Those nutty Victorians, Emily BRONTE viciously beat her beloved dog (once?) & hated cats

(via Gawker)

Unless I misread this quote with the adverb "drolly" in it.

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http://the-toast.net/2014/06/10/the-animalistic-emily-bronte/

[font size=5]The Animalistic Emily Brontë and Her Dog, Keeper[/font]

.... What Emily hints at in her earlier essays becomes concrete philosophy in The Cat, a celebration of feline misanthropy. She drolly argues that the “cat is an animal who has more human feelings than almost any other being.” With cats we share “hypocrisy, cruelty, and ingratitude,” though cats are superior in one sense: they are honest about their foibles, while we humans insist on the cultivated goodness of our natures. Emily urges us to embrace our animality, to see how it works both on and in us, and to take a suspicious eye towards the refinement of “society.” She describes a familiar Victorian domestic scene, a “delicate lady, who has murdered a half-dozen lapdogs through pure affection,” who praises a young son when he presents a “beautiful butterfly crushed between his cruel fingers.” She wishes this lady insight beyond her sophisticated drawing room, wishes her eyes open to see “the image, true copy, of your angel,” which is a “cat, with the tail of half-devoured rat hanging from its mouth.” ....

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