Letters of Note: Cats

Informationen zum Autor SHAUN USHER is the creator of the enormously popular blogs lettersofnote.com and listsofnote.com and the compiler of the bestselling Letters of Note collections. He spends much of his time hunting for letters and making lists of things to share. He lives in Manchester, England, with his family. Klappentext An irresistible new volume of affectionate missives about our feline companions from Charles Dickens, Anne Frank, Raymond Chandler, Elizabeth Taylor, and more, from the author of the bestselling Letters of Note collections Florence Nightingale sends care instructions to the woman who has just adopted her angora tomcat Mr. White. T. S. Eliot issues a rhyming birthday party invitation to all Jellicle cats for his four-year-old godson. Jack Kerouac's mother grieves at the death of the family cat. Jack Lemmon winkingly suggests to Walter Matthau that they go in on a cat ranch in Mexico. This utterly charming collection offers a warm and friendly look at the place that cats occupy in our hearts and lives. These thirty letters capture the profound delight of having or observing a cat, and they reveal a keen insight into feline nature as well as our own.

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SHAUN USHER is the creator of the enormously popular blogs lettersofnote.com and listsofnote.com and the compiler of the bestselling Letters of Note collections. He spends much of his time hunting for letters and making lists of things to share. He lives in Manchester, England, with his family.

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An irresistible new volume of affectionate missives about our feline companions from Charles Dickens, Anne Frank, Raymond Chandler, Elizabeth Taylor, and more, from the author of the bestselling Letters of Note collections

Florence Nightingale sends care instructions to the woman who has just adopted her angora tomcat Mr. White. T. S. Eliot issues a rhyming birthday party invitation to all Jellicle cats for his four-year-old godson. Jack Kerouac's mother grieves at the death of the family cat. Jack Lemmon winkingly suggests to Walter Matthau that they go in on a cat ranch in Mexico. This utterly charming collection offers a warm and friendly look at the place that cats occupy in our hearts and lives. These thirty letters capture the profound delight of having or observing a cat, and they reveal a keen insight into feline nature as well as our own.

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LETTER 01
IS NATURE A GIGANTIC CAT?

Nikola Tesla to Pola Fotić
23 July 1939

 

Born in 1856 in Smiljan, in Croatia, Nikola Tesla was an inventor whose invaluable impact on the modern world is difficult to comprehend. During the course of his eighty-six years he made numerous breakthroughs in the realm of electrical engineering, particularly around his AC induction motor, and by the time of his death, the 'Father of Electricity' had approximately 300 patents to his name. In Washington DC in 1939, aged eighty-three and in failing health, Tesla met Pola Fotić, the daughter of the Yugoslav ambassador to the United States, and they bonded over their shared love of cats. Soon afterwards, from his home in New York City, Tesla wrote to his new friend and revealed the reason behind his lifelong fascination with electricity.

 

 

The Letter

New York,

July 23, 1939

 

My Dear Miss Fotić,

I am forwarding to you the "Calendar of Yugoslavia" of 1939 showing the house and community in which I had many sad and joyful adventures, and in which also, by a bizarre coincidence, I was born. As you see from the photograph on the sheet for June, the old-fashioned building is located at the foot of a wooded hill called Bogdanic. Adjoining it is a church and behind it, a little further up, a graveyard. Our nearest neighbors were two miles away. In the winter, when the snow was six or seven feet deep, our isolation was complete.

My mother was indefatigable. She worked regularly from four o'clock in the morning till eleven in the evening. From four to breakfast time - six a.m. - while others slumbered, I never closed my eyes but watched my mother with intense pleasure as she attended quickly - sometimes running - to her many self-imposed duties. She directed the servants to take care of all our domestic animals, she milked the cows, she performed all sorts of labor unassisted, set the table, prepared breakfast for the whole household. Only when it was ready to be served did the rest of the family get up. After breakfast everybody followed my mother's inspiring example. All did their work diligently, liked it, and so achieved a measure of contentment.

But I was the happiest of all, the fountain of my enjoyment being our magnificent M‡cùak - the finest of all cats in the world. I wish I could give you an adequate idea of the affection that existed between us. We lived for one another. Wherever I went, M‡cùak followed, because of our mutual love and the desire to protect me. When such a necessity presented itself he would rise to twice his normal height, buckle his back, and with his tail as rigid as a metal bar and whiskers like steel wires, he would give vent to his rage with explosive puffs: Pfftt! Pfftt! It was a terrifying sight, and whoever had provoked him, human or animal, would beat a hasty retreat.

Every evening we would run from the house along the church wall and he would rush after me and grab me by the trousers. He tried hard to make me believe that he would bite, but the instant his needle-sharp incisors penetrated the clothing, the pressure ceased and their contact with my skin was gentle and tender as a butterfly alighting on a petal. He liked best to roll on the grass with me. While we were doing this he bit and clawed and purred in rapturous pleasure. He fascinated me so completely that I too bit and clawed and purred. We could not stop, but rolled and rolled in a delirium of delight. We indulged in this enchanting sport day by day except in rainy weather.

In respect to water, Máčak was very fastidious. He would jump six feet to avoid wetting his paws. On such days we went into the house and selected a nice cozy place to play. Máčak was scrupulously clean, had no fleas or bugs, shed no hair, and showed no objectionable traits. He was touchingly delicate in signifying his wish to be let out at night, and scratched the door gently for readmittance.

Now I must tell you a strange and unforgettable experience that stayed with me all my life. Our home was about eighteen hundred feet above sea level, and as a rule we had dry weather in the winter. But sometimes a warm wind from the Adriatic would blow persistently for a long time, melting the snow, flooding the land, and causing great loss of property and life. We would witness the terrifying spectacle of a mighty, seething river carrying wreckage and tearing down everything moveable in its way. I often visualize the events of my youth, and when I think of this scene the sound of the waters fills my ears and I see, as vividly as then, the tumultuous flow and the mad dance of the wreckage. But my recollections of winter, with its dry cold and immaculate white snow, are always agreeable.

It happened that one day the cold was drier than ever before. People walking in the snow left a luminous trail behind them, and a snowball thrown against an obstacle gave a flare of light like a loaf of sugar cut with a knife. In the dusk of the evening, as I stroked Máčak's back, I saw a miracle that made me speechless with amazement. M‡cùak's back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the house.

My father was a very learned man; he had an answer for every question. But this phenomenon was new even to him. "Well," he finally remarked, "this is nothing but electricity, the same thing yo…