Concerning Cats 



the portrayal of such a subject, one must be feline 

 one's self." And Mr. Spielman gives the following 

 advice to those who would paint cats : — 



"You must love them, as Mahomet and Chester- 

 field loved them : be as fond of their company as 

 Wolsley and Richelieu, Mazarin and Colbert, who 

 retained them even during their most impressive 

 audiences : as Petrarch, and Dr. Johnson, and Canon 

 Liddon, and Ludovic Haldvy, who wrote with them at 

 their elbow : and Tasso and Gray, who celebrated 

 them in verse : as sympathetic as Carlyle, whom Mrs. 

 Allingham painted in the company of his beloved 

 'Tib' in the garden at Chelsea, or as Whittington, 

 the hero of our milk-and-water days: think of El 

 Daher Beybars, who fed all feline comers, or 'La 

 Belle Stewart,' Duchess of Richmond, who, in the 

 words of the poet, 'endowed a college' for her little 

 friends : you must be as approbative of their char- 

 acter, their amenableness to education, their incon- 

 stancy, not to say indifference and their general lack 

 of principle, as Madame de Custine : and as apprecia- 

 tive of their daintiness and grace as Alfred de 

 Musset. Then, and not till then, can you consider 

 yourself sentimentally equipped for studying the art 

 of cat painting." 



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