"When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse. Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too—wearing a gray hat and carrying a small cane."
The opening paragraph of the novel establishes something rather important that is often overlooked by fans as they age. Nowhere does it say that Stuart Little actually is a mouse, only that he looked and acted like a mouse. So, then, is Stuart a mouse who happens to have been bore from a woman or is he just a human who takes the form of a mouse? In her New Yorker article, Jill Lepore recounts two conversations White had with his colleagues regarding this fact: "Two days after 'Stuart Little' was published, an unhappy Harold Ross stopped by White’s office at The New Yorker. White recalled:
'Saw your book, White,' he growled. 'You made one serious mistake.
'What was that?' I asked.
'Why, the mouse!' he shouted. 'You said he was born. God damn it, White, you should have had him adopted.'
Next, Edmund Wilson caught White in the hall. 'I read that book of yours,' he began. 'I found the first page quite amusing, about the mouse, you know. But I was disappointed that you didn’t develop the theme more in the manner of Kafka.'"
“I think we had better start thinking about the poem ‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ I think it might embarrass Stuart to hear mice mentioned in such a belittling manner.”
To the Littles, of course, whether Stuart is an actual mouse or not is beside the point; he is their son. And as good parents all they care about it protecting him from a cruel world. This quote is Mrs. Little’s response to Mr. Little’s expression of concern that Stuart not be exposed to the story of the Three Blind Mice, on the basis of not wanting the little guy to get scared he might be put at risk by an actual knife-wielding homicidal wife of a farmer.
"'Live and learn,' muttered Stuart, tartly..."
One of the things that makes Stuart such a popular character is that he is given to adopting an attitude at times. Sometimes he can be ironic and sometimes he can be a little cheeky. This particular quote shows Stuart expressing a little frustration with his size always being his defining character trait in reply to a bus conductor’s insults and admission that he had “no idea that in all the world there was such a small sailor.”
“There’s just something in me that doesn’t trust a cat.”
Having recently befriended a bird for whom the Littles have made a place to sleep in the Boston fern on the bookshelf, Stuart is naturally concerned about the safety of his new friend in a home with a bird’s natural predator. The understatement in this quote – that another member of the household is considered potential prey for the feline – is yet another example of what makes Stuart so endearing.
“I sometimes think I’ve got too much self-control for my own good. I’ve been terribly nervous and upset lately, and I think it’s because I’m always holding myself in.”
As it turns, the cat which so concerned Stuart has been making a concerted effort to respect the domestic arrangements. Recognizing the disaster that would come from actual eating a member of the Little family has been enough to restrain the natural predatory impulse toward Stuart, but refraining from the bird is predicated upon the bird being like a cat: a guest in the house. And, clearly, the effort at restraint has taken a toll upon Snowbell’s health. This gives Snowbell more nuance as a character; he is not a monster but a natural predator who must temper his instincts with self-control.
“What’s she like? Fair, fat, and forty?”
This is Stuart’s reply to being informed by a stranger working at the store that there is a woman in town he should probably meet. Once again, Stuart’s cheeky sense of humor is put on display. Yet this statement will probably also strike modern readers as misogynist and fat-phobic, and is very much a product of its time.
