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June 14, 1936

 


June 14, 1936 is the day G. K. Chesterton died. This Christian apologist and popular writer (He originated he Father Brown detective stories) uses cats to make an interesting point in one of his essays:

There are things in this world of which I can say seriously that I love them but I do not like them. Cats are the first things that occur to me as examples of this principle. Cats are so beautiful that a creature from another star might fall in love with them, and so incalculable that he might kill them...For myself I admire cats as I admire catkins, those little fluffy things that hang on trees...They are both pretty and both declare the glory of god...I love all the cats in the street as St. Francis loved all the birds in the wood...Not so much, of course, but then I am not a saint...To me, unfortunately perhaps (for I speak merely of an individual taste,) the cat is a wild animal. A cat is nature personified. Like Nature it is so mysterious that one cannot quite repose even in its beauty. But, like Nature again, it is so beautiful that one cannot believe it is really cruel...[But because they are beautiful] it does not follow that ...[one] wants to own all the cats [he admires.]

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