the cat - World eBook Library

INTRODUCTION
It is not the easy and grateful task to trace the
cat, as we may trace the dog, through history and
literature. All nations have conspired to praise
the animal which loves and serves. Few and cold
are the praises given to the animal which seldom
loves and never serves, which has only the grace
c>f companionship to offer in place of the dog's
passionate fidelity. There is no cat to put by the
side of the hound, Argos,— Argos, old, blind,
shivering on a dung-heap, who recognizes Odysseus
in his beggar's garb, and dies of joy at his master's
return. There is no such epitaph on a cat as that
of Simonides on a hound of Thessaly
" Surely even as thou liest in this tomb, I deem the
wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, Lycas; and thy
valour great Pelion knows, and the lonely peaks of
Cithaeron."
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