 pered playthings, who 'frolic through life without a 

 care, and whose only burden is the courtly one, — 

 ennui. What Mr. Pater says of Watteau's men 

 and women might well apply to Mme. Ronner's 

 cats. 



" Half in masquerade, playing the drawing-room 

 or garden comedy of life, these persons have upon 

 them, not less than the landscape he composes, and 

 among the accidents of which they group them- 

 selves with such a perfect fittingness, a certain 

 light we should seek for in vain upon anything 

 real." 



In this engaging mummery, Mme. Ronner's beau- 



