I do not know whether cats are really interested in the business of writing, or only pretend to be, but the effect is the same. And they are so tactful about it, so restful and soothing. My dog bears me company when I write, but he insists on napping under my feet, where I step on him if I stir, and at the least excuse he is up with his ball, urging me to come outdoors and see what wonderful things that ball can do. One remembers the Persians with their lambent eyes who used to sit so quietly on one’s desk. It is true they liked to sleep on the typewriter, and that was inconvenient, but at the least hint they would gracefully retire.
“Cats like silence, order, and quietness, and no place is so proper for them as the study of a man of letters.” Was it Theophile Gautier or Charles Baudelaire who said this? At any rate it is true. Walking one day in Copp’s Hill Burial Ground, in the North End of Boston, a friend of mine was struck by the number of cats that were there, lying on the graves, making their toilets on the low tombstones, strolling in the paths. What, she asked a caretaker, was the reason of this invasion?