for cat circles into which the Empress had no entrée, and who, in its own gentle fashion, is the most unswervingly obstinate creature in the world.
"For wiles may win thee, but no arts enslave,"
writes Graham Tomson in praise of Le Chat Noir, most honoured, if not most prized, of all the furry fraternity that basked about her hearth.
"Half loving-kindliness, and half disdain,
Thou comest to my call, serenely suave,
With humming speech and gracious gesture 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 deignst 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."
There has been a great deal of modern verse, as of modern prose, written about cats; yet little, worthy of its subject, and little in English that can compare with the affectionate tributes of France. Shelley's schoolboy doggerel is unworthy of consideration, and Keats's sonnet had best be buried in oblivion. Jocularity sits ill upon the immortals. Matthew Arnold has indeed celebrated Atossa in some
