Cats. 41 



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anywhere. When his inspection was over he slipped out 

 of sight, having been perfectly inaudible from the begin- 

 ning, so that a blind person could only have suspected his 

 visit by that mysterious sense which makes the blind aware 

 of the presence of another creature. 



This little scene reveals one remarkable characteristic of 

 the feline nature, the innate and exquisite refinement of its 

 behaviour. It would be infinitely difificult, probably even 

 impossible, to communicate a delicacy of this kind to any 

 animal by teaching. The cat is a creature of most refined 

 and subtle perceptions naturally. Why should she tread 

 so carefully .' It is not from fear of offending her master 

 and incurring punishment, but because to do so is in con- 

 formity with her own ideal of behaviour ; exactly as a lady 

 would feel vexed with herself if she broke anything in her 

 own drawing-room, though no one would blame her mal- 

 adresse (awkwardness), and she would never feel the loss. 



The contrast in this respect between cats and other ani- 

 mals is very striking. I will not wrong the noble canine 

 nature so far as to say that it has no delicacy, but its deli- 

 cacy is not of this kind, not in actual touch, as the cat's is. 

 The motions of the cat, being always governed by the most 

 refined sense of touch in the animal world, are typical in 

 quite a perfect way of what we call tact in the human 

 world. And as a man who has tact exercises it on all 

 occasions for his own satisfaction, even when there is no 

 positive need for it, so a cat will walk daintily and ob- 

 servantly everywhere, whether amongst the glasses on a 

 dinner-table or the rubbish in a farm-yard. 



It is easy to detract from the admirableness of this 

 delicate quality in the cat by a reference to the neces- 

 sities of her life in a wild state. Any one not much dis- 

 posed to enter into imaginative sentimentalities about 



