THE CAT IN LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19952, 20 November 1926, Page 26

THE CAT IN LITERATURE.

ITS FIRST APPEARANCE

AN OBJECT OF WORSHIP.

THE FRIENDS OF WITCHES. The oat walked softly into Egyptian history about 1600 8.C., and somewhere thereabout became 'an object of worship. Every diets in the land nourished by the Nile’ had his sacred animal, which was considered to bo his ‘’second life.” The special animal selected was installed in a part of the temple, and gave oracular responses. Our domestic oat is supposed to have come from Egypt, and the surmise is made that the Egyptians tamed the wild cat. Egypt was' the granary oi the ancient world, and, as mice come where grain comes, it seems natural to suppose that the Egyptians made use of the cal to kill the mice. The cat goddess was named Bast or Pasht, and some authorities maintain that «o ge ■ our word ‘’puss” from the name o Jr me goddess. Others derive it from the Latin ■pusus” and “puss’ from the name of the goddess. Others derive it from the Latin “pusus” and “pus,” a boy and a girl. Ihe aaoredness of the oat made it a crime to kill one, and when the cat died the family in which it lived went into mourning. One finds cals sculptured in stone, and in keeping with the honour cats were embalmed after death. There were two methods of embalming ; that which was accorded to ordinary people and that reserved for kings. The cat was given the embalming of royab So that the oat might feel unite at home during the long centuries 01 the tomb, she was furnished with a nice collection of mummified mice. In a cave ip Egypt thousands of embalmed cats were louno, and some unpoetic utilitarian people sent them to England to be used as manure for the fields. Imperial Csesar stuffed a hole to keep the wind but the deified cats suffered a deeper indignity. If the house caught fire in Ancient Egvpt, the cat was to be the first saved. King Cambyses at Pelsium is said to have placed several cats between his force and the Egyptian army, and so got an easy fictory. When one reflects upon it, the Egyptian worship, of the cat may have had a very materialistic basis. During Nile floods every farm high enough would became an island to which mice, snakes and all kinds of vermin came for refuge, and the cat became the farmer’s friend.

It is singular that in Rome dogs were not allowed to enter the temple of Hercules but cats were. Perhaps, as now, it was difficult to keep them out.

Superstitions attaching to eats are found in every country. Malay and Java natives believe they can get rain by washing a cat. Among ourselves some people seriously affirm that when a cat washes behind his ears it is sure to rain. Some Chinese tribes believe they become cats after death.

British history shows something more remarkable. Witches confessed that they had taken the shape of cats by day and women by night. Who does not remember Scott’s saying that there was “more passing in the minds of cats than we know, due, no doubt, to their being familiar with warlock and witches?” A Frenchman declared that “God made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.” It is a very singular thing that ShaKcspeare often mentions cats, but not in too friendly fashion. The witches in Macbeth refer to the cat’s connection with the occult: “Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed” Matthew Arnold describes the cat:

Cruel, but composed and oland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand; So Tiberius might have sat Had Tiberius been a oat. Swinburn calls her “stately, kindly lordly, friend,” Bandelaire adored cats. Like him, they are said to be fond of perfumes. Mark Twain and Henry James were great oatlovers, and it is said that Sacchini could compose only when surrounded by cats. On the other hand one reads of people who turn sick if a cat enters the room. Whatever evil reputation cats have may be explained by their origin in the jungle, their uncanny capacity for murdering sleep to an extent Macbeth never achieved, or because of theological curses on them for drawing the chariot of Venus. It is said there are six million cats in Britain, and a tax has been proposed. In some German States there is a tax and a prescribed collar, and the poor puss unregistered is liable to arrest and the lethal chamber. Many of us who have suffered from the cat’s midnight serenade have wished the whole species back in the jungle. It is not the feline courtship we object to, but the advertisement of it. Why cannot the cat take a lesson. from humans, who invariably are quietest when they court? Why cannot cats even go to the dogs, and learn to suffer the pangs of love in silence? It is alleged by people who, it may be supposed, never go near cat shows, that the cat is the most complacent, egoistic animal ever created. The dog meets you with ecstatis welcome; the eat is demure, even if she rubs against your legs. These some critics say a cat is never grateful. One of the problems discussed in magazines is whether a cat ever purrs in solitude. Who can tell ? If you are with the cat there is no solitude. But science will settle the question. Put a gramophone in the room with the cat, an instrument so adjusted as to record the purring. At this point the enemy interjects that the cat purrs only when pleased, and this happens when there is a good fire, a soft hearthrug, or a friendly knee. Meninon s famous statue gave,out music when the. rising sun kissed it with its rays, and the cat purrs When affection fondles it. Purring is essentially social. The intelligence of cats has been often discussed in books. It is affirmed that it you feed a cat at a certain hour every day for a few weeks it will learn to come as punctually as if it knew the clock. Cats learn to ring bells, lift latches, or even turn an easy lock. Mr Romanos, in his “Animal Intelligence,” relates the case of a cat which, being accidentally set on fire by paraffin, ran a hundred yards and plunged into a trough of water. One need say nothing about the supreme virtue of a cat, that of a destroyer of vermin, or of the connection between cats and clever. The more cats the fewer field mice, and as field mice rob the nests of bumble bees, we may say the more cats the more bumble bees, and as the bees carry the fertilising dust from one purple clover flower to another, then as Darwin pointed out, the more cats the more clover. You never get to the bottom of cats. They are as close as oysters. Yet some folk believe cats foretell storms. ihey have a superior nervous organism, and seem to feel the approach of wind before man does. it is said that in South America there is a race of cats which do not “caterwaul” at nights, and 1 rofessor Mivart devoutly wishes it could be introduced here. We can never forgive the cat tor playing with its prey, and we have exulted upon occasion to see the mouse escape down the hole. It is said a cat has nine lives, and at midnight many of us think it nine too many.