There are still some of Lord Nelson's descendants in the town of
Keswick. Two of the family were handsomer than I should have supposed
any Cats of this complection could have been; but their fur was fine,
the colour a rich carrot, and the striping like that of the finest
tyger or tabby kind. I named one of them William Rufus; the other
Danayn le Roux, after a personage in the Romance of Gyron le Courtoys.
Bona Marietta was the mother of Bona Fidelia, so named by my nephew
aforesaid. Bona Fidelia was a tortoise-shell cat. She was filiated
upon Lord Nelson, others of the same litter having borne the
unequivocal stamp of his likeness. It was in her good qualities that
she resembled him, for in truth her name rightly bespoke her nature.
She approached as nearly as possible in disposition, to the ideal of a
perfect cat:—he who supposes that animals have not their difference of
disposition as well as men, knows very little of animal nature. Having
survived her daughter Madame Catalani, she died of extreme old age,
universally esteemed and regretted by all who had the pleasure of her
acquaintance.
Bona Fidelia left a daughter and a granddaughter; the former I called
Madame Bianchi—the latter Pulcheria. It was impossible ever to
familiarize Madame Bianchi, though she had been bred up in all
respects like her gentle mother, in the same place, and with the same
persons. The nonsense of that arch-philosophist Helvetius would be
sufficiently confuted by this single example, if such rank folly
contradicted as it is by the experience of every family, needed
confutation. She was a beautiful and singular creature, white, with a
fine tabby tail, and two or three spots of tabby, always delicately
clean; and her wild eyes were bright and green as the Duchess de
Cadaval's emerald necklace. Pulcheria did not correspond as she grew
up to the promise of her kittenhood and her name; but she was as fond
as her mother was shy and intractable. Their fate was extraordinary as
well as mournful. When good old Mrs. Wilson died, who used to feed and
indulge them, they immediately forsook the house, nor could they be
allured to enter it again, though they continued to wander and moan
around it, and came for food. After some weeks Madame Bianchi
disappeared, and Pulcheria soon afterwards died of a disease endemic
at that time among cats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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