Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/307

 Rh in young children. It moderates in middle age, when habits of meditation have superseded the gayety and vigilance of kittenhood; but that its existence should be denied and ridiculed by so acute an observer as the Abbé Galiani, proves the formidable strength of preconceived opinions. "Man alone," says the Abbé, "knows what it is to be curious. Animals have no share in this sensation. We can inspire them with fear, but never with curiosity."

It is not fear, however, which makes a kitten watch with breathless interest the unfastening of a parcel, and clutch at the paper and string until the contents are shown to her. It is not fear which sends her peeping into half-open drawers, or which rivets her attention when a box-lid chances to be lifted in her presence. If she be not curious, why does she jump on the sill, the minute a window is raised; or creep to the door, to see who is going upstairs; or inspect the multitudinous contents of a desk as gravely as if she were making an inventory? Voltaire recognized curiosity as a dominant trait in all intelligent animals; and Rousseau drew a close analogy between a curious kitten surveying a strange room, and a no less curious child making its first bewildering acquaintance with the world.

Gratitude is another sentiment which sceptics have denied to the cat, and which is certainly not a