Nature & Animals Quote by Carl Van Vechten

Van Vechten’s line flatters the cat on the surface, then pivots into a sly indictment of human self-sabotage. Cats, in his telling, aren’t mystical; they’re practical. They conserve energy without guilt, insist on comfort without apology, observe before they commit, and exit a room the minute it becomes tedious. The jab is that humans know these moves exist, even admire them, yet cling to performative busyness and social obedience like they’re moral virtues. By claiming there is "no single quality" we can’t copy, he collapses the usual hierarchy: the animal isn’t a lesser creature we manage; it’s a model of efficient living that exposes our needless complications.

The subtext is also about modernity and urban life, the world Van Vechten chronicled and cultivated. In crowded social ecosystems, survival is often about selective attention, curated intimacy, and a certain elegant indifference to the crowd’s demands. The cat becomes a proxy for the cultivated persona: self-possessed, tactile, watchful, hard to shame. It’s a compliment to anyone who has mastered the art of being present without being available.

"To his advantage" seals the intent. This isn’t sentimental pet talk; it’s a writer’s provocation. Emulation is framed as strategy, not virtue. Van Vechten suggests that grace, boundaries, and unapologetic pleasure aren’t indulgences - they’re tools. The cat doesn’t romanticize its life, it administers it. The punchline is that we could too, if we weren’t so committed to acting like we shouldn’t.