de musset sees a kitten's inner beauty

Alfred de Musset (French, 1810-57) is a major figure of French literary history.  Casting an eye over his output is exhausting; in 1908 his collected and translated works were privately printed in New York in ten volumes.  He was considered a man of great empathy and pity, not least in his marked love for animals.  Here's a telling passage from a biography written by his brother Paul:
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The pitying horror with which he regarded suffering, and his desire to relieve it, did not stop with human beings. Even beasts felt the effects of it. His housekeeper one day apprised him of the critical circumstances of a puppy about to be thrown into the river. He solemnly stayed the execution, and took the condemned creature home. So he was provided with a dog.
The cat's turn came next. Alfred requested that he might have one of the young ones of the first cat who had kittens, not being able to take charge of the entire family. They sent him a frightful little beast, — shaggy, and of a dirty gray color. "I am not very fortunate," he said, contemplating his boarders. "I like only beautiful things, and here I am encumbered with an ugly pug and a regular area cat. But what's to be done? I did not select them, and I cannot help respecting and admiring in these poor beasts — ugly as they are — the phenomenon of life and the work of mysterious nature."
The benefactor had no reason to repent his generosity. By dint of grace and amiability, the kitten won pardon for the homeliness of her garb, and the dog proved to be endowed with all the canine virtues and remarkably intelligent. In fact, the celebrated Marzo was the admiration of all the servant-maids in the neighborhood and even made himself useful by going alone every evening to the newspaper stand with three sous in an envelope, and bringing back the "Presse" in his teeth. Without the assistance of language, he could get the house-door opened, and conclude a business transaction successfully.

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"Regular area cat." I'm using that from now on.

-- from Musset, Paul de, 1804-1880. The Biography of Alfred De Musset. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877. 294-5.