Explore "Are Cats People?" by Oliver Herford on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If a fool be sometimes an angel unawares, may not a foolish query be a momentous question in disguise? For example, the old riddle: "Why is a hen? " which is thought by many people to be the silliest question ever asked, is in reality the most profound. It is the riddle of existence. It has an answer, to be sure, but though all the wisest men and women in the world _and_ Mr. H. G. Wells have tried to guess it, the riddle "Why is a hen? " has never been answered and never will be. So, too, the question: "Are Cats People? " seemingly so trivial, may be, under certain conditions, a question of vital importance.
Suppose, now, a rich man dies, leaving all his money to his eldest son, with the proviso that a certain portion of it shall be spent in the maintenance of his household as it then existed, all its members to remain under his roof, and receive the same comfort, attention, or remuneration they had received in his (the testator's) lifetime. Then suppose the son, on coming into his money, and being a hater of cats, made haste to rid himself of a feline pet that had lived in the family from early kittenhood, and had been an especial favorite of his father's.