to be charmed by her gentler moods, to admire her beauty, to appreciate her intelligence, and to love her steadfastly without being loved in return,—these things are not often possible to the Anglo-Saxon nature. It is an upright nature, but ironbound and exacting. It is wont to overrate the virtues it possesses, and to underrate those to which it lays no claim. It prizes the frank fidelity of the dog, it mistrusts the suavity and subtlety of the cat; but then, as the cat remarks to the dog in Mr. Froude's "Pilgrimage," "There may be truth in what you say, but I think your view is limited." It is at least worthy of note that the Englishman who so deeply offended his country-people by his admiration for French traits and French literature, embodied the one, and rivalled the other, in the few admirable lines that immortalize his cat. Mr. Arnold's Atossa is no "comely, careful" mouser, no guileless kitling, innocent of sin. She is a red-handed murderess, whose blandishments win easy pardon for her crimes. His letters prove the affection he felt for her; his poetry proves the clearness with which he saw the depths of her misdoing. He cheerfully fills page after page of his correspondence with minute descriptions of her behaviour by night and day, winding up with the heartfelt assurance; "She is a most interesting cat, and we get fonder and fonder of her all the time."
