What Is A Cat?
By Leonore Fleischer
This essay was written by a very observant and intelligent human named Leonore Fleischer. I found it in a book called "The Cat's Pajamas" and wanted to show it to you. Not only is it very insightful and well-written, but it also proves that we, as a species, are superior.
I have cut a bit from the beginning of the essay, but besides that, everything else is reproducted from the original piece.
What is a cat? A cat is a purring parcel of paradox, a cunning collection of contradictions. A cat is lazy and busy, dainty and savage, affectionate and aloof, greedy and finicky, sound asleep in one instant, and awake and stalking the next. A cat is a limp puddle of softness, surrounding a steel-hard and ever-alert set of muscles. A cat is a priceless piece of porcelain, and a rag doll sprawling on it's back, begging for a tummy scratch, paws asprawl. A cat is better than you are, more honest, most graceful, smarter for her size, better coordinated and infinitely more beautiful. A cat has the face of a pansy flower, and is just as velvety. A cat holds infinity in her eyes, and your heart in her front paws. The paws themselves are yet another feline paradox-the softest velvet sheathing the sharpest daggers.
A cat is complex, with complex emotions and characteristics. One is obstinacy. If you are evil enough to ruffle the fur of your freshly-washed cat, you'll see her start again, the whole elaborate, laborious ritual, back to Hair One. If you are reading a large newspaper, all spread out on the table, your cat will come and sit on the very paragraph you are reading, the talented cat draping her tail with miraculous precision over the very LINE you're not finished with. Catch a dog in your favourite chair, and he slinks away abashed. The cat will pretend incomprehension; surely you must know it's HER chair? No means everything to a dog, nothing to a cat.
A cat is restfulness; it's impossible not to relax in the presence of a dozing cat. When you watch a cat licking herself clean, time stands still. The best tranquilizer in the world is the soft monotony of the purr, and a cat purring on your lap is a somnolent invitation to Dreamland.
Above all, a cat is love. A cat brings you gifts: half a lizard, an eviscerated squirrel, but she means well. She brings you also the gift of herself, the gift of her preference for you, the sight of you, your scent, the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand. When you're special to a cat, you're special indeed. Of course, she rarely comes right out and says so. She just HAPPENS to stroll casually into a room while you're in it; she just HAPPENS to wander out again when you leave; choice or preference have nothing to do with it. Oh, is that YOUR hand I'm licking? Sorry, thought it was my own paw.
