| Only two animals have entered the human household | | | | elsewhere. The whole charm of the dog lies in the |
| otherwise than as prisoners and become | | | | depth of the friendship and the strength of the spiritual |
| domesticated by other means than those of enforced | | | | ties with which he has bound himself to man, but the |
| servitude: the dog and the cat. Two things they have in | | | | appeal of the cat lies in the very fact that she has |
| common, namely, that both belong to the order of | | | | formed no close bond with him, that she has the |
| carnivores and both serve man in their capacity of | | | | uncompromising independence of a tiger or a leopard |
| hunters. | | | | while she is hunting in his stables and barns; that she |
| In all other characteristics, above all in the manner of | | | | still remain mysterious and remote when she is rubbing |
| their association with man, they are as different as the | | | | herself gently against the legs of her mistress or |
| night from the day. There is no domestic animal which | | | | purring contentedly in front of the fire. |
| has so rapidly altered its whole way of living, indeed its | | | | The purring cat is, for me, a symbol of the hearthside |
| whole sphere of interests, that has become domestic | | | | and the hidden security which it stands for. I should no |
| in so true a sense as the dog; and there is no animal | | | | more like to be without a cat in my home than to be |
| that, in the course of its century-old association with | | | | without the dog that trots behind me in field or street. |
| man, has altered so little as the cat. There is some | | | | Since my earliest youth I have always had dogs and |
| truth in the assertion that the cat, with the exception of | | | | cats about me. Business-like friends have advised me |
| a few luxuries breeds, such as Angoras, Persians and | | | | to write a dog-book and a cat-book separately, |
| Siamese, is no domestic animal but a completely wild | | | | because dog-lovers often dislike cats and cat-lovers |
| being. | | | | frequently abhor dogs. But I consider it the finest test |
| Maintaining its full independence it has taken up its | | | | of genuine love and understanding of animals if a |
| abode in the houses and outhouses of man, for the | | | | person has sympathies for both these creatures, and |
| simple reason that there are more mice there than | | | | can appreciate in each its own special virtue. |