The Achievement of the Cat
Referred by Rose
Saki (HH Munro) has fascinated me since 10th grade, so prolific the volume of his literary works considering his short life (46). I finally got his fat collection of essays — all super-short, entertaining, sassy or thought-provoking — with a general preference for all animals over adults (particularly aunts lol) … This below is one of his few more serious ones, his insightful grasp and appreciation of the nature of cats — rose
Who knew? A gap in my education to be sure. In 9th grade, I’d begun my Independents’ Journey, from a Bookmobile in Timbuktu, Oklahoma, where I picked up a book on Barry Goldwater and took up that cause leading to several more. The sad story is I missed so much of the artistic side of the human potential. I’m wholly on board with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Saki here… — Ed.
The Achievement of the Cat
In the political history of nations it is no uncommon experience to find States and peoples which but a short time since were in bitter conflict and animosity with each other, settled down comfortably on terms of mutual goodwill and even alliance. The natural history of the social developments of species affords a similar instance in the coming-together of two once warring elements, now represented by civilised man and the domestic cat.
The fiercely waged struggle which went on between humans and felines in those far-off days when sabre-toothed tiger and cave lion contended with primeval man, has long ago been decided in favour of the most fitly equipped combatant—the Thing with a Thumb—and the descendants of the dispossessed family are relegated today, for the most part, to the waste lands of jungle and veld, where an existence of self-effacement is the only alternative to extermination.
But the felis catus, or whatever species was the ancestor of the modern domestic cat (a vexed question at present), by a master-stroke of adaptation avoided the ruin of its race, and ‘captured’ a place in the very keystone of the conqueror’s organization. For not as a bond-servant or dependent has this proudest of mammals entered the human fraternity; not as a slave like the beasts of burden, or a humble camp-follower like the dog. Continue reading