Essays in Idleness. Agnes Repplier

cat.”

      Only in her grace and beauty, her love of comfort, her dignity of bearing, her courteous reserve, and her independence of character does puss remain immutable and unchanged. These are the traits which win for her the warmest corner by the fire, and the unshaken regard of those who value her friendship and aspire to her affection. These are the traits so subtly suggested by Mrs. Tomson in a sonnet which every true lover of cats feels in his heart must have been addressed to his own particular pet:—

      “Half gentle kindliness, and half disdain,

      Thou comest to my call, serenely suave,

      With humming speech and gracious gestures grave,

      In salutation courtly and urbane;

      Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain,

      For wiles may win thee, but no arts enslave;

      And nowhere gladly thou abidest, save

      Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign.

      “Sphinx of my quiet hearth! who deign’st to dwell

      Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease,

      Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses;

      That men forget dost thou remember well,

      Beholden still in blinking reveries,

      With sombre sea-green gaze inscrutable.”