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Gordon Stables
Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066158064
Table of Contents
Preface.
Dedicated to the Reviewer.
Yes, this little preface is written for the Reviewer and nobody else. Indeed, the public seldom bother to read prefaces, and small blame to them. Reading the preface to a book is just like being button-holed by some loquacious fellow, as you are entering the theatre, who wants to tell you all about the play you are just going to see. So sure am I of this, that I had at first thought of writing my preface in ancient Greek. Of course every reviewer is as well-versed in that beautiful language as Professor Geddes, or John Stuart Blackie himself. I was only restrained by remembering that my own Greek might have got just a trifle mouldy.
Well, all I want to say in this page is, that there is a deal more truth in the pages that follow than might at first be imagined.
Both Shireen and Tom Brandy were real characters, and the incidents and adventures of their life on board ship were very much as I have told them. The starling, and Cockie, the cockatoo, were also pets of my own; and Chammy, the chameleon, is described from the life. She died this year (1894).
The story Stamboul tells about his life as a show cat is a sad one, and alas! it tells but half the truth. Cat shows have done good to the breed of cats in this country, but it has raised up a swarm of dealers, that treat poor pussy in a shameful way, and look upon her as simply so much merchandise.
In conclusion, I am not going to deny, that while trying to write a pleasant book as a companion to my last year’s “Sable and White,” I have endeavoured now and then to get a little hint slipped in edgeways, which, if taken by the intelligent reader, may aid in gaining a more comfortable position in our homesteads for our mutual friend the cat. If I be successful in this, I shall consider myself quite as good as that other fellow, you know, who caused two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before.
Gordon Stables.
The Jungle, Twyford, Berks.
Dedication.
Swinburne and the Cat.
The following beautiful verses by the poet Swinburne, to whom I have the honour of dedicating this work, appeared last year in the “Athenaeum.”
To a Cat.
Stately, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love’s lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.
All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand’s caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.
Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.
Morning round this silent sweet
Garden-seat
Sheds its wealth of gathering light,
Thrills the gradual clouds with might,