Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/95

 Rh Henry the Third, who had so much affection to spare for little dogs, could not look at a cat without fainting; and Ronsard confesses that he trembled from head to foot if he met one, even at broad noon.

Other and kinder voices, however, were raised, even at this early date, in defence of Pussy's charms. Joachim du Bellay was the first French poet who sang the praises of his cat,—the beautiful and amiable Belaud; and Montaigne, in his lazy, luminous fashion, "without a spur or even a pat from Lady Vanity," wrote more than three hundred years ago the final word upon the subject; a word which we have been assiduously repeating and amplifying—but not improving—ever since. "When I play with my cat," he muses softly, "who knows whether she diverts herself with me, or I with her! We entertain one another with mutual follies, struggling for a garter; and, if I have my time to begin or to refuse, she also has hers. It is because I cannot understand her language that we agree no better; and perhaps she laughs at my simplicity in making sport to amuse her."

This is the whole story of human and feline companionship. This is the whole nature of the cat, accepted with philosophy, and described with