For Celia

Today is Celia's birthday, my brother Drew's too. They are in good company. Winston Churchill was born on this day, as was Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift and Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables.

Reading up on Twain a bit this morning, I learn that he loved cats. Celia is an animal lover in general and a cat lover in particular. So in her honor, here are some of Twain's thoughts on cats:

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.
-"An Incident," Who Is Mark Twain?

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.
-Notebook, 1895

Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.
- A Tramp Abroad

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
- Notebook, 1894



Mark Twain's cats
photo by Elmira photographer
Elisha M. VanAken, 1887
[Photo from the Dave Thomson collection]