Thoughtful Tom
Jane Loudon describes an moment of unexpected paternal affection from a Tom cat.
1851
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Jane Loudon describes an moment of unexpected paternal affection from a Tom cat.
1851
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Jane Loudon was a pioneering science fiction writer, whose novel “The Mummy!” of 1827 was a landmark in the genre. She also wrote an engaging account of her family pets that included several anecdotes about cats.
abridged
IT is generally said that male cats do not like kittens. We had, however, an instance to the contrary. A strange cat had two kittens in the stable belonging to our house; and one day, pitying the wretched condition of the cat, when I saw her in the garden, I ordered her some milk.
A large Tom-cat we had, watched our proceedings very attentively, and while the cat was lapping the milk, he went to the stable, and brought one of the kittens in his mouth, and placed it beside the saucer, and then fetched the other, looking up in my face and mewing when he had done so, as much as to say, “You have fed the mother, so you may as well feed the children,” which we did; and I must add, for the credit of Tom’s character, that he never attempted to touch the milk himself.
abridged
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate her ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Jane feed a strange cat?