So the Dog wouldn't go, and the Cat set off by herself to learn how to
be happy, and to be all that a Cat could be. It was a fine sunny
morning. She determined to try the meadow first, and, after an hour or
two, if she had not succeeded, then to go off to the wood. A Blackbird
was piping away on a thornbush as if his heart was running over with
happiness. The Cat had breakfasted, and so was able to listen without
any mixture of feeling. She didn't sneak. She walked boldly up under the
bush, and the bird, seeing she had no bad purpose, sate still and sung
on.
'Good morning, Blackbird; you seem to be enjoying yourself this fine
day.'
'Good morning, Cat.'
'Blackbird, it is an odd question, perhaps. What ought one to do to be
as happy as you?'
'Do your duty, Cat.'
'But what is my duty, Blackbird?'
'Take care of your little ones, Cat.'
'I hav'n't any,' said she.
'Then sing to your mate,' said the bird.
'Tom is dead,' said she.
'Poor Cat!' said the bird. 'Then sing over his grave. If your song is
sad, you will find your heart grow lighter for it.'
'Mercy!' thought the Cat. 'I could do a little singing with a living
lover, but I never heard of singing for a dead one. But you see, bird,
it isn't Cats' nature. When I am cross, I mew. When I am pleased, I
purr; but I must be pleased first. I can't purr myself into happiness.'
'I am afraid there is something the matter with your heart, my Cat. It
wants warming; good-bye.'
The Blackbird flew away. The Cat looked sadly after him. 'He thinks I am
like him; and he doesn't know that a Cat is a Cat,' said she. 'As it
happens now, I feel a great deal for a Cat. If I hadn't got a heart I
shouldn't be unhappy. I won't be angry. I'll try that great fat fellow.'
The Ox lay placidly chewing, with content beaming out of his eyes and
playing on his mouth.
'Ox,' she said, 'what is the way to be happy?'
'Do your duty,' said the Ox.
'Bother,' said the Cat, 'duty again! What is it, Ox?'
'Get your dinner,' said the Ox.
'But it is got for me, Ox; and I have nothing to do but to eat it.'
'Well, eat it, then, like me.'
'So I do; but I am not happy for all that.'
'Then you are a very wicked, ungrateful Cat.'
The Ox munched away. A Bee buzzed into a buttercup under the Cat's nose.
'I beg your pardon,' said the Cat, 'it isn't curiosity--what are you
doing?'
'Doing my duty; don't stop me, Cat.'
'But, Bee, what is your duty?'
'Making honey,' said the Bee.
'I wish I could make honey,' sighed the Cat.
'Do you mean to say you can't?' said the Bee. 'How stupid you must be.
What do you do, then?'
'I do nothing, Bee. I can't get anything to do.'
'You won't get anything to do, you mean, you lazy Cat! You are a
good-for-nothing drone. Do you know what we do to our drones? We kill
them; and that is all they are fit for. Good morning to you.'
'Well, I am sure,' said the Cat, 'they are treating me civilly; I had
better have stopped at home at this rate. Stroke my whiskers! heartless!
wicked! good-for-nothing! stupid! and only fit to be killed! This is a
pleasant beginning, anyhow. I must look for some wiser creatures than
these are. What shall I do? I know. I know where I will go.'
It was in the middle of the wood. The bush was very dark, but she found
him by his wonderful eye. Presently, as she got used to the light, she
distinguished a sloping roll of feathers, a rounded breast, surmounted
by a round head, set close to the body, without an inch of a neck
intervening. 'How wise he looks!' she said; 'What a brain! what a
forehead! His head is not long, but what an expanse! and what a depth of
earnestness!' The Owl sloped his head a little on one side; the Cat
slanted hers upon the other. The Owl set it straight again, the Cat did
the same. They stood looking in this way for some minutes; at last, in a
whispering voice, the Owl said, 'What are you who presume to look into
my repose? Pass on upon your way, and carry elsewhere those prying
eyes.'
'Oh, wonderful Owl,' said the Cat, 'you are wise, and I want to be wise;
and I am come to you to teach me.'
A film floated backwards and forwards over the Owl's eyes; it was his
way of showing that he was pleased.
'I have heard in our schoolroom,' went on the Cat, 'that you sate on the
shoulder of Pallas, and she told you all about it.'
'And what would you know, oh, my daughter?' said the Owl.
'Everything,' said the Cat, 'everything. First of all, how to be happy.'
'Mice content you not, my child, even as they content not me,' said the
Owl. 'It is good.'
'Mice, indeed!' said the Cat; 'no, Parlour Cats don't eat mice. I have
better than mice, and no trouble to get it; but I want something more.'
'The body's meat is provided. You would now fill your soul.'
'I want to improve,' said the Cat. 'I want something to do. I want to
find out what the creatures call my duty.'
'You would learn how to employ those happy hours of your leisure--rather
how to make them happy by a worthy use. Meditate, oh Cat! meditate!
meditate!'
'That is the very thing,' said she. 'Meditate! that is what I like above
all things. Only I want to know how: I want something to meditate about.
Tell me, Owl, and I will bless you every hour of the day as I sit by the
parlour fire.'
'I will tell you,' answered the Owl, 'what I have been thinking of ever
since the moon changed. You shall take it home with you and think about
it too; and the next full moon you shall come again to me; we will
compare our conclusions.'
'Delightful! delightful!' said the Cat. 'What is it? I will try this
minute.'
'From the beginning,' replied the Owl, 'our race have been considering
which first existed, the Owl or the egg. The Owl comes from the egg, but
likewise the egg from the Owl.'
'Mercy!' said the Cat.
'From sunrise to sunset I ponder on it, oh Cat! When I reflect on the
beauty of the complete Owl, I think that must have been first, as the
cause is greater than the effect. When I remember my own childhood, I
incline the other way.'
'Well, but how are we to find out?' said the Cat.
'Find out!' said the Owl. 'We can never find out. The beauty of the
question is, that its solution is impossible. What would become of all
our delightful reasonings, oh, unwise Cat! if we were so unhappy as to
know?'
'But what in the world is the good of thinking about it, if you can't,
oh Owl?'
'My child, that is a foolish question. It is good, in order that the
thoughts on these things may stimulate wonder. It is in wonder that the
Owl is great.'
'Then you don't know anything at all,' said the Cat. 'What did you sit
on Pallas's shoulder for? You must have gone to sleep.'
'Your tone is over flippant, Cat, for philosophy. The highest of all
knowledge is to know that we know nothing.'
The Cat made two great arches with her back and her tail.
'Bless the mother that laid you,' said she. 'You were dropped by mistake
in a goose nest. You won't do. I don't know much, but I am not such a
creature as you, anyhow. A great white thing!'
She straitened her body, stuck her tail up on end, and marched off with
much dignity. But, though she respected herself rather more than before,
she was not on the way to the end of her difficulties. She tried all the
creatures she met without advancing a step. They had all the old story,
'Do your duty.' But each had its own, and no one could tell her what
hers was. Only one point they all agreed upon--the duty of getting their
dinner when they were hungry. The day wore on, and she began to think
she would like hers. Her meals came so regularly at home that she
scarcely knew what hunger was; but now the sensation came over her very
palpably, and she experienced quite new emotions as the hares and
rabbits skipped about her, or as she spied a bird upon a tree. For a
moment she thought she would go back and eat the Owl--he was the most
useless creature she had seen; but on second thought she didn't fancy he
would be nice: besides that, his claws were sharp and his beak too.
Presently, however, as she sauntered down the path, she came on a little
open patch of green, in the middle of which a fine fat Rabbit was
sitting. There was no escape. The path ended there, and the bushes were
so thick on each side that he couldn't get away except through her paws.
'Really,' said the Cat, 'I don't wish to be troublesome; I wouldn't do
it if I could help it; but I am very hungry, I am afraid I must eat you.
It is very unpleasant, I assure you, to me as well as to you.'
The poor Rabbit begged for mercy.
'Well,' said she, 'I think it is hard; I do really--and, if the law
could be altered, I should be the first to welcome it. But what can a
Cat do? You eat the grass; I eat you. But, Rabbit, I wish you would do
me a favour.'
'Anything to save my life,' said the Rabbit.
'It is not exactly that,' said the Cat; 'but I haven't been used to
killing my own dinner, and it is disagreeable. Couldn't you die? I shall
hurt you dreadfully if I kill you.'
'Oh!' said the Rabbit, 'you are a kind Cat; I see it in your eyes, and
your whiskers don't curl like those of the cats in the woods. I am sure
you will spare me.'
'But, Rabbit, it is a question of principle. I have to do my duty; and
the only duty I have, as far as I can make out, is to get my dinner.'
'If you kill me, Cat, to do your duty, I sha'n't be able to do mine.'
It was a doubtful point, and the Cat was new to casuistry. 'What is your
duty?' said she.
'I have seven little ones at home--seven little ones, and they will all
die without me. Pray let me go.'
'What! do you take care of your children?' said the Cat. 'How
interesting! I should like to see that; take me.'
'Oh! you would eat them, you would,' said the Rabbit. 'No! better eat me
than them. No, no.'
'Well, well,' said the Cat, 'I don't know; I suppose I couldn't answer
for myself. I don't think I am right, for duty is pleasant, and it is
very unpleasant to be so hungry; but I suppose you must go. You seem a
good Rabbit. Are you happy, Rabbit?'
'Happy! oh, dear beautiful Cat! if you spare me to my poor babies!'
'Pooh, pooh!' said the Cat, peevishly; 'I don't want fine speeches; I
meant whether you thought it worth while to be alive! Of course you do!
It don't matter. Go, and keep out of my way; for, if I don't get my
dinner, you may not get off another time. Get along, Rabbit.'