Essays & Articles by REH

[Jim]

Over the weekend, I started to read a story entitled, "The Beast From the Abyss", a horror story, I thought. Howard is almost as famous for his horror stories as he is for Conan, so my mistake was understandable. Instead, what I read was an essay of his on cats. It was pretty incredible.

...Inferior to the dog the cat is, nevertheless, more like human beings than is the former. For he is vain yet servile, greedy yet fastidious, lazy, lustful and selfish. That last characteristic is, indeed, the dominant feline trait. He is monumentally selfish. In his self love he is brazen, candid and unashamed. Giving nothing in return, he demands everything--he demands it in a raspy, hungry, whining squall that seems to tremble with self-pity, and accuse the world at large of perfidy and broken contract...

He is inordinate in his demands, and he gives no thanks for bounty. His only religion is an unfaltering belief in the divine rights of cats. The dog exists only for man, man exists only for cats. The introverted feline conceives himself to be ever the center of the universe. In his narrow skull there is no room for the finer feelings...

Later, he goes on to be a bit nicer to cats, but all-in-all he doesn't seem to think much more of them than he does of humans, in general. Anyway, I got a kick out of it. I'm not much of a cat lover, either. We have a nonaggression pact - we ignore each other for the most part, but I was raised with cats around. Quite a few were barn cats such as he describes.

[John]

I'm more of a dog guy, but our current rescued cat does seem to have genuine affection for us. Though she can be a pain in the butt at times too.

[Jim]

This is for all the dog & cat lovers out there.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

We're dog people, too. Our dogs like to eat cats, although they get along with Erin's when she brings them along. The ones that get in our woods & barns tend to run away from them & that means 'prey'.

[Michael]

What book is this essay in Jim?

I'm more of a cat person although I haven't cats since I was a kid, until a couple of months ago when we got two kittens who are fitting in nicely.

I think that this is why many people find cats disturbing or creepy.

[Jim]

That's cute, Michael. I found it on a link that you gave me, I think, Wikisource.org
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:...

There's a link to it in the essay section at the top or you can go directly to it with this link:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Bea...

Unfortunately, of the 11 essays they have listed, there aren't links to 6 of them.

[Vincent]

I know this is an old topic, but I just recently read this essay in Sentiment: An Olio of Rarer Works last year. I laughed so hard at this essay and his thoughts on cats.