This simian world . wait: what is this in the corner? A largetriumphal statue—of a cat overcoming a look at this dining-room, its exquisite ap-pointments, its daintiness: faucets for hot andcold milk in the pantry, and a gold bowl ofcream. -26- This Simian World Some one is entering. Hush! If I could butdescribe her! Languorous, slender and pas-sionate. Sleepy eyes that see everything. An in-dolent purposeful step. An unimaginable you were her lover, my boy, you would learnhow fierce love can be, how capricious and sud-den, how hostile, how ecstatic, how violent! Thin
This simian world . wait: what is this in the corner? A largetriumphal statue—of a cat overcoming a look at this dining-room, its exquisite ap-pointments, its daintiness: faucets for hot andcold milk in the pantry, and a gold bowl ofcream. -26- This Simian World Some one is entering. Hush! If I could butdescribe her! Languorous, slender and pas-sionate. Sleepy eyes that see everything. An in-dolent purposeful step. An unimaginable you were her lover, my boy, you would learnhow fierce love can be, how capricious and sud-den, how hostile, how ecstatic, how violent! Think what the state of the arts would havebeen in such cities. They would have had few comedies on theirstage; no farces. Cats care little for fun. In thecircus, superlative acrobats. No clowns. In drama and sing-ing they would havesurpassed us proba-bly. Even in the stageof arrested develop-ment as mere animals,in which we see cats,they wail with a pas-sionate intensity atnight in our yards. Imagine how a Caruso-27-. This Simian World descended from such beings would sing. In literature they would not have begged forhappy endings. They would have been personally more self-assured than we, far freer of cheap imitativenessof each other in manners and art, and hencemore original in art; more clearly aware of whatthey really desired, not cringingly watchful ofwhat was expected of them; less widely observ-ant perhaps, more deeply thoughtful. Their artists would have produced less how-ever, even though they felt more. A super-catartist would have valued the pictures he drewfor their effects on himself; he wouldnt havecared a rap whether anyone else saw them ornot. He would not have bothered, usually, togive any form to his conceptions. Simply to havehad the sensation would have for him beenenough. But since simians love to be noticed, itdoes not content them to have a conception;they must wrestle with it until it takes a formin which others can see it. They doom the artisticimpulse t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookidcu3192401427, bookyear1920
