It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their master is one of perpetual confident boredom. All they betray of the hidden life is by means of symbol; if it were not for the recurring evidence of murder – the disemboweled rabbits, the headless flickers, the torn squirrels – we should forever imagine our cats to be simple pets whose highest ambition is to sleep in the best soft chair, whose worst crime is to sharpen their claws on carpeting.
