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Post by deuce on Feb 6, 2018 10:20:35 GMT -5
"I remember in one of Kipling’s yarns somebody haunted somebody else with a “sending” of cats. A sending of snakes would be more disgusting."
-- Robert E. Howard to Clark Ashton Smith, March 1934
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Post by deuce on Aug 14, 2018 10:04:04 GMT -5
"The young she-cat I mentioned in my last letter is at present reclining in her favorite spot in the grass by the back step, just outside my window, with her brood — natural and adopted — snoozing about her. She talks more to her kittens than any cat I ever saw. Ordinarily silent, I frequently hear her discoursing at great lengths to her offsprings. The sounds she produces are midway between purr and mew, and contain many variations of tone and inflection; honestly, it’s almost like an intelligible language!
She is very peaceable, under ordinary circumstances, even timid, and will even allow another cat to appropriate her food. But any hint of threat toward her kittens transforms her, and when she does fight, she displays more implacable determination than I ever saw in any cat, of either sex. She fights silently, with steel-spring quickness, yet with a coolness that is almost impersonal; nine out of ten cat-fights are more noise than bloodshed, with interludes of spitting and yowling. Not with her; she goes straight for the vitals of her enemy without preliminary threats, and slashes and tears with cold ferocity and without pause until her enemy is hors de combat or has fled beyond the boundaries of her abode. There’s no compromise with her; she fights to the finish. She has a way of fighting that reminds me of Jack Dempsey — rearing on her hind legs and striking right and left with the fury and intent to destroy behind each blow."
-- Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft June 1934
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Post by deuce on Sept 4, 2018 11:28:18 GMT -5
"Somewhat past midnight, at the height of the downpour, I sallied forth to rescue a small but pestiferous pig from the flood which was threatening to drown him in his pen. Did you ever pursue a yammering pig around a muddy pen at midnight, with the rain driving down in torrents, the wind howling in gusts, and the thunder and lightning splitting the heavens? If the pen had been larger I don’t suppose I’d ever have caught the little wretch, and when I did, he yelled bloody murder all the way to the barn where I dumped him into a shed with the greatest of disgust. The old sow woke up — it’s not her pig but she seems to think she’s responsible — and she tried her best to tear down her pen so she could get out and rip me up, and as I plodded back through the mud and rain, I’ll admit I was completely disgusted with livestock in general. The next day my rheumatism got in its licks and that didn’t sweeten my disposition any."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft October 1931
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