Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches Page 19

  Susie—Which is Cattaraugus, papa?

  The little pale one that almost has the end of his mother’s tail in his mouth.

  Susie—But papa, that tail is not right. You know Catasauqua was a Manx, and had a short one.

  It is a just remark, my child; but a long tail was necessary, here, to express a certain passion—the passion of joy. Therefore the insertion of a long tail is permissible; it is called a poetic licence. You cannot express the passion of joy with a short tail. Nor even ordinary excitement. You notice that Cattaraugus is brilliantly excited; now nearly all of that verve, spirit, elan, is owing to his tail; yet if I had been false to Art to be true to Nature, you would see there nothing but a poor little stiff and emotionless stump on that cat that would have cast a coldness over the whole scene; yet Cattaraugus was a Manx, like his mother, and had hardly any more tail than a rabbit. Yes, in art, the office of the tail is to express feeling; so, if you wish to portray a cat in repose, you will always succeed better by leaving out the tail. Now here is a striking illustration of the very truth which I am trying to impress upon you. I proposed to draw a cat recumbent and in repose; but just as I had finished the front end of her, she got up and began to gaze passionately at a bird and wriggle her tail in a most expressively wistful way. I had to finish her with that end standing, and the other end lying. It greatly injures the picture. For, you see, it confuses two passions together—the passion of standing up, and the passion of lying down. These are incompatible; and they convey a bad effect to the picture by rendering it unrestful to the eye. In my opinion a cat in a picture ought to be doing one thing or the other—lying down, or standing up; but not both. I ought to have laid this one down again, and put a brick or something on her; but I did not think of it at the time. Let us now separate these conflicting passions in this cat, so that you can see each by itself, and the more easily study it. Lay your hand on the picture, to where I have made those dots, and cover the rear half of it from sight—now you observe how reposeful the front end is. Very well; now lay your hand on the front end and cover it from sight—do you observe the eager wriggle in that tail?—it is a wriggle which only the presence of a bird can inspire.

  Susie— You must know a wonderful deal, papa.

  I have that reputation—in Europe; but here the best minds think I am superficial. However, I am content; I make no defense; my pictures show what I am.

  Susie—Papa, I should think you would take pupils.

  No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are more to me than corner lots and praise.

  But to resume. The morning-song being over, Catasauqua told Catiline and Cattaraugus to fetch their little books, and she would teach them how to spell.

  Both Children—Why, papa! do cats have books?

  Effects Married but not Mated

  Yes—catechisms.—Just so. Facts are stubborn things. After lesson, Catasauqua gave Catiline and Cattaraugus some rushes, so that they could earn a little circus-money by building cat’s-cradles, and at the same time amuse themselves and not miss her; then she went to the kitchen and dining-room to inspect the preparations for the banquet.

  The moment her back was turned, Catiline put down his work and got out his cat-pipe for a smoke.

  Susie—Why, how naughty!

  Thou hast well spoken. It was disobedience; and disobedience is the flag-ship of the fleet of sin. The gentle Cattaraugus sighed and said—

  “For shame, Catiline! How often has our dear mother told you not to do that! Ah, how can you thus disregard the commandments of the author of your being?”

  Susie—Why, what beautiful language, for such a little thing—wasn’t it, papa?

  Ah, yes indeed. That was the kind of cat he was—cultivated, you see. He had sat at the feet of Rollo’s mother; and in the able “Franconia Series” he had not failed to observe how harmoniously gigantic language and a microscopic topic go together. Catiline heard his brother through, and then replied with the contemptuous ejaculation—“S’cat!”

  It means the same that Shakespeare means when he says—“Go to.” Nevertheless, Catiline’s conscience was not at rest. He murmured something about where was the harm, since his mother would never know? But Cattaraugus said, sweetly but sadly—

  “Alas, if we but do the right under restraint of authoritative observance, where then is the merit?”

  Susie—How good he was!

  Monumentally so. The more we contemplate his character the more sublime it appears. But Catiline, who was coarse and worldly, hated all lofty sentiments, and especially such as were stated in choice and lofty terms; he wished to resent this one, yet compelled himself to hold his peace; but when Cattaraugus said it over again, partly to enjoy the sound of it, but mainly for his brother’s good, Catiline lost his patience, and said—

  “O, take a walk!”

  Yet he still felt badly; for he knew he was doing wrong. He began to pretend he did not know it was against the rule to smoke his cat-pipe; but Cattaraugus, without an utterance, lifted an accusing paw toward the wall, where, among the illuminated mottoes, hung this one—

  “NO SMOKING STRICTLY PROHIBITED.”

  Catiline turned pale; and, murmuring in a broken voice, “I am undone—forgive me, brother,” laid the fatal cat-pipe aside and burst into tears.

  Clara—Poor thing! It was cruel—wasn’t it, papa?

  Susie—Well but he oughtn’t to done so, in the first place. Cattaraugus wasn’t to blame.

  Clara—Why, Susie! If Catiline didn’t know he wasn’t allowed—

  Susie—Catiline did know it—Cattaraugus told him so; and besides, Catiline—

  Clara—Cattaraugus only told Catiline that if—

  Susie—Why Clara! Catiline didn’t need for Cattaraugus to say one single—

  O, hold on!—it’s all a mistake! Come to look in the dictionary, we are proceeding from false premises. The Unabridged says a cat-pipe is “a squeaking instrument used in play-houses to condemn plays.” So you see it wasn’t a pipe to smoke, after all; Catiline couldn’t smoke it; therefore it follows that he was simply pretending to smoke it, to stir up his brother, that’s all.

  Susie—But papa, Catiline might as well smoke as stir up his brother.

  Clara—Susie, you don’t like Catiline, and so whatever he does, it don’t suit you—it ain’t right; and he is only a little fellow, anyway.

  Susie—I don’t approve of Catiline, but I like him well enough; I only say—

  Clara—What is approve?

  Susie—Why it’s as if you did something, and I said it was all right. So I think he might as well smoke as stir up his brother. Isn’t it so, papa?

  Looked at from a strictly mathematical point of view, I don’t know but it is a case of six-in-one-and-half-a-dozen-in-the-other. Still, our business is mainly with the historical facts; if we only get them right, we can leave posterity to take care of the moral aspects of the matter. To resume the thread of the narrative—when Cattaraugus saw that Catiline had not been smoking at all, but had only been making believe, and this too with the avowed object of fraternal aggravation he was deeply hurt; and by his heat was beguiled into recourse to that bitter weapon, sarcasm; saying—

  “The Roman Catiline would have betrayed his foe; it was left to the Catasauquian to refine upon the model and betray his friend.”

  “O, a gaudy speech!—and very erudite and swell!” retorted Catiline, derisively, “but just a little catachrestic.”

  Susie—What is catachrestic, papa?

  “Far-fetched,” the dictionary says. The remark stung Cattaraugus to the quick, and he called Catiline a catapult; this infuriated Catiline beyond endurance, and he threw down the gauntlet and called Cattaraugus a catso. No cat will stand that; so at it they went. They spat and clawed and fought until they dimmed away and finally disappeared in a flying fog of cat-fur.

  Clara—What is a catso, papa?

  “A base fellow, a rogue, a cheat,” says
the dictionary. When the weather cleared, Cattaraugus, ever ready to acknowledge a fault, whether committed by himself or another, said—

  “I was wrong, brother—forgive me. A cat may err—to err is cattish; but toward even a foreigner, even a wildcat, a catacaustic remark is in ill taste; how much more so then, when a brother is the target! Yes, Catiline, I was wrong; I deeply regret the circumstance. Here is my hand—let us forget the dark o’erclouded past in the bright welkin of the present, consecrating ourselves anew to its nobler lessons, and sacrificing ourselves yet again, and forever if need be, to the thrice-armed beacon that binds them in one!”

  Susie—He was a splendid talker, wasn’t he, papa? Papa, what is catacaustic?

  Well, a catacaustic remark is a bitter, malicious remark—a sort of a—sort of—or a kind of a—well, let’s look in the dictionary; that is cheaper. O, yes, here it is: “Catacaustic, n; a caustic curve formed by reflection of light.” O, yes, that’s it.

  Susie—Well, papa, what does that mean?

  ca. 1880

  Jim Baker’s Blue Jay Yarn

  FROM A Tramp Abroad

  One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless forest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have peopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts of mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.

  One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk, and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary stuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned aisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the occasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown needles that one’s footfall made no more sound than if he was treading on wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point about twenty-five feet above ground, and from there upward so thick with boughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in there, and also a silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own breathings.

  When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting my spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the supernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a hoarse croak over my head. It made me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and the creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me. I felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which one feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely inspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed the raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds. Then the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better point of observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his shoulders toward me, and croaked again—a croak with a distinctly insulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could not have said any more plainly than he did say in raven, “Well, what do you want here?” I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and reproved for it. However, I made no reply; I would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary waited a while, with his shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and his keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more insults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a portion of them consisted of language not used in church.

  I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the wood,—evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as two great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing became more and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too much. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get out of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much as any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and laughed at me, (for a raven can laugh, just like a man,) they squalled insulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were nothing but ravens—I knew that,—what they thought about me could be a matter of no consequence,—and yet when even a raven shouts after you, “What a hat!” “O, pull down your vest!” and that sort of thing, it hurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with fine reasoning and pretty arguments.

  Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and use only very simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are conscious of their talent, and they enjoy “showing off.” Baker said, that after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the blue-jays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:—

  “There’s more to a blue-jay than any other creature. He has got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creature; and mind you, whatever a blue-jay feels, he can put into language. And no mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk-and bristling with metaphor, too —just bristling! And as for command of language—why you never see a blue-jay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I’ve noticed a good deal, and there’s no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a blue-jay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited, once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. 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. Now I’ve never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.

  “You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—because he’s got feathers on him, and don’t belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I’ll tell you for why. A jay’s gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn’t got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is a thing which you can’t cram into no blue-jay’s head. Now on top of all this, there’s another thing: a jay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can; but you give a blue-jay a subject that calls for his reserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don’t talk to me—I know too much about this thing. And there’s yet another thing: in the one little particular of scolding—just good, clean, out-and-out scolding—a blue-jay can lay over anything, human or divine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry, a jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and discuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a j
ay has got a sense of humor, a jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do—maybe better. If a jay ain’t human, he better take in his sign, that’s all. Now I’m going to tell you a perfectly true fact about some blue-jays.”

  “When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a little incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this region but me, moved away. There stands his house,—been empty ever since; a log house, with a plank roof—just one big room, and no more; no ceiling—nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday morning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking the sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves rustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in the States, that I hadn’t heard from in thirteen years, when a blue jay lit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, ‘Hello, I reckon I’ve struck something.’ When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn’t care; his mind was all on the thing he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the roof. He cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other one to the hole, like a ‘possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up with his bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings—which signifies gratification, you understand,—and says, ‘It looks like a hole, it’s located like a hole,—blamed if I don’t believe it is a hole!’

  “Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he glances up perfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, and says, ‘O no, this ain’t no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain’t in luck!—why it’s a perfectly elegant hole!’ So he flew down and got that acorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a sudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded gradually out of his countenance like breath off’n a razor, and the queerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, ‘Why I didn’t hear it fall!’ He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long look; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of the hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He studied a while, then he just went into the details—walked round and round the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass. No use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof and scratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally says, ‘Well, it’s too many for me, that’s certain; must be a mighty long hole; however, I ain’t got no time to fool around here, I got to ’tend to business; I reckon it’s all right—chance it, anyway.’