No cat report today, since I'm in Milwaukee, but thought I'd share something I came across recently while looking up something else in that vast, fascinating compendium that is the COLLECTED LETTERS OF C. S. LEWIS. Here's a bit of advice CSL gave his oldest friend, Arthur Greeves, when the latter's dog ("my old friend Peter") was in his final decline:
"P.S. Get a cat.
They're more suitable to us
old people than dogs,
and a cat makes a house a home."*
I found this striking, coming from a lifetime dog lover like Lewis; clearly he had been won over by his step-cat (that is, his wife's cat, whose name I don't even think we know); a Siamese, I think.
So here's a good tag-line I may add to some of my letters:
"a cat makes a house a home" — C. S. Lewis
--JDR
current reading: Echo-Hawk, Wodehouse, Boorman, Jenkins, Howard
*COLLECTED LETTERS, Vol. III, p. 1139; letter of March 12th 1960
What do two or three cats do, then? (g)
ReplyDeleteGood question, David.
ReplyDeleteWhen I come across C. S. L.'s answer to it, I'll let you know.
--John R.
Wasn't it to acclaim some cat that Lewis appropriated the Biblical line about "a mighty hunter before the LORD"?
ReplyDelete