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 162 thought rather than to men of action. Shelley basking by the fire, Johnson immured in shabby London lodgings, Scott, when his increasing lameness deprived him of the outdoor pleasures that he loved, Matthew Arnold in the simple country life that pleased him best,—all learned to appreciate the gentleness, the composure, the exquisite urbanity of the cat. Statesmen have ever been partial to an animal whose subtlety of spirit far exceeds their own. Colbert, following the example of Richelieu, was wont to play for hours with his kittens, and Canning wrote verses in praise of his cat. It has even happened that sailors and soldiers, like Admiral Doria and Marshal Turenne, have frankly avowed the engrossing nature of their preference. Doria was painted with his cat by his side; Turenne had whole families of pussies whom he loved and cared for. Lord Heathfield, when Gibraltar was besieged by the Spaniards, used to appear every day on the walls, attended by his cats,—quiet, composed beasts, who kept close to their master, and seemed in no wise disturbed by the roar and rattle of artillery. More strange and more pitiful to relate, there were found, after the battle of Sebastopol, a number of cats clinging, frightened and forlorn, to the knapsacks of the dead Russian soldiers. They had followed their only friends into the midst of that terrible carnage, and, desperate with terror, refused to be driven from the field.