Apropos of Practical Cats
by Valerie Eliot

In an early poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', T. S. Eliot likened the yellow fog of St. Louis to a cat

'... that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep...'

He also remarked that 'The great thing about cats is that they possess two qualities to an extreme degree - dignity and comicality.'

'I am glad you have a cat', TSE wrote to his godson, Tom Faber, on 20th January 1931, 'but I do not believe it is so remarkable a cat as My cat... There never was such a Lilliecat.

(Of course I had to draw my Ear rather Bigger than it Is to get the Lilliecat onto it).

I would tell you about our Cus Cus Praps except that I can't Draw Dogs so well as Cats, Yet; but I mean to...'

This was the first occasion on which Old Possum revealed himself. When Tom was four TSE suggested that all Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats should be

'Invited to Come
With a Flute & a Fife & a Fiddle & Drum
With a Fiddle, a Fife, & a Drum & a Tabor
To the Birthday Party of Thomas Erle Faber!'

Then there was 'a very Grand Cat... a Persian Prince and it is Blue because it has Blue Blood, and its name was Mirza Murad Ali Beg but I said that was too Big a Name for such a Small Flat, so its name is Wiskuscat. But is is sometimes called The Musical Box because it makes a noise like singing and sometimes Cockalorum because it looks like one. (Have you ever see an Cockalorum? Neither have I)'. In April 1932 Tom learn that 'the Porpentine cat has been in bed with Ear Ache so the Pollicle Dog stopped At Home to Amuse it by making Cat's Cradles'.

TSE was always inventing suitable cat names, as he was often asked for them by friends and strangers. I remember 'Noilly Prat' (an elegant cat); 'Carbuckety' (a knock-about cat); 'Tantomile' (a witch's cat); he also liked 'Pouncinval' with its Morte d'Arthur flavor, and 'Sillabub', a mixture of silly and Beelzebub.

Most of the poems were written between 1936 and 1938. 'I have done a new cat, modeled on the late Professor Moriarty but he doesn't seem very popular: too sophisticated perhaps...' TSE wrote to Frank Morley. This will surprise today's many admirers of 'Macavity'. Although he confided to Enid Faber on 8th March 1938 that 'The Railway Cat (LMS) is rather stuck', a week later the poem was finished. 'Skimbleshanks' is based on Kipling's 'The Long Trail' just as 'The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs' was written to the tune of 'The Elliots of Minto'. 'Grizabella the Glamour Cat' is an unpublished fragment of which only the last eight lines were written because TSE realized she was developing along the lines of Villon's 'Lat Belle Heaulmiere' who fell on evil days and he felt it would be too sad for children.

About this time, when he was driving to the country, he and the driver began discussing their respective dogs. The chauffeur wishing to make clear that his was a mongrel said, 'He is not what you would call a consequential dog'. This so delighted TSE that he resolved to write a book of Consequential Dogs to match the Practical Cats. But, alas, it was never done. During the war when he was living with friends in Surrey he remarked of the temporary absence of a noisy pug, 'When does "... that fatall and perfidious Bark / Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark..." return to us?' (Milton)

Although Faber & Faber announced 'Mr. Eliot's book of Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats' in their 1936 Spring catalogue, TSE had run into difficulties over his general approach.' 'The idea of the volume was to have different poems on appropriate subjects... recited by the Man in White Spats... At the end they all go up in a balloon, self, Spats, and dogs and cats.

'Up up up past the Russell Hotel,
Up up up to the Heaviside Layer.'

Three more years, as his publisher put it, brought 'a growing perception that it would be impolite to wrap cats up with dogs' and the realization that the book would be exclusively feline. Ralph Hodgson, the poet who bred bull-terriers, had hoped to illustrate it but at the crucial period he was house-hunting in America. He felt that 'the fun of doing it - or attempting it - is the thing, and that is only possible with my feet up on the mantelpiece, as the saying is'.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was published in England on 5th October 1939 in an edition of 3005 copies at 3/6d with TSE's drawings on the font cover and the dust-wrapper. He was nervous about its reception. His verse play The Family Reunion had appeared in March and The Idea of a Christian Society was due in three weeks.  'It is intended for a new public', he informed Geoffrey Faber, 'but I am afraid cannot dispense with the old one'. He need not have worried. 'Cats are giving general satisfaction', the Sales manager reported shortly afterwards, while the Manchester Guardian said they partook 'of the finite variety of human nature'. Today they are a minor classic and have been translated into a dozen languages.

Of the poets who have written about cats TSE most admired Christopher Smart: 'His poem about his cat is to all other poems about cats what the Iliad is to all other poems on war'.

P.S. Whenever he was unwell or could not sleep, TSE would recite the verses under his breath.

~CATS: The Book of the Musical~