Organ of the day: the querule

[desperance]

The querule is an organ little discussed and often overlooked, often indeed mistaken for the peeve. As a rule of thumb, what is peevishness in the young human is likely to be querulousness in the elderly. The querule ripens late in life, as people come to realise that things will never again be as good as they were before.

Cats, by contrast, realise very young that things (and indeed people) will never quite live up to expectation, nor meet their entirely reasonable demands. The querule consequently develops in early kittenhood and is prominent throughout all nine of their lives.