A Salute to Cat Lover Mark Twain...

Humorist Mark Twain Before there was Conan, Jay Leno, or David Letterman, there was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. And I wouldn't be KittyLiterate if I didn't raise a pint in his honor on his birthday. This celebrated journalist, humorist, lecturer and writer, author of 28 books and countless short stories and articles, was best-known for his classics The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's classic, Huckleberry Finn As a young man, Clemens became a river pilot's apprentice, and his experiences along the banks of the Mississippi not only gave him fodder for books, but also inspired his pen name: Mark Twain. Trivia collectors will note that "mark twain" is crewman's lingo. Seems a boat needs a depth of two fathoms or twelve feet to navigate. And to test it, the boatman calls "mark twain," because in olden times the word "twain," meant "two." So he's finding out if the depth of the water is at least two fathoms, or deep enough to move in. Okay, so what about the cats? Well, like modern-day funnyman, this quintessential American humorist got his material from every-day life. His method was simple, say expert Twain-ites. The blue-eyed, white-haired, mustached writer was "an enormous noticer." And being a keen observer of life, he was an expert on writing about it. And life for Twain included his favorite animal: cats. Mark Twain's cats Fast Asleep by Elisha VanAken, 1887 (from Dave Thomson collection) At one time in his youth, the family had 19 cats. But later, he had the odd four or five, and throughout the years, christened them with super wacky names like Blatherskite, Sour Mash, Stray Kit, Sin, Satan, Appollinaris, Bambino, and Zoroaster, "names," said Twain, "given them not in an unfriendly spirit, but merely so the children could practice large and difficult styles of pronunciation." What a dad! Asked about her famous father once, Twain's daughter, Susie, is quoted as saying, "The difference between Papa and Momma is that Momma loves morals and Papa loves cats." Mark Twain's cats Wide Awake by Elisha VanAken, 1887 (from Dave Thomson collection) Here's what this beloved and famous purr-sonage has to say about our beloved four-legged furballs: "I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course." "Never try to teach a cat to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the cat." "Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use." "Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." "A home without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat, may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove that title?" I couldn't have said it better myself. Photos courtesy of the Mark Twain House and Museum