SUBJECT TO VANITY Τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη, οὐχ ἑκοῡσα ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ. SUBJECT TO VANITY BY MARGARET BENSON WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR NEW YORK DODD, MEAD, & COMPANY 1895...

W HY were cats created? I do not mean this as a sceptical question, doubtful of any end in their creation; no answer about adaptation and environment would be adequate, nor any statement of specific use. For with all the higher animals—that is to say, with all the animals one intimately knows—there is some beauty of intelligence, physique, or character which renders them, as one must necessarily believe they are, ends in themselves, not only means to the perfection of our very egotistic species.

T HE last week has been an arduous one; I have had to chaperon Pasht. Pasht has experienced her first proposal. I suppose it is no wonder, considering her age, that she was flattered; but I could wish that she had fixed her affections on anyone less vulgar and under-bred. This was how I found it out. Pasht had been for many days very eager to go into the garden. One morning we were playing croquet on the lawn, and I paid no attention to the kitten, until suddenly I looked up to see her lying on

I S it not true that there is a very general want of recognition of family-life among domestic animals? It is a great mistake to suppose they are incapable of it; often, as a matter of fact, they do not lead domestic lives, for the simple reason that people will not let them. If, for instance, you won’t keep a whole family of cats, how can you expect them to develop domestic affections? We talk of their being “domesticated,” but we mean that they are made a part of our domestic arrangements, wit

H OW vividly one sometimes retains for years the memory of a chance acquaintance—a person whom one has met but once, passed in the street, talked to for half an hour, whose name one may not even know. A friend of mine was travelling in Persia, and as she and her brother were resting in a caravansarai after a journey, they saw a Persian gentleman beckoning to them from the garden. They went down to him, and he asked them to come and have supper with him. They came, and found the bread laid out, p

E VER since I was a very small child I had longed to possess a pair of budgerrygars. There was a tradition of three live ones once in our family, in proof whereof my nurse could point to a little stuffed bird in its case. I used to gaze with longing at that beautiful green and yellow creature, with the speckled back and the black and blue feathers in its neck, sitting with a foreground of quaking grasses and an eternal blue sky behind. There existed also, but rarely seen, a little cardboard box

F EW people know how different one bird is from another of the same kind. Of course we can see when one canary is green and one yellow and one crested; but few people know that some canaries have blue eyes, some brown, and some grey; or how different one canary is in intelligence and character from another. Jack was a remarkably intelligent canary; one always felt him to be immensely superior to oneself. When he consented to sit on his swing and allow me to swing him, he always seemed to say, “T

G YPSY was so called because he was bought off a gypsy-cart. A friend of mine was attracted by his wonderful voice, and gave a half-crown for him. Others were attracted by his voice too, with results more fatal. He was in his first year when I had him, and it was not until the second year that his feathers and his fascination attained their full proportions. Gypsy was a mule, a cross between a goldfinch and canary. His back was dark green, he had a yellowish breast with dark splashes on it, blac

W E were called into my mother’s room one day, and shown a hamper which had just arrived. The hamper was strangely agitated, like that hasty-pudding in which Tom Thumb sheltered, and when it was opened out rolled a puppy! It was a collie puppy, long haired, black, with tan cheeks, a white tip to his tail, white collar and paws, and wholly fascinating. It was really a charming puppy; at present too young to sin; too young to do anything but roll about and be petted. He was named Watch, “for,” sai

T HEY were Zoe and Marcianus Capello (but she was no kid), and Capricorn and his brother, and Chat and Tan. I did not possess them all at the same time; in fact, I never had more than three at one time, and that was because Marcianus Capello had twins. Zoe was the first. When she came to us she was a little white kid, just taken from her mother; she was very pretty, with a dark mark down her back and two little tassels of hair on her neck. But, as I say, she was only just taken from her mother,

O UR old cowman Callaway was Cornish; he taught me to milk; he took a fatherly interest in my animals; he talked Cornished English, and I understood about a quarter of what he said. He had a wife who worked in the house of a neighbour of ours, and a very elegant daughter. I never could imagine how her hats and jackets and dresses got into the hovel in which the family lived; however, I suppose they must have got into it, for they certainly came out. The wife’s employer’s daughter kept guinea-pig

K ING Solomon was journeying through a thirsty land—sand beneath his feet, sand around as far as a man could see, above the pitiless blue sky. No tree could grow here, and no rock was there to cast its shadow on the sand. “What shall shield me,” said the king, “from the fury of this sun?” Then was heard the sound of light wings beating the air, for all creatures knew the voice of the words of King Solomon; and there came through the air a cloud of hoopoes, and they spread their barred wings, and