Gratuitous Literary Posting

My quote-of-the-day e-mail reminds me that today is the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Stearns Eliot in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri.

I will come right out and admit that Eliot falls squarely in the file of writers-I-know-I-should-know-more-about-and-will-get-around-to-presently. This is mostly because, as I've said before, I simply don't read very much poetry. I have read Murder In The Cathedral (and still remember fondly the near-concussion I received from falling out of my chair laughing when SCTV aired its NASA production of the play), but most of the rest of what I have read has been about Eliot reyther than by Eliot. I suppose I will start with his later essays and then perhaps work backwards.

No, my main exposure directly to Eliot comes from his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, from which Mom often read to us when we were children. Indeed, one of my cats is named from this book (and not, as some have darkly suggested, from any shmaltzy Broadway musical):

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots.
All day she sits upon the stair or on the steps or on the mat:
She sits and sits and sits and sits - and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!

But when the day's hustle and bustle is done,
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.
And when all the family's in bed and asleep,
She slips down the stairs to the basement to creep.
She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice -
Their behaviour's not good and their manners not nice;
So when she has got them lined up on the matting,
She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting.

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
Her equal would be hard to find, she likes the warm and sunny spots.
All day she sits beside the hearth or in the sun or on my hat:
She sits and sits and sits and sits - and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!

But when the day's hustle and bustle is done,
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.
As she finds that the mice will not ever keep quiet,
She is sure it is due to irregular diet
And believing that nothing is done without trying,
She sets straight to work with her baking and frying.
She makes them a mouse-cake of bread and dried peas,
And a beautiful fry of lean bacon and cheese.

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
The curtain-cord she likes to wind, and tie it into sailor-knots.
She sits upon the window-sill, or anything that's smooth and flat:
She sits and sits and sits and sits - and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!

But when the day's hustle and bustle is done,
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.
She thinks that the cockroaches just need employment,
So she's formed, from that lot of disorderly louts,
A troop of well-disciplined helpful boy-scouts,
With a purpose in life and a good deed to do -
And she's even created a Beetles' Tattoo.

So for Old Gumbie Cats let us now give three cheers -
On whom well-ordered households depend, it appears.

Whether she cossets the mice before dispatching them, I couldn't say, but this is otherwise a very apt description of our own cat, although she is so lavish with her affections that my sister long ago rechristened her "Jennyanybody".