The Philosopher's Cat

Eleanor Alice Burford (September 1, 1906 to January 18, 1993) was born in London and married George Percival Hibbert, a businessman some years older than she, when she was in her early twenties. She was very beautiful. He died in the 1960s. Mrs. Hibbert was very private and information about her life is sparse. Her father worked odd jobs and she dropped out of school to work in a shop. But marriage gave her time to write. Her husband was a leather merchant and shared her love of books. According to her New York Times obituary: In all, Mrs. Hibbert wrote about 200 novels. They were romantic tales, often filled with rich historical detail, that regularly featured young women living in castles and country manors. She said she focused on "women of integrity and strong character" who were "struggling for liberation, fighting for their own survival." Her books, which were translated into 20 languages, were especially popular in her native England, the United States and A

Children in the 17th century played different games than we do now. They played tipcat, for instance, which is not at all related to cowtipping. Nor did it involve cats--a game of tipcat involved placing a six inch wooden oval on the ground and then hitting it with a bat--done right the wood piece bounced up, and the child hit the wooden piece with a bat, called by them, a cat. This game, played on a Sunday in 1644, made the young John Bunyan feel guilty, since game playing was prohibited by the Puritans, on Sundays. Bunyan, author of spiritual classics, died on August 31, 1688. His books reveal his view that a game of cat was the beginning of his spiritual growth.

  John Gunther's phenomenal success as a writer reflects the thirst of Americans for knowledge about other countries after World War II.   Inside Europe Today  (1962) for instance relates a story Krushchev told about cats in his boyhood. When a cat was found in the pigeons' loft, the cat was grabbed by the tail and banged against the wall. I don't doubt this was the only way poor people could protect their birds. Gunther was born on August 30, 1901.

  Henry Bergh was a wealthy American who devoted his life to protecting the helpless-animals, and children. He founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in April 1866, after consulting with the Earl of Harrowby, president of England's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded in 1840. He set up public water fountains for animals, including cats, in Manhattan. Bergh was born on August 29, 1811.

We think of Roger Tory Peterson  (August 28, 1908 to July 28, 1996)  as the author of the definitive bird guides, and so he was. But he also wrote more widely about various species, and edited books on various topics of interest to naturalists. For example we notice  Peterson First Guide to Caterpillars of North America  (1998), where we learn the "stages between moltings are called instars: a caterpillar will go through several before it reaches full size in its final instar. This mature larva may bear little resemblance to its first instar." Although it is not typical used this way, the adult stage of an insect may also be called an instar. and Peterson First Guide to Mammals of North America,  (1998) where we learn:  Cats have shorter faces than most dogs do. with smaller ears. Unlike dogs. they have retractile claws. Their tails. whether short or long. are relatively thin. not bushy. Their vision is excellent. Most hunt at night. Houghton Mifflin tell us: When Peterson so

  Margaret Bourke-White (June 14, 1904 to August 27, 1971), the notable American photographer, pioneered in news photography in the 20th century. Born in New York City, her job saw her fearless in many places where women had not before been welcome.  She photographed modern industry, modern war, modern camps. She was successful early: she was a photojournalist for Fortune magazine in 1929. Her art is not associated with feline subjects.  Mostly the Margaret Bourke-White cat photographs were those shot by other photographers. "Margaret Bourke-White at home: Photo by Cyreenik" shows an old woman with her black and white fluffy cat in a garden, which may well be her home in Darien Connecticut. Not sure whose that photographic credit is. Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed her, and it is labeled "Margaret Bourke-White with kitten," Darien, Connecticut, 1944. And Anselm Adams photographed the photographer, and it is in google images labeled, "Margaret Bourke-White and C

This famous French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire, died young of war wounds, in 1918. He was born on August 26, 1880. Apollinaire helped create the avant garde; the term surrealism, is a coinage of his. Roger Shattuck translated his writing and put out a volume of selections of his writing for the English, and here we find this stanza: I want in my own home: A wife of sound reason A cat among the books Friends in every season Without which I cannot live. Myself I like the lack of punctuation in this poetry, as much as the wonderful list.

Watch enough old movies (pandemic anyone) and you can fill in this scene--- businessmen, sex, court corridors. This is the backdrop to a scene from Morley Callaghan's novel, The Man With the Coat , (1955), from which we quote: As a businessman, Singerman might say he couldn’t afford to be associated with an old fighter who was an outcast from a place where the best people went. “I won’t be an outcast,” Mike said so loudly that his own voice in the darkness startled him and he sat up in bed. Then he heard a cat in the lane behind the building. The window was open a few inches. The weeds that bothered his hay fever grew in the lane. Again he heard the cat dragging at the lid of the garbage pail. The lid clattered and rolled and he jumped up, slammed the window shut, then he clenched his big fists with the broken knuckles and stood in a trance for a long time. A more directly biographical account is Morley Callaghan's story of accompanying a lady friend to the coliseum one night,

Jean Rhys (August 24, 1890 to May 14, 1979) was a twentieth century novelist remembered as much for her daring life as her respected novels. The woman who would later write Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) was, in 1913, alone and pregnant in London. Lancelot Grey Hugh Smith was a stockbroker and former love, but not the father. He helped her arrange an abortion. After the operation he sent her a Persian kitten, and then flowers everyday, for a week. This incident is reported in The Blue Hour: a Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini (2009). This recent biography is poorly sourced and written in a sensationalistic manner not conducive to accuracy. We know Jean Rhys was a cat lover, although, Carole Angier, author of the 1985, biography Jean Rhys , does not mention this. The incident of the Persian kitten is recalled in the autobiography published posthumously: Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, (1979). We thus can be confident this picture of a kind man in the London of a century ago,

Edgar Lee Masters was born on August 23, 1868. His poetry, such as that in Spoon River Anthology , is more than a portrayal of small town hypocrisy, because his renderings would not be possible without a certain concern for the folks he portrayed from small town America. The quote below is from a different volume, The Open Sea (1921)   and shows his freshness of thought because in it he tries to recreate the world of the educated pagan. For instance from "Celsus At Hadrian's Villa," this excerpt: ... But man, poor man, Forsakes his triumphs, work, his palaces. And barbarous weeds sprout over them and creep, And choke his wisdom and his art. Let’s sit Here in this colonnade. Philosophers From Rome and Athens, Alexandria, From mystic India, walked this colonnade, And let the mind run free. It is no more, Unless we fight the human weeds that spring Under the rains that darken Rome. Let’s up With hoes and root them. Here’s cat-brier—chop! Cat-brier, Christian meekness, fair t

Max Scheler (August 22, 1874 to May 19, 1928) was a German philosopher associated now with the school we call phenomenology. For Scheler though, his concern was simply an observation and analysis of the phenomena available to human consciousness. His work was studied by the man who would become Pope John Paul II. Scheler was one of the first, if not the first, person within academe who warned against the threat of Nazism. Scheler's work involved an anthropology which examined the reality in which people participate. This of course involved distinguishing between things which change and others which do not change at the same speed. One example Frings, a notable explicator of philosophy, mentions, in Max Scheler: a concise introduction into the world of a great thinker (1996), is that of a tree which maintains a function dependent on its surroundings. The tree functions in the life of a cat as a means of escape from danger. This was one example-- you cannot simply define something i

August 21, 1929 to August 29, 2018 are the dates for Marie Severin, American comic book artist and colorist. She is known for her spoofs of comic heroes. Among her many credits is that of (colorist) for Pinky and the Brain  #27 (1998). She also did the illustration for The Cat, which eventually was renamed The Claws of the Cat.

  H. P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 to March 15, 1937), one of the first writers of dark fantasy, wrote an essay entitled "Something about cats" in 1926. The author there contrasts the independent and beauty loving cat with servile canine pack animals.  The former fine qualities he  also called 'Aryan', and so Lovecraft's fans might rather forget this article.  Our interest in the historical record is behind our keeping it, since our cat blogs are always about more than the cute, although this aspect may often seem obscured. Cats are always perfect. People, not so much.

Blaise Pascal died on August 19, 1662. The author of Pensees, was a devout mathematician. This story about his infanthood, was published in a magazine, The Living Age , in 1884: When Blaise Pascal was a year old, a woman reputed among the peasantry of Auvergne to be a sorceress, and whom his father refused to aid in a lawsuit, was supposed to have bewitched the infant, who forthwith began to pine visibly away. M. Pascal, who for some time paid no attention to the gossip, at last grew alarmed, and threatening the woman with the direst pains and penalties, brought her to confess that she had indeed bewitched the child, and that his sickness was unto death. The only remedy was that the charm should be laid on someone else, a life for a life, but as the exchange with a human being was not to be thought of, she consented to take a cat. Undeterred by the remonstrances of two monks who came to console Madame Pascal, the family gave her the cat, and with a plaster made from herbs plucked befo

Honore de Balzac, one of the few literary rivals to Shakespeare, died on August 18, 1850.   Pere Goriot   is one of his books and from it we take the following excerpt, which tells a story: Madame Vauquer came into the dining-room just as her cat had knocked off a plate which covered a bowl of milk, and was lapping the contents. " Mistigris !" she cried. The cat scampered off, but soon returned and rubbed up against her legs. " Yes, yes, you old hypocrite! you can coax when you 've been stealing. Sylvie ! Sylvie!" "Yes, what is it, Madame?" " Just see how much the cat has stolen! " " That animal of a Christophe! it's his fault. I told him to watch the cat, and set the table. Where has he gone to... Never mind, Madame, 'll keep that milk for Pere Goriot. I'll put some water to it, and he 'll never know. He takes no notice of what he puts in his mouth." ....

V . S. Naipaul, ( August 17, 1932 to August 11, 2018),  was the recipient of, among many honors the Nobel prize for literature. Felines figure in his fiction, such as this excerpt from his 2002 novel, In A Free State : "It was to be like a tiger-hunt, where bait is laid out and the hunter and  spectators watch from the security of a platform.." However Naipaul treated people, he took care of his cats, and we shall revisit his record.

Agostino Carracci (August 16, 1557 to March 22, 1602), the Italian painter, was the brother of the more famous Annibale Carracci but they were both prolific, and worked together on some projects. They were part of an artistic family. I haven't figured out the whole idea in this picture by Agostino Carracci.  A print is at the British Museum : If it is good enough for the British Museum it is good enough for the Philosopher's Cat blog.

  Nicolas Roeg (August 15, 1928) is an English film director.  The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) is one of his famous films. This director often uses a disjunctive narrative presentation on screen. One of his films is  Don't Look Now  (1973). When I saw this movie, I found it so gory as to be off-putting. Then I read up on the story (from a Daphne DuMaurier novel) and found out Roeg's film is considered a major classic. Now that I read that, I find my assessment has changed.  There is a meowing on the soundtrack. It grows throughout the film though this sound is always a minor detail. Finally it is explained, in the scene where Donald Sutherland walks an old lady, purported to have psychic abilities, home to her Venice apartment. He, I believe, is the one who comments that she takes care of the cats but they don't stay. She says, "Do you like cats Mr. Baxter." He says, "Yes, but they often don't like me." Nicolas Roeg and Julie Christie, the star, are

John Galsworthy (August 14, 1867 to January 31, 1933) wrote about his own social world, in his novels. The Forsyte Saga series, adapted for television by the BBC in 1967 (26 episodes) formed part of the American dream of England as a huge theme park with scenery that ranges from cottages to manor houses, a pastoral gamut barely tied down anywhere to reality. It is perhaps a surprise then to find out, as James Gindin notes, in The English Climate: an Excursion into a Biography of John Galsworthy (1979),  that his neighbors recall his dogs, and specifically a Bedlington terrier with a reputation as a cat-killer, as intimidating. Galsworthy's own saga though also includes working for reform of the way animals are treated. And his books refer often to cats, often when describing women.  

  A brief glance at the writings of Goldwin Smith (August 13, 1823 to June 7, 1910) suggests his current obscurity is appropriate. Yet at one time he even attracted his own Boswell.   Goldwin Smith was the Regius professor of modern history at Oxford University from 1858 to 1866. The titles he added to the library include: The Foundation of the American Colonies,   (1861) Three English statesmen,  ( 1867) The Ascent of Man  ( 1877 ) False hopes  (1883)  The United States: an Outline of Political History  (1893)  The United Kingdom: a Political History  (1899). and many other books. Even at the time nobody seemed enthralled by the books Goldwin Smith wrote, and that sadly, was not because of his antisemitism. After moving to the United States,(1868)  and teaching at Cornell, he moved to Toronto in 1871 and there continued a life of active public debate. His views on the decline of books, in 1904,  have a certain piquant interest today: "The 'pamphlet' seems to have gone qui

Why it happened or when we have no idea at all.... in the earliest Greek poets a new point of view dawned, never dreamed of before them, but never to leave the world after them. With the coming forward of Greece, mankind became the center of the universe, the most important thing in it. This was a revolution in thought.... The Greeks made their gods in their own image. That had not entered the mind of man before. Until then gods had had no semblance of reality. They were unlike all living things. In Egypt... a rigid figure, a woman with a cat's head suggesting inflexible, inhuman cruelty. Or a monstrous mysterious sphinx, aloof from all that lives...These and their like were what the pre-Greek world worshipped. One need only place beside them any Greek statue of a god...to perceive what a new idea had come into the world. With its coming, the world became rational. These are the  words  of Edith Hamilton, in  Mythology  (1943).  The words of the author of  The Greek Way  (1923) and

August 11,1946, is the birth date of  Parade  magazine columnist, Marilyn vos Savant. She answers questions based on her record high intelligence, posed by an audience trusting in IQ statistics. She has also published several books, including,  Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood  (2003).  The book is composed of checklists, which give the readers ideas for expanding their awareness, and that of their children. Here are some checklist items I picked out: Have groomed a dog, and given him or her a bath. Forget trying to bathe and groom a cat. Have volunteered to work at an animal shelter but not taken home any animals afterwards. Know a few tricks for falling back asleep after you've been rudely awakened, such as when your cat lands on your chest unexpectedly om the middle of a nighttime chase. and Have attended a dog show and a cat show and witnessed what it takes to be a champion. Until this last we at least thought the writer harmless. But -- have you ever met a

On August 10, 1500, Madagascar was discovered by Europeans: the first known to have encountered the island was Diogo Dias, a Portuguese navigator. This land of diverse and unique species is home to many types of lemurs. Of interest to us now is the fact that in the late 19th century, at one of the early British cat shows, a lemur was showed as a cat. No one realized til afterwards that this strange cat was not even feline.

Philip Larkin, the British writer, was offered the Poet Laureateship of England and declined it. Considered one of the century's leading writers before his death in 1985, he is perhaps deservedly eclipsed today. Larkin, born on August 9, 1922, never had a cat for a pet in his adult life, but he was quite fond of animals, and in his will, he left a sizeable amount of his estate to SPCA.

The much honored historian, professor emerita of the Graduate School of the City University of New York, Gertrude Himmelfarb,  ( August 8, 1922 to December 30, 2019),  demonstrates in her many books the importance of simple virtues, like individual responsibility. To support this view, she must reject the reductionistic philosophies of history, Marxism, Freudianism, and the other determinismisms.  It helps that she has a lovely, clear prose style. Here is how she outlines the core of Darwin's ideas ( Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution,   1959): Organic nature tends to an almost exuberant variety of individual living things that differ, either slightly or significantly from their parents...No two cats, no two people, no two lobsters, are exactly identical .At the same time animals and plants reproduce themselves profusely, producing more offspring and/or potential offspring (seeds) than the available resources will support. Although it is almost a tautology these two observat

Simon Gray (October 21, 1936 to August 7, 2008) was an English playwright. His many plays are better known in the UK, but he is highly regarded as a writer. Harold Pinter directed many of them. He also taught English for 20 years at the University of London. His memoirs add up to 8 volumes and were published before his death. Here is a list of just the memoirs Simon Gray wrote: Memoirs An Unnatural Pursuit and Other Pieces ,(1985) How's that for Telling 'em, Fat Lady ?, (1988) Fat Chance , (1995) Enter A Fox,   (2001) The Smoking Diaries , (2004) The Year of the Jouncer , (2006) The Last Cigarette: Smoking Diaries , (2008) Coda , (2008) A Greek island named Spetses figures in the memoirs. Here is a feature of this locale: "[The]   distinction between a cat and a rat is a fine one in Spetses. The inhabitants would treat the cats like rats if there were no rats, and perhaps many of the cats behave accordingly. "   The Oxford Dictionary of

Kevin Mitnick was born on August 6, 1963. He was at one time the most wanted criminal computer hacker in the world. Nowadays he is a rich (and deservedly so) computer security consultant. His latest book (2008) is titled:  "No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing." Mitnick co-authored this book, and I am not sure if he or his co-author has a cat, but one of them definitely does. This book mentions shredding old mail to use for cat litter.

Guy de Maupassant, (August 5, 1850 to July 6, 1893)   the French master of the short story, wrote one which was more an essay on cats, than a story, and it was titled "On Cats." Let's do something a little different from the almanac style, let's just quote the entire story. We are transcribing it from   The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant , translated by Frederick Caesar de Sumichrast, (1917). This story, really an essay, was probably written between 1880 and 1890. It contains some cliches and some fresh perspectives on -- Templar castles. Read the whole thing if you like. I was sitting, the other day, on a bench outside of my door, with the sun shining full upon me, a basket of blooming anemones in front of me, reading a book that had recently appeared, a good book, a rare thing, and also a delightful book, Le Tormelier, by Georges Duval. A large white cat, which belonged to the gardener, jumped on my knees, by the shock of its impact closing the book, which

Shelley's birthday is August 4, 1792. This major poetic voice includes in his juvenile verse a charming set about a cat: VERSES ON A CAT A CAT in distress, Nothing more, nor less ; Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye, As I am a sinner, It waits for some dinner To stuff out its own little belly. You would not easily guess All the modes of distress Which torture the tenants of earth ; And the various evils, Which like so many devils, Attend the poor souls from their birth. Some a living require, And others desire An old fellow out of the way ; And which is the best I leave to be guessed, For I cannot pretend to say. ... One wants society, Another variety, Others a tranquil life ; Some want food, Others, as good, Only want a wife. But this poor little cat Only wanted a rat, To stuff out its own little maw ; And it were as good Some people had such food, To make them hold their jaw !

It is the birthday, August 3, 1920, of the writer Louis Pauwels. The writer of, or contributor to, many volumes that blend science and religion, refers to, in his The Morning of the Magician : The migrating bird, the cat that travels 1000 miles to find its home, the butterfly that can sense the female at a distance of ten miles...  And in this gathering Pauwels points to the boundary between science and that sense men have of something beyond that.

Caleb Carr, the noted historical novelist, was born on August 2, 1955. The author of  The Alienist  also wrote a novel in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, called The  Italian Secretary . At the end of this book, the very end, at the end of several pages of acknowledgments, we find this touching tribute to Carr's cat: "Finally Mark Twain once remarked that 'if a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve the man but degrade the cat.' I hope that my own familiar and companion has not thought it too degrading to play muse, as well"

Lorenz Oken (August 1, 1779 to August 11, 1851) was a German zoologist, who described his goals this way: I have worked so hard at my " Sketch of Physiophilosophy," that I believe I shall soon be able to publish it. What I have principally striven to render clear, was the identity of Nature's dealings with those of Mathematics, and ... I intend dividing it into two parts, the first of which is  [about] ....  " Theory of the Senses, and the classification of animals based thereupon." .... The above is from a letter, and here is another excerpt from a letter to a colleague, Friedrich Schelling. I quote it in some detail for the graceful portrait Oken limns of a certain kind of intellectual, one we all have encountered. This is the thinker who does not grasp his own capacities and yet has a position of some authority, one he gained, perhaps,because his father was famous. This type is genuinely given to abstract thought, but lacks some ambition for testing thought a