They stray about the house with velvety tread, like the genius loci; or sit beside the writer’s table companioning his thought, gazing at him from the depths of their golden eyes, with intelligent tenderness and intuitive penetration . . . Their caresses are gentle, delicate, silent, and feminine, and have nothing in common with the noisy, overblown barking and licking of dogs, who nevertheless attract to themselves all the affection of the common herd.
What we easily overlook is that cats provide us with models of meditation. Since their very way of being is purely contemplative, it is easy to assume that cats staring into space are doing nothing when, in fact, they are deep in thoughts we can never fathom.