by Shaun Usher
Qui sotto è sepolto il mio buon
Gatto Foss. Era 30 anni in casa
mia, e morì il 26 Novembre
1887, di età 31 anni
[Here lies buried my good cat Foss. He was 30 years in my house, and died on 26 November 1887, at the age of 31 years.]
All those friends who have known my life will understand that I grieve over this loss. As for myself I am much as usual, only suffering from a very bad fall I had on Novr. 5th – having risen, the Lamp having gone out, & the matches misplaced, so that I could not find them.
The effects of this fall have lasted several days – but now – THANK GOD THURSDAY 29TH are beginning to cause less worry. Salvatore has the stone for Foss, & the Inscription, & I suppose in a day or two all will be as before, except the memory of my poor friend Foss.
Qui sotto sta seppolito il mio buon
Gatto Foss. Era 30 anni in casa mia,
e morì il 26 November 1887— in età
31 anni.
[Beneath this stone was buried my good cat Foss. He was 30 years in my house, and died on 26 November 1887 – at 31 years of age.]
Let me know before long how your hand is now. I have lost many friends latterly, among these, Harvie Farquhar, brother of Mrs George Clive.
My love to all of you.
Your’s affectionately
Edward Lear
LETTER 20
CAT FANCY
Ayn Rand to
Cat Fancy magazine 20 March 1966
As well as writing such novels as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, Russian-American author Ayn Rand was also responsible for developing the anti-altruistic, pro-selfishness philosophy that ran through them which she later called Objectivism, its core belief being that man’s ‘highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness, and that he must not force other people, nor accept their right to force him, that each man must live as an end in himself and follow his own rational self-interest’. Ayn Rand also subscribed to Cat Fancy magazine, and in 1966 replied to a question from its editor.
THE LETTER
March 20, 1966
Dear Miss Smith,
You ask whether I own cats or simply enjoy them, or both. The answer is: both. I love cats in general and own two in particular.
You ask: “We are assuming that you have an interest in cats, or was your subscription strictly objective?” My subscription was strictly objective because I have an interest in cats. I can demonstrate objectively that cats are of a great value, and the charter issue of Cat Fancy magazine can serve as part of the evidence. (“Objective” does not mean “disinterested” or indifferent; it means corresponding to the facts of reality and applies both to knowledge and to values.)
I subscribed to Cat Fancy primarily for the sake of the pictures, and found the charter issue very interesting and enjoyable.
Ayn Rand
LETTER 21
A PITY SUCH FINE CATS SHOULD BE DEAF
William Darwin Fox to Charles Darwin
16 August 1860
Should you ever consider owning a blue-eyed cat with white fur, be warned: the cat will probably be deaf. This happens because of the dominance of the white masking gene, known simply as W, which inhibits three things: pigment production in the skin, resulting in white fur; pigment production in the eyes, resulting in blue eyes; and the growth of certain cells in the inner ear, resulting in impaired hearing. Back in 1868, nine years after publication of his seminal work On the Origin of Species, world-renowned naturalist Charles Darwin published another book, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, in which he stated this very fact, saying, ‘white cats, if they have blue eyes, are almost always deaf’. He then cited this letter, from his second cousin, Reverend William Darwin Fox, as evidence.
THE LETTER
My dear Darwin
In answer to your enquiry, I believe I might truly state – not one dozen, but dozens of white cats came under my observation. The first I saw was a half bred Persian at Ryde. I had a kitten of hers, from whom I had a great number, never having less than six at a time for years. In every case, if pure white & with blue eyes, they were stone deaf. I used to show this by making all sorts of the loudest noises close to them, which they never in the least perceived.
I have remarked them in various other places – one at the large Inn at Chichester (which I think was a male) – 2 Norwegian Cats whose owner I amazed (as I have done several others), by remarking “that it was a pity such fine cats should be deaf”. These were females.
Of course the greater part of those we bred & kept were females, but I also had males, as I kept my breed pure for many years. I am certain the females were deaf, & I have no doubt about the males being so also, as I must have observed them if they had not been.
I forget where I wrote several letters on the subject of these blue eyed cats – it is now 20 to 30 years since – but they elicited exactly similar facts.
I bred several that had only one eye blue; and we were quite convinced that in those cases, they were deaf only on the blue side. All my elder children remember “Lily” our first cat – as perfectly deaf & blue eyed – & she certainly brought litters of kittens for many years –
So that the sex is undeniable, tho’ I once had a Male Tortoiseshell (or at least so reputed) who had a family – to the great delight of my children.
Ever yours W D Fox
After writing the above I asked my wife & cubs if they remembered the white cats. “Lily” was too far back, but “Glaucops” was well remembered for her azure eyes, and kittens innumerable.
Fanny, who is just returned from Bradwell nr Gt Yarmouth – added “that there is a cat there perfectly white, but with the usual green eyes, that is deaf – like the blue eyed ones.” She remarked this particularly, as opposed to the blue eyed theory.
But at Caister Rectory close by Mr Steward has a magnificent blue eyed cat which is quite deaf.
I shall probably see both these cats before long, and shall very likely find a Colony about there.
The Caister Cat – being described as very fine, may probably be a male.
Your son William was kind enough to call here on Friday, and most favourably impressed us all.
LETTER 22
AM I REALLY WRITING IT AT ALL?
Raymond Chandler to Charles Morton
19 March 1945
Author Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888, and to this day remains one of the greats in the world of crime fiction thanks to his creation of Philip Marlowe, the hardboiled detective who stars in many of his stories: The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), The Lady in the Lake (1943), The Little Sister (1949), The Long Goodbye (1953) and Playback (1958). Had you approached Chandler’s desk at any point during the writing process of these books, chances are you would have spotted Taki, his Persian cat, keeping him company. In March of 1945 Chandler wrote to the associate editor of The Atlantic Monthly, Charles Morton, to introduce him.
THE LETTER
Paramount Pictures Inc.
5451 Marathon Street
Hollywood 38, Calif.
March 19,1945
Dear Charles:
A man named Inkstead took some pictures of me for Harper’s Bazaar a while ago (I never quite found out why) and one of me holding my secretary in my lap came out very well indeed. When I get the dozen I have ordered I’ll send you one. The secretary, I should perhaps add, is a black Persian cat, 14 years old, and I call her that because she has been around me ever since I began to write, usually sitting on the paper I wanted to use or the copy I wanted to revise, sometimes leaning up against the typewriter and sometimes just quietly gazing out of the window from a corner of the desk, as much as to say, “The stuff you’re doing’s a waste of my time, bud.” Her name is Taki (it was originally Take, but we got tired of explaining that this was a Japanese word meaning bamboo and should be pronounced in two syllables), and she has a memory like no elephant ever eve
n tried to have. She is usually politely remote, but once in a while will get an argumentative spell and talk back for ten minutes at a time. I wish I knew what she is trying to say then, but I suspect it all adds up to a very sarcastic version of “You can do better.” I’ve been a cat lover all my life (have nothing against dogs except that they need such a lot of entertaining) and have never quite been able to understand them. Taki is a completely poised animal and always knows who likes cats, never goes near anybody that doesn’t, always walks straight up to anyone, however lately arrived and completely unknown to her, who really does. She doesn’t spend a great deal of time with them, however, just takes a moderate amount of petting and strolls off. She has another curious trick (which may or may not be rare) of never killing anything. She brings ’em back alive and lets you take them away from her. She has brought into the house at various times such things as a dove, a blue parakeet, and a large butterfly. The butterfly and the parakeet were entirely unharmed and carried on just as though nothing had happened. The dove gave her a little trouble, apparently not wanting to be carried around, and had a small spot of blood on its breast. But we took it to a bird man and it was all right very soon. Just a bit humiliated. Mice bore her, but she catches them if they insist and then I have to kill them. She has a sort of tired interest in gophers, and will watch a gopher hole with some attention, but gophers bite and after all who the hell wants a gopher anyway? So she just pretends she might catch one, if she felt like it.
She goes with us wherever we go journeying, remembers all the places she has been to before and is usually quite at home anywhere. One or two places have got her – I don’t know why. She just wouldn’t settle down in them. After a while we know enough to take the hint. Chances are there was an axe murder there once and we’re much better somewhere else. The guy might come back. Sometimes she looks at me with a rather peculiar expression (she is the only cat I know who will look you straight in the eye) and I have a suspicion that she is keeping a diary, because the expression seems to be saying: “Brother, you think you’re pretty good most of the time, don’t you? I wonder how you’d feel if I decided to publish some of the stuff I’ve been putting down at odd moments.” At certain times she has a trick of holding one paw up loosely and looking at it in a speculative manner. My wife thinks she is suggesting we get her a wrist watch; she doesn’t need it for any practical reason – she can tell the time better than I can – but after all you gotta have some jewelry.
I don’t know why I’m writing all this. It must be I couldn’t think of anything else, or – this is where it gets creepy – am I really writing it at all? Could it be that – no, it must be me. Say it’s me. I’m scared.
Ray
LETTER 23
CATS, CATS, CATS OF MINE
Ester Krumbachová to her cats
5 July 1985
Aran, Bajaja, Beanie, Crayon, Johánek, Mauglí, Misha, Petinka, Piggy, Snail, Starlet, Uki . . . Ester Krumbachová was never without a cat, and she believed there was no deeper connection than the bond that existed between she and her feline companions. Born in 1923, Krumbachová was an important figure in Czech New Wave cinema, a visionary who made her mark quietly, behind the scenes, as a costume designer and screenwriter on many celebrated films of the era. She died in 1996, aged seventy-two, without the level of recognition she deserved. In her archives can be found this letter, written in 1985 when she was sixty-one and, she felt, approaching her final lap, addressed to the many cats with whom she had shared her life.
THE LETTER
PRAGUE, 5 JULY, 1985
Cats, cats, cats of mine,
I saw you being born and I saw you dying. I saw your lives in their entirety; companions of my life. I saw your little paws learning how to walk and I saw them slowly petrifying as you were dying. I saw your beautiful and wild eyes sparkling when they opened for the first time and I saw them fading out and closed forever. I saw you healthy and joyful and young and I saw you getting old and ill, feeble and pitiful. Your eyes were shining until the last moment, sight fixed to a place somewhere beyond the life we spent together. I stroked your fur when you were little kittens and I stroked your fur before I duly buried you in the ground.
I saw your gentle sense of humour and fun-loving characters and how much reserved hope you put into me. When I was too busy I chased you away when you were hungry for a touch of my hand which was always as tender as you were. You, cats of mine, have taught me many, many incommunicable things. I saw how you craved for a wild hunt, a prey to be caught, a murder as nature determined it. You did not get this chance when you lived together with me; you had no chance to live the lives for which you were born, the lives with true meaning. You were deprived of the animal beauty, of the cruelty, which was nothing other than a word, because you were born as beasts of prey ready to hunt and it was I who deprived you of this. I wish I could have offered you this opportunity! But I was not able to do so.
I left you and you suffered because you were faithful and honest like all animals; like all that beauty in the jungle of life. You gave me hope in horrible sleepless nights. Whenever you sensed with your miraculous internal devices that I was feeling deadly miserable you walked to me silently on your silken feet to ask how long this would last. You put your heads in my palms when I was sleeping and I could feel your tenderness as well as your loneliness. You lay on top of me waking me with a faint noise as if you were calling to me: get up and walk! You worried about me, my dear friends, my sweethearts. You pushed me to be more responsible and care better for my own life.
And this was our joint action, our common affair. My dear cats! You have accompanied me through all my life. Your eyes were so sparkling and questioning, they were filled with tenderness, sometimes you turned them away when I felt too unwell to be able to co-exist with you and reciprocate in the same way you looked at me – you always understood and sustained, you cats of mine. I love you with all my heart and soul. I love you more than anybody else I have ever loved. I have always been faithful to you because I have never been, and never will be able to betray you. I imprisoned you in my flat – a prison of love. I hope you never understood that it was a prison. You were dying and until the last moment you knew you were the loved ones – or perhaps you knew that in the cat’s prison for life I was the nicest prison guard, didn’t you???
One day I’ll find out. I wish for someone to pet me when I die like I petted your bodies. Or better not. I do not wish this, I don’t need it. Nevertheless I do believe, my dear pets, that I have done all I could for the love we shared, everything my heart told me to do because it has been and always will be yearning for such a big devotion, like that between you and me. Cats! Cats! You were the most faithful, shy, bashful, reserved, loving, offended, defiant, funny, sad, healthy, old, tired of life and diseases – each of you made up its own world, each of you was a remarkable character, each of you had its own way to approach me, to get closer to me, to play, to make fun and raise hope that together we would make it and survive.
You pressed against me so hard that it woke me up from my exhausting sleep in those days when I felt really down, however, I knew you felt even worse because you were passing away and only came to experience once more the moment of trust, hope and love. My dear deceased friends, who would count your number? You are not dead, when you have gone, it’s me who has gone with you. When I saw you in my dream, little Snail, you were running to me, turning away so shyly and timidly as if you were not sure whether you wanted to be petted or not; I cried when I woke up and called at you to give my regards to Beanie who died of grief when you had died because she was unable to live without you and died one morning spread out at her favourite place. I’m sure you’ll pass my message to her. Wait for me there when I’ll have to go too.
My dear cats! You will wait for me there, won’t you? We will play: little Snail will sit on a mighty branch of the tree of paradise and will gently swing the way he always liked to, pretending he doesn’t see me. His whole naive
face will radiate strange inner sadness and at the same time there will be a light, shy smile. Beanie will play with her own tail, getting ready for a party. Petinka will look at me with his eyes the colour of frosty grapes in early autumn, shifting his weight from one leg to another while his sparkling eyes, filled with tenderness, will welcome me. Johánek will stare at me. Starlet, who died after a cruel veterinary intervention and did not bite my hand even though she felt the need to bite something because of the pain, will look at me like a lost kitten. She knows that I held her in my lap when the pain got unbearable and stayed awake with her till morning when she passed away. Uki will laugh and run back and forth, his tail coiled into a funny question mark, and he will be shy like little Snail’s true son, and he will pretend that he wants to run away but eventually he will let me stroke his tummy as he used to in the part of the hall I called Strokers’ Corner – like the Speakers’ Corner. Mauglí, pompously walking around, will shout at all the others that she was first, as she did her whole life. Poor Misha will be shy and timid. I lost him because he was killed. Someone must have been shooting, particularly targeting cats, to keep up the world’s morale. There is no place for cats because they hunt. And the shooter ate roasted goose, duck, chicken, and perhaps as he was shooting he stuffed his mouth with veal, which was also born on this earth. And then many other cats will join in, my friends whom I gave a bit of hope to or found new homes for. My cats, cats, cats! The guides of my life! Because of you I never dared to leave for a long time, as it might be unjust to you – nonetheless it did happen because I was short of money. When you welcomed me after my return you were worried and nervous, even though you had been looked after by a girl who stayed over; you worried whether it was really me. And it was me who called from New Zealand where, among all the strangers, I worried about you every day I stayed there, and therefore I wanted to know whether you were still alive, whether nothing had happened to you, but you, my dear cats, couldn’t have known all this. But you knew very well when I was to come back and they said you had been sitting at the door three days before my arrival, patiently waiting. On the plane I recited a great prayer: cats of mine, I’ll see you again in three days’ time. You will wait for me, won’t you? Grass will grow everywhere around and together we will have a lot of fun.
