CATS AND DOGS.

Jerome K. Jerome.

I LIKE cats and dogs very much indeed. What jolly chaps they are! They are much superior to human beings as companions. They do not quarrel or argue with you. They never talk about themselves, but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. They never make stupid remarks. And they never ask a young author with fourteen tragedies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a couple of burlesques in his desk, why he doesn’t write a play.

They never say unkind things. They never tell us of our faults, “merely for our own good.” They do not, at inconvenient moments, mildly remind us of our past follies and mistakes. They never inform us that we are not nearly so nice as we used to be. We are always the same to them. They are always glad to see us. They are with us in all our humors. They are merry when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, sad when we are sorrowful.

“Hulloa! happy, and want a lark! Right you are; I’m your man. Here I am, frisking round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready for any amount of fun and mischief. Look at my eyes, if you doubt me. What shall it be? A romp in the drawing-room, and never mind the furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool air, a scud across the fields, and down the hill, and we won’t let old Gaffer Goggles’s geese know what time o’day it is, neither. Whoop! come along.”

Or you’d like to be quiet and think. Very well. Pussy can sit on the arm of the chair, and purr, and purr, and Montmorency will curl himself up on the rug, and blink at the fire, yet keeping one eye on you the while, in case you are seized with any sudden desire in the direction of rats. And when we bury our face in our hands and wish we had never been born, they don’t sit up very straight, and observe that we have brought it all upon ourselves. They don’t even hope it will be a warning to us.

But they come up softly; and shove their heads against us. If it is a cat, she stands on your shoulder, rumples your hair, and says, “I am sorry for you,” as plain as words can speak; and if it is a dog, he looks up at you with his big, true eyes, and says with them, “Well, you’ve always got me, you know. We’ll go through the world together, and always stand by each other, won’t we?”

He is very imprudent, a dog is. He never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or in the wrong, never bothers as to whether you are going up or down upon life’s ladder, never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. Come luck or misfortune, good repute or bad, honor or shame, he is going to stick to you, to comfort you, guard you, and give his life for you, if need be—foolish, brainless, soulless dog!

Ah! old staunch friend, with your deep, clear eyes, and bright, quick glances, that take in all one has to say before one has time to speak it, do you know you are only an animal, and have no mind? Do you know that dull-eyed, gin-sodden lout, leaning against the post out there, is immeasurably your intellectual superior?

Do you know that every little-minded, selfish scoundrel, who lives by cheating and tricking, who never did a gentle deed, or said a kind word, who never had a thought that was not mean and low, or a desire that was not base, whose every action is a fraud, whose every utterance is a lie; do you know they are all as much superior to you as the sun is superior to rush-light, you honorable, brave-hearted, unselfish brute?

They are men, you know, and men are the greatest, noblest, and wisest, and best Beings in the whole vast eternal Universe. Any man will tell you that. Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very stupid indeed, compared with us clever men, who understand all about politics and philosophy, and who know everything in short, except what we are, and where we came from, and whither we are going, and what everything outside this tiny world and most things in it are.

Never mind, though, pussy and doggie, we like you both all the better for your being stupid. We all like stupid things. It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. Ah me! life sadly changes us all. The world seems a vast horrible grinding machine, into which what is fresh and bright and pure is pushed at one end, to come out old and crabbed and wrinkled at the other.

Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her dull sleepy glance, her grave slow walk, and dignified, prudish airs; who could ever think that once she was the blue-eyed, whirling, scampering, head-over-heels, mad little firework that we called a kitten.

What marvelous vitality a kitten has. It is really something very beautiful the way life bubbles over in the little creatures. They rush about, and mew, and spring; dance on their hind legs, embrace everything with their front ones, roll over and over, lie on their backs and kick. They don’t know what to do with themselves, they are so full of life.

Can you remember when you and I felt something of the same sort of thing? Can you remember those glorious days of fresh young manhood; how, when coming home along the moonlit road, we felt too full of life for sober walking, and had to spring and skip, and wave our arms, and shout? Oh, that magnificent young Life! that crowned us kings of the earth; that rushed through every tingling vein, till we seemed to walk on air; that thrilled through our throbbing brains, and told us to go forth and conquer the whole world; that welled up in our young hearts, till we longed to stretch out our arms and gather all the toiling men and women and the little children to our breast, and love them all—all.

Ah! they were grand days, those deep full days, when our coming life, like an unseen organ, pealed strange, yearnful music in our ears, and our young blood cried out like a war-horse for the battle. Ah, our pulse beats slow and steady now, and our old joints are rheumatic, and we love our easy chair and sneer at boys’ enthusiasm. But oh! for one brief moment of that god-like life again.