ALFRED ALWES
ADVENTURES OF A CAT: ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRISON WEIR
( July 27, 2017)
I was about to address my readers with the usual phrase, that "at the request of friends" I had collected the scattered memorials of the chief events of my life, and now presented them to the reading world, in the hope that some lesson might be learnt from them, which could be useful to the inexperienced when similarly situated.
I would not however have my readers imagine that vanity alone has induced me to record my experiences. No; I have had another, and I think a higher motive. I wished to convey to the intelligence of all animals capable of understanding the language of Caneville, some portions of the history of a real Cat; and, by so doing, try to remove from the minds of many the opinion that she is a creature ignorant of the finer feelings, oblivious of gratitude, incapable of strong attachments, and so uncertain in her temper as to scratch and bite even, one minute, the paw she has been licking and fondling the moment before. I wished to prove that the same natural disposition holds good with our race as with every other; that some of us are, from our birth, kind, rough, loveable, cruel, tender-hearted, and ferocious, just as other beasts that wear a tail or come into the world without one; and that this temperament may be modified, and even changed, by education and treatment, precisely as the dispositions of other animals.
I would not however have my readers imagine that vanity alone has induced me to record my experiences. No; I have had another, and I think a higher motive. I wished to convey to the intelligence of all animals capable of understanding the language of Caneville, some portions of the history of a real Cat; and, by so doing, try to remove from the minds of many the opinion that she is a creature ignorant of the finer feelings, oblivious of gratitude, incapable of strong attachments, and so uncertain in her temper as to scratch and bite even, one minute, the paw she has been licking and fondling the moment before. I wished to prove that the same natural disposition holds good with our race as with every other; that some of us are, from our birth, kind, rough, loveable, cruel, tender-hearted, and ferocious, just as other beasts that wear a tail or come into the world without one; and that this temperament may be modified, and even changed, by education and treatment, precisely as the dispositions of other animals.
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