"Je suis le compagnonDu pauvre bûcheron."Je le suis en automne,Au vent des premiers froids,Et c'est moi qui lui donneLe dernier chant des bois."Il est triste, et je chanteSous mon deuil mêlé d'or.Dans la brume pesanteJe vois l'azur encor."Que ce chant te relèveEt te garde l'espoir!Qu'il te berce d'un rêve,Et te ramène au soir!"Mais quand vient la gelée,Je frappe à ton carreau.Il n'est plus de feuillée,Prends pitié de l'oiseau!"C'est ton ami d'automneQui revient près de toi.Le ciel, tout m'abandonne—Bûcheron, ouvre-moi!"Qu'en ce temps de disette,Le petit voyageur,Régalé d'une miette,S'endorme à ta chaleur!"Je suis le compagnonDu pauvre bûcheron."
"Je suis le compagnonDu pauvre bûcheron.
"Je le suis en automne,Au vent des premiers froids,Et c'est moi qui lui donneLe dernier chant des bois.
"Il est triste, et je chanteSous mon deuil mêlé d'or.Dans la brume pesanteJe vois l'azur encor.
"Que ce chant te relèveEt te garde l'espoir!Qu'il te berce d'un rêve,Et te ramène au soir!
"Mais quand vient la gelée,Je frappe à ton carreau.Il n'est plus de feuillée,Prends pitié de l'oiseau!
"C'est ton ami d'automneQui revient près de toi.Le ciel, tout m'abandonne—Bûcheron, ouvre-moi!
"Qu'en ce temps de disette,Le petit voyageur,Régalé d'une miette,S'endorme à ta chaleur!
"Je suis le compagnonDu pauvre bûcheron."
Imitated:—
I am the companionOf the poor woodcutter.I follow him in autumn,When the first chill breezes plain;And I it is who warbleThe woodlands' last sweet strain.He is sad, and then I singUnder my gilded shroud,And I see the gleam of azureGlint through the gathering cloud.Oh, may the song inspiringRevive Hope's flame again,And at even guide thee homewardBy the magic of its strain!But when the streams are frozen,I tap at thy window-pane—Oh, on the bird take pity,Not a leaf, not a herb remain!It is thy autumn comradeWho makes appeal to thee;By heaven, by all forsaken,Woodman, oh, pity me!Yes, in these days of famineThe little pilgrim keep;On dainty crumbs regale him,By the fireside let him sleep!For I am the companionOf the poor woodcutter!
I am the companionOf the poor woodcutter.
I follow him in autumn,When the first chill breezes plain;And I it is who warbleThe woodlands' last sweet strain.
He is sad, and then I singUnder my gilded shroud,And I see the gleam of azureGlint through the gathering cloud.
Oh, may the song inspiringRevive Hope's flame again,And at even guide thee homewardBy the magic of its strain!
But when the streams are frozen,I tap at thy window-pane—Oh, on the bird take pity,Not a leaf, not a herb remain!
It is thy autumn comradeWho makes appeal to thee;By heaven, by all forsaken,Woodman, oh, pity me!
Yes, in these days of famineThe little pilgrim keep;On dainty crumbs regale him,By the fireside let him sleep!
For I am the companionOf the poor woodcutter!
THE NEST.
THE NEST.
THE NEST.
I am writing opposite a graceful collection of nests of French birds, made for me by a friend. I am able thus to appreciate, to verify the descriptions of authors, to improve them, perhaps, if the very limited resources of style can give any just idea of a wholly special art, less analogous to ours than one would be tempted to believe at the first glance. Nothing in this branch of study can supply the place of actual sight of the objects. You must see and touch; you will then perceive that all comparison is false and inaccurate. These things belong to a world apart. Shall we sayabove, orbelowthe works of man? Neither the one nor the other; but essentially different, and whose supposed similarities (or relations) are only external.
Let us recollect, at the outset, that this charming object, so much more delicate than words can describe, owes everything to art, to skill, to calculation. The materials are generally of the rudest, and not always those which the artist would have preferred. The instruments are very defective. The bird has neither the squirrel's hand nor the beaver's tooth. Having only his bill and his foot (which by no means serves the purpose of a hand), it seems that the nest should be to him an insoluble problem. The specimens now before my eyes are for the most part composed of a tissue or covering of mosses, small flexible branches, or long vegetable filaments; but it is less aweavingthan acondensation; a felting of materials, blended, beaten, and welded together with much exertion and perseverance; an act of great labour and energetic operation, for which the bill and the claw would be insufficient. The tool really used is the bird's own body—his breast—with which he presses and kneads the materials until he has rendered them completely pliable, has thoroughly mixed them, and subdued them to the general work.
And within, too, the implement which determines the circular form of the nest is no other than the bird's body. It is by constantly turning himself about, and ramming the wall on every side, that he succeeds in shaping the circle.
Thus, then, his house is his very person, his form, and his immediate effort—I would say, his suffering. The result is only obtained by a constantly repeated pressure of his breast. There is not one of these blades of grass but which, to take and retain the form of acurve, has been a thousand and a thousand times pressed against his bosom, his heart, certainly with much disturbance of the respiration, perhaps with much palpitation.
It is quite otherwise with the habitat of the quadruped. He comes into the world clothed; what need has he of a nest? Thus, then, those animals which build or burrow labour for themselves rather than for their young. A skilful miner is the mountain rat, in his oblique tunnel, which saves him from the winter gale. The squirrel, with hand adroit, raises the pretty turret which defends him from the rain. The great engineer of the lakes, the beaver, foreseeing the gathering of the waters, builds up several stages to which he may ascend at pleasure; but all this is done for the individual. The bird builds for her family. Carelessly did she live in her bright leafy bower, exposed to every enemy; but the moment she was no longer alone, the hoped for and anticipated maternity made her an artist. The nest is a creation of love.
Thus, the work is imprinted with a force of extraordinary will, of a passion singularly persevering. You see in it especially this fact, that it is not, like our works, prepared from a model, which settles the plan, conducts and regulates the labour. Here the conception is so thoroughlyinthe artist, the idea so clearly defined, that, without frame or carcase, without preliminary support, the aerial ship is built up piece by piece, and not a hitch disturbs the ensemble. All adjusts itself exactly, symmetrically, in perfect harmony; a thing infinitely difficult in such a deficiencyof tools, and in this rude effort of concentration and kneading by the mere pressure of the breast. The mother does not trust to the male bird for all this; but she employs him as her purveyor. He goes in quest of the materials—grasses, mosses, roots, or branches. But when the ship is built, when the interior has to be arranged—the couch, the household furniture—the matter becomes more difficult. Care must be taken that the former be fit to receive an egg peculiarly sensitive to cold, every chilled point of which means for the little one a dead limb. That little one will be born naked. Its stomach, closely folded to the mother's, will not fear the cold; but the back, still bare, will only be warmed by the bed; the mother's precaution and anxiety are, therefore, not easily satisfied. The husband brings her some horse-hair, but it is too hard; it will only serve as an under-stratum, a sort of elastic mattress. He brings hemp, but that is too cold; only the silk or silky fibre of certain plants, wool or cotton, are admissible; or better still, her own feathers, her own down, which she plucks away, and deposits under the nursling. It is interesting to watch the male bird's skilful and furtive search for materials; he is apprehensive lest you should learn, by watching him with your eyes, the track to his nest. Frequently, if you look at him, he will take a different road, to deceive you. A hundred ingenious little thefts respond to the mother's desire. He will follow the sheep to collect a little wool. From the poultry-yard he will gather the dropped feathers of the mother hen. If the farmer's wife quit for a moment her seat in the porch, and leave behind her distaff or ball of thread, hewill spy his opportunity, and go off the richer for a thread or two.
Collections of nests are very recent, not numerous, and, as yet, not rich. In that of Rouen, however, which is remarkable for its arrangement; in that of Paris, where many very curious specimens may be examined; you can distinguish already the different industries which create this master-piece of the nest. What is the chronology, the gradual growth of it? Not from one art to another (not from masonry to weaving, for example); but in each separate art, the birds which abandon themselves to it are more or less successful, according to the intelligence of the species, the abundance of material, or the exigency of climate.
Among the burrowing birds, the booby, and the penguin, whose young, as soon as born, spring into the sea, content themselves with hollowing out a rude hole. But the bee-eater, the sea-swallow, which must educate their young, excavate under the ground a dwelling which is admirably proportioned, and not without some geometrical design. They furnish it, moreover, and strew it with soft yielding substances on which the fledgling will be less sensitive to the hardness or freshness of the humid soil.
Among the building-birds, the flamingo, which raises a pyramid of mud to isolate her eggs from the inundated earth, and, while standing erect, hatches them under her long legs, is contented with a rude,rough work. It is, moreover, a stratagem. The true mason is the swallow, which suspends her house to ours.
The marvel of its kind is, perhaps, the wonderful carpentry which the thrush executes. The nest, very much exposed under the moist shelter of the vines, is made externally of moss, and amid the surrounding verdure escapes the eye; but look within: it is an admirable cupola, neat, polished, shining, and not inferior to glass. You may see yourself in it as in a mirror.
The rustic art, appropriate to the forests, of timber-work, joining, wood-carving, is attempted on the lowest scale by the toucan, whose bill, though enormous, is weak and thin: he attacks only worm-eaten trees. The woodpecker, better armed, as we have seen, accomplishes more: he is a true carpenter; until love inspires him, and he becomes a sculptor.
Infinite in varieties and species is the guild of basket-makers and weavers. To note the starting-point, the advance, and the climax of an industry so varied, would be a prolonged labour.
The shore birds plait, to begin with, but very unskilfully. Why should they do better? So warmly clothed by nature with an unctuous and almost impermeable coat of plumage, they have little need to allow for the elements. Their great art is the chase; always lank, and insufficiently fed, the piscivora are controlled by the wants of a craving stomach.
The very elementary weaving of the herons and storks is already outstripped, though to no great extent, by the basket-makers of the woods, the jay, the mocking-bird, the bullfinch. Their more numerous brood impose on them more arduous toil. They lay down rude enough foundations, but thereupon plant a basket of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry twigs strongly woven together. The cistole delicately interlaces three reeds or canes, whose leaves, mingled with the web, form a safe and mobile base, undulating as the bird rocks. The tomtit suspends her purse-like cradle to a bough, and trusts to the wind to nurse her progeny.
The canary, the goldfinch, the chaffinch, are skilfulfelters. Thelatter, restless and suspicious, attaches to the finished nest, with much skill and address, a quantity of white lichens, so that the spotted appearance of the whole completely misleads the seeker, and induces him to take this charming and cunningly disguised nest for an accident of vegetation, a fortuitous and natural object.
Glueing and felting play an important part in the work of the weavers. It would be a mistake to separate these arts too widely. The humming-bird consolidates its little house with the gum of trees. Most birds employ saliva. Some—a strange thing, and a subtle invention of love!—here make use of processes for which their organs are least adapted. An American starling contrives to sew the leaves with its bill, and does so very adroitly.
A few skilful weavers, not satisfied with the bill, bring into play their feet. The chain prepared, they fix it with their feet, while the beak inserts the weft. They become genuine weavers.
In fine, skill never fails them. It is very astonishing, butimplementsarewanting. They are strangely ill-adapted for the work. Most insects, in comparison, are wonderfully furnished with arms and utensils. But these are true workmen, are born workmen. The bird is so but for a time, through the inspiration of love.
THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS.
THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS.
THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS.
The more I reflect upon it, the more clearly I perceive that the bird, unlike the insect, is not an industrial animal. He is the poet of nature, the most independent of created beings, with a sublime, an adventurous, but on the whole an ill-protected existence.
Let us penetrate into the wild American forests, and examine the means of safety which these isolated beings invent or possess. Let us compare the bird's resources, the efforts of his genius, with the inventions of his neighbour, man, who inhabits the same localities. The difference does honour to the bird; human invention is always acting on the offensive. While the Indian has fashioned a club and a tomahawk, the bird has built only a nest.
For decency, warmth, and elegant gracefulness, the nest is in every respect superior to the Indian's wigwam or the Negro's hut, which, frequently, in Africa, is nothing but a baobab hollowed by time.
The negro has not yet invented the door; his hut remains open. Against the nocturnal forays of wild beasts, he obstructs the entrance with thorns.
Nor does the bird know how to close his nest. What shall be its defence? A great and terrible question.
He makes the entry narrow and tortuous. If he selects a natural nest, as the wryneck does, in the hollow of a tree, he contracts the opening by skilful masonry. Many, like the pine-pine, build a double nest in two apartments: the mother sits in the alcove; in the vestibule watches the father, an attentive sentinel, to repulse invasion.
What enemies has he to fear! Serpents, men or apes, squirrels! And what do I say? The birds themselves! This people, too, has its robbers. His neighbours sometimes assist a feeble bird to recover his property, to expel by force the unjust usurper. Naturalists assure us that the rooks (a kind of crow) carry further the spirit of justice. They do not pardon a young couple who, to complete their establishment the sooner, rob the materials—"the movables"—of another nest. They assemble in a troop of eight or ten to rend in fragments the nest of the criminals, and completely destroy that house of theft. And punished thieves are driven afar, and forced to begin all over again.
Is there not here an idea of property, and of the sacred lights of labour?
Where shall they find securities, and how assure a commencement of public order? It is curious to know in what way the birds have resolved the question.
Two solutions presented themselves. The first was that ofassociation—the organization of a government which should concentrate force, and by the reunion of the weak form a defensive power. The second (but miraculous? impossible? imaginative?) would have been the realization of theaerial cityof Aristophanes,—the construction of a dwelling-place guarded by its lightness from the unwieldy brigands of the air, and inaccessible to the approaches of the brigands of the earth—the hunter, the serpent.
These two things—the one difficult, the other apparently impossible—the bird has realized.
At first, association and government. Monarchy is the inferior venture. Just as the apes have a king to conduct each band, several species of birds, especially in dangerous emergencies, appear to follow a chief.
The ant-eaters have a king; so have the birds of paradise. The tyrant, an intrepid little bird of extraordinary audacity, affords his protection to some larger species, which follow and confide in him. It is asserted that the noble hawk, repressing its instincts of prey for certain species, allows the trembling families which trust in his generosity to nestle under and around him.
But the safest fellowship is that between equals. The ostrich, the penguin, a crowd of species, unite for this purpose. Several kinds, associating for the purpose of travel, form, at the moment of emigration, into temporary republics. We know the good understanding, the republican gravity, the perfect tactic of the storks and cranes. Others, smaller in size or less completely armed—in climates, moreover, where nature, cruelly prolific, engenders without pause their formidable foes—place their abodes close together, but do not mingle them, and under a common roof, living in separate partitions, form veritable hives.
The description given by Paterson appeared fabulous; but it has been confirmed by Levaillant, who frequently encountered in Africa, studied, and investigated the strange community. The engraving given in the "Architecture of Birds" enables the reader more readily to comprehend his narration. It is the image of an immense umbrella planted on a tree, and shading under its common roof more than three hundred habitations. "I caused it to be brought to me," says Levaillant, "by several men, who set it on a vehicle. I cut it with an axe, and saw that it was in the main a mass of Booschmannie grass, without any mixture, but so strongly woven together that it was impossible for the rain to penetrate. This is only the framework of the edifice; each bird constructs for himself a separate nest under the common pavilion. The nests occupy only the reverse of the roof; the upper part remains empty, without, however, being useless; for, raised more than the remainder of the pile, it gives to the whole a sufficient inclination, and thus preserves each little habitation. In two words, let the reader figure to himself a great oblique and irregular roof, whose edge in the interior is garnished with nests ranged close to one another, and he will have an exact idea of these singular edifices.
"Each nest is three or four inches in diameter, which is sufficiently large for the bird; but as they are in close contact around the roof, they appear to theeye to form but a single edifice, and are only separated by a small opening which serves as an entry to the nest; and one entrance frequently is common to three nests, one of which is placed at the bottom, and the others on each side. It has 320 cells, and will hold 640 inhabitants, if each contains a couple, which may be doubted. Every time, however, that I have aimed at a swarm, I have killed the same number of males and females."
A laudable example, and worthy of imitation! I wish I could but believe that the fraternity of those poor little ones was a sufficient protection. Their number and their noise may sometimes alarm the enemy, disturb the monster, make him take another direction. But if he should persist; if, strong in his scaly skin, the boa, deaf to their cries, mounts to the attack, invades the city at the time when the fledglings have as yet no wings for flight, their numbers then can but multiply the victims.
There remains the idea of Aristophanes, theaerial city—to isolate it from earth and water, and build in the air.
This is a stroke of genius. And to carry it out is needed the miracle of the two foremost powers in the world—love and fear.
Of the most vivid fear; of that which freezes your blood: if, peering through a hole in a tree, the black flat head of a cold reptile rises and hisses in your face, though you are a man, and a brave man, you tremble.
How much more must the little, feeble, disarmed creature, surprised in its nest, and unable to make use of its wings—how much more must it tremble, and sink panic-stricken!
The invention of the aerial city took place in the land of serpents.
Africa, the realm of monsters, in its horrible arid wastes, sees them cover the earth. Asia, on the burning shore of Bombay, in her forests where the mud ferments, makes them swarm, and fatten, and swell with venom. In the Moluccas they are innumerable.
Thence came the inspiration of theLoxia pensilis(the grosbeak of the Philippines). Such is the name of the great artist.
He chooses a bamboo growing close to the water. To the branches of this tree he delicately suspends some vegetable fibres. He knows beforehand the weight of the nest, and never errs. To the threads he attaches, one by one (not supporting himself on anything, but working in the air) some sufficiently strong grasses. The task is long and fatiguing; it presupposes an infinite amount of patient courage.
The vestibule alone is nothing less than a cylinder of twelve to fifteen feet, which hangs over the water, the opening being below, so that one enters it ascending. The upper extremity may be compared to a gourd or an inflated bag, like a chemist's retort. Sometimes five or six hundred nests of this kind hang to a single tree.
Such is my city of the air; not a dream and a phantasy, like that of Aristophanes, but actual, realized, and answering the three conditions: security both on the side of land and water, and inaccessibility to the robbers of the air through its narrow openings, where one can only enter by ascending with great difficulty.
Now, that which was said to Columbus when he defied his guests to make an egg stand upright, you perhaps will say to the ingenious bird in reference to his suspended city. You will observe, "It was very simple." To which the bird will reply, like Columbus, "Why did you not discover it?"
EDUCATION.
EDUCATION.
EDUCATION.
Behold, then, the nest made, and protected by every prudential means which the mother can devise. She rests upon her perfected work, and dreams of the new guest which it shall contain to-morrow.
At this hallowed moment, ought not we, too, to reflect and ask ourselves what it is this mother's heart contains?
A soul? Shall we dare to say that this ingenious architect, this tender mother, hasa soul?
Many persons, nevertheless, full of sense and sympathy, will denounce, will reject this very natural idea as a scandalous hypothesis.
Their heart would incline them towards it; their mind leads them to repel it; their mind, or at least their education, the idea which, from an early age, has been impressed upon them.
Beasts are only machines, mechanical automata; or if we think we can detect in them some glimmering rays of sensibility and reason, those are solely the effect ofinstinct. But what is instinct? A sixth sense—I know not what—which is undefinable, which has been implanted in them, not acquired by themselves—a blind force which acts, constructs, and makes a thousand ingenious things, without their being conscious of them, without their personal activity counting for aught.
If it is so, this instinct would be invariable, and its works immovably regular, which neither time nor circumstances would ever change.
Indifferent minds—distracted, busy about other matters—which have no time for observation, accept this statement upon parole. Why not? At the first glance certain actions and also certain works of animals appearalmostregular. To come to a different conclusion, more attention, perhaps, is needed, more time and study, than the question is fairly worth.
Let us adjourn the dispute, and see the object itself. Let us take the humblest example, an individual example; let us appeal to our eyes, our own observation, such as each one of us can make with the most vulgar of the senses.
Perhaps the reader will permit me here to introduce, in all honesty and simpleness, the journal of my canary, Jonquille, as it was written hour by hour from the birth of her first child; a journal of remarkable exactness, and, in short, an authentic register of birth.
"It must be stated, at the outset, that Jonquille was born in a cage, and had not seen how nests were made. As soon as I saw her disturbed, and became aware of her approaching maternity, I frequently opened her door, and allowed her freedom to collect in the room the materials of the bed the little one would stand in need of. She gathered them up, indeed, but without knowing how to employ them. She put them together, and stored them in a corner of her cage. It was very evident that the art of construction was not innate in her, that (exactly like man) the bird does not know until it has learned.
"I gave her the nest ready made, at least the little basket which forms the framework and walls of the structure. Then she made the mattress, and felted the interior coating, but in a very indifferent manner. Afterwards she sat on her egg for sixteen days with a perseverance, a fervour, a maternal devotion which were astonishing, scarcely rising for a few minutes in the day from her fatiguing position, and only when the male was ready to take her place.
"At noon on the sixteenth day the shell was broken in two, and we saw, struggling in the nest, a pair of little wings without feathers, a couple of tiny feet, a something which struggled to rid itself entirely of its envelopment. The body was one large stomach, round as a ball. The mother, with great eyes, outstretched neck, and fluttering wings, from the edge of the basket looked at her child, and looked at me also, as if to say: 'Do not come near!'
"Except some long down on the wings and head, it was completely naked.
"On this first day she only gave it some drink. It opened, however, already a bill of good proportions.
"From time to time, that it might breathe the more easily, she moved a little, then replaced it under her wing, and rubbed it gently.
"The second day it ate but a very light beakful of chickweed, well prepared, brought in the first place by the father, received by the mother, and transmitted by her with short, quick chirps. In all probability this was given rather for medicinal purposes than as food.
"So long as the nursling has all it requires, the mother permits the male bird to fly to and fro, to go and come, to attend to his occupations. But as soon as it asks for more, the mother, with her sweetest voice, summons the purveyor, who fills his beak, arrives in all haste, and transmits to her the food.
"The fifth day the eyes are less prominent; on the sixth, in the morning, feathers stretch along the wings, and the back grows darker; on the eighth it opens its eyes when called, and begins to stutter:the father ventures to nourish it. The mother takes some relaxation, and frequently absents herself. She often perches on the rim of the nest, and lovingly contemplates her offspring. But the latter stirs, feels the need of movement. Poor mother! in a little while it will escape thee.
"In this first education of the still passive and elementary life, as in the second (and active, that of flight), of which I have already spoken, one fact, evident and clearly discernible at every moment, was, that everything was proportioned with infinite prudence to the condition least foreseen, a condition essentially variable, the nursling's individual strength; the quantity, quality, and mode of preparation of the food, the cares of warmth, friction, cleanliness, were all ordered with a skill and an attention to detail, modified according to circumstance, such as the most delicate and provident woman could hardly have surpassed.
"When I saw her heart throbbing violently, and her eye kindling as she gazed on her precious treasure, I exclaimed: 'Could I do otherwise near the cradle of my son?'"
Ah, if she be a machine, what am I myself? and who will then prove that I am a person? If she has not a soul, who will answer to me for the human soul? To what thereafter shall we trust? And is not all this world a dream, a phantasmagoria, if, in the mostindividual actions, actions the most plainly reasoned over and calculated upon, I am to conclude there is nothing but a lack of reason, a mechanism, an "automatism," a species of pendulum which sports with life and thought?
Note that our observations were made on a captive, who worked in fatal and predetermined conditions of dwelling-place, nourishment, &c. But how, if her action had been more evidently chosen, willed, and meditated; if all this had transpired in the freedom of the forests, or she had had cause to disquiet herself about many other circumstances which captivity enabled her to ignore? I am thinking especially of the anxiety for security, which, for the bird in savage life, is the foremost of all cares, and which more than anything else exercises and develops her free genius.
This first initiation into life, of which I have just given an example, is followed by what I shall call theprofessional education; every bird has a vocation.
This education is more or less arduous, according to the medium and the circumstances in which each species is placed. That of fishing, for instance, is simple enough for the penguin, which, in her clumsiness, finds it difficult to conduct her brood to the sea; its great nurse attends the little one, and offers it the food all ready; ithas but to open its bill. With the duck, this education or training is more complex. I observed one summer, on a lake in Normandy, a duck, followed by her brood, giving them their first lesson. The nurslings, riotous and greedy, asked but for food. The mother, yielding to their cries, plunged to the bottom of the water, reappearing with some small worm or little fish, which she distributed impartially, never giving twice in succession to the same duckling!
In this picture the most touching figure was the mother, whose stomach undoubtedly was also craving, but who retained nothing for herself, and seemed happy in the sacrifice. Her visible desire was to accustom her family to do as she did, to dive under the water intrepidly to seize their prey. With a voice almost gentle, she implored this action of courageous confidence. I had the happiness of seeing the little ones plunge in, one after another, to the depth of the black abyss. Their education was just on the eve of completion.
This is but a simple training, and for one of the inferior vocations. There remains to speak of that of the arts: of the art of flight, the art of song, the art of architecture. Nothing is more complex than the education of certain singing birds. The perseverance of the father, the docility of the young, are worthy of all admiration.
And this education extends beyond the family-circle. The nightingales, the chaffinches, while still young or unskilful, know how to listen to, and profit by, the superior bird which has been allotted to them as their instructor. In those Russian palaces where flourishes the noble Oriental partiality for the bulbul's song, you see everywhere these singing-schools. The master nightingale, in his cage suspended in the centre of a saloon, has his scholars ranged around him in their respective cages. A certain sum per hour is paid for each bird brought here to learn his lesson. Before the master sings they chatter and gossip among themselves, salute and recognize one another. But as soon as the mighty teacher, with one imperious note, like that of a sonorous steel bell, has imposed silence, you see them listen with a sensible deference, then timidly repeat the strain. The master complacently returns to the principal passages, corrects, and gently setsthem right. A few then grow bolder, and, by some felicitous chords, essay to supply the harmony to the dominant melody.
An education so delicate, so varied, so complex, is it that of a machine, of a brute reduced to instinct? Who can refuse in this to acknowledge a soul?
Open your eyes to the evidence. Throw aside your prejudices, your traditional and derived opinions. Preconceived ideas and dogmatic theories apart, you cannot offend Heaven by restoring a soul to the beast.[26]How much grander the Creator's work if he has created persons, souls, and wills, than if he has constructed machines!
Dismiss your pride, and acknowledge a kindred in which there is nothing to make a devout mind ashamed. What are these? They are your brothers.
What are they? embryo souls, souls especially set apart for certain functions of existence, candidates for the more general and more widely harmonic life to which the human soul has attained.
When will they arrive thither? and how? God has reserved to himself these mysteries.
All that we know is this: that he summons them—them also—to mount higher and yet higher.
They are, without metaphor, the little children of Nature, the nurslings of Providence, aspiring towards the light in order to act and think; stumbling now, they by Degrees shall advance much further.
"O pauvre enfantelet! du fil de tes penséesL'échevelet n'est encore débrouillé."Poor feeble child! not yet of thy thought's threadIs the entangled skein unravellèd.
"O pauvre enfantelet! du fil de tes penséesL'échevelet n'est encore débrouillé."
Poor feeble child! not yet of thy thought's threadIs the entangled skein unravellèd.
Souls of children, in truth, but far gentler, more resigned, more patient than those of human children. See with what silent good humour most of them (like the horse) support blows, and wounds, and ill-treatment! They all know how to endure disease and suffer death. They retire apart, surround themselves with silence, and lie down in concealment; this gentle patience often supplies them with the most efficacious remedies. If not, they accept their destiny, and pass away as if they slept.
Can they love as deeply as we love? How shall we doubt it, when we see the most timid suddenly become heroic in defence of their young and their family? The devotedness of the man who braves death for his children you will see exemplified every day in the martin, which not only resists the eagle, but pursues him with heroical ardour.
Would you wish to observe two things wonderfully analogous? Watch on the one side the woman's delight at the first step of her infant, and on the other the swallow at the first flight of her little nursling.
You see in both the same anxiety, the same encouragements, examples, and counsels, the same pretended security and lurking fear, the trembling "Take courage, nothing is more easy;"—in truth, the two mothers are inwardly shivering.
The lessons are curious. The mother raises herself on her wings; the fledgling regards her intently, and also raises himself a little; then you see her hovering—he looks, he stirs his wings. All thisgoes well, for it takes place in the nest—the difficulty begins when he essays to quit it. She calls him, she shows him some little dainty tit-bit, she promises him a reward, she attempts to draw him forth with the bait of a fly.
Still the little one hesitates. And put yourself in his place. You have but to move a step in the nursery, between your nurse and your mother, where, if you fell, you would fall upon cushions. This bird of the church, which gives her first lesson in flying from the summit of the spire, can scarcely embolden her son, perhaps can scarcely embolden herself at the decisive moment. Both, I am sure of it, measure more than once with their glances the abyss beneath, and eye the ground. I, for one, declare to you, the spectacle is moving and sublime. It is an urgent need that he shouldtrusthis mother, thatsheshould have confidence in the wing of the little one who is still a novice. From both does Heaven require an act of faith, of courage. A noble and a sublime starting-point! But hehastrusted, he has made the leap, he will not fall. Trembling, he floats in air, supported by the paternal breath of heaven, by the reassuring voice of his mother. All is finished. Thenceforth he will fly regardless of the wind and the storm, strong in that first great trial wherein he flew in faith.
[Note.—The Swallow's Flight.According to Wilson, the swallow's ordinary flight averages one mile per minute. He is engaged in flying for ten hours daily. Now, as his life is usually extended to a space of ten years, he flies, in that period, 2,190,000 miles, or nearly eighty-eight times the circumference of the globe.The swallow, as Sir Humphrey Davy observes, cheers the sense of sight as much as the nightingale does the sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year, the harbinger of its brightest season, and lives a life of free enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature.There is something peculiarly beautiful in his rapid, steady, well-balanced flight,—"Which, ere a double pulse can beat,Is here and there with motion fleet,As Ariel's wing could scarce exceed;And, full of vigour as of speed,Forestalls the dayspring's earliest gleam,Nor fails with evening's latest beam."To all nations he is welcome, and by all the poets has been celebrated with fond eulogium.—Translator.]
[Note.—The Swallow's Flight.According to Wilson, the swallow's ordinary flight averages one mile per minute. He is engaged in flying for ten hours daily. Now, as his life is usually extended to a space of ten years, he flies, in that period, 2,190,000 miles, or nearly eighty-eight times the circumference of the globe.
The swallow, as Sir Humphrey Davy observes, cheers the sense of sight as much as the nightingale does the sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year, the harbinger of its brightest season, and lives a life of free enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature.
There is something peculiarly beautiful in his rapid, steady, well-balanced flight,—
"Which, ere a double pulse can beat,Is here and there with motion fleet,As Ariel's wing could scarce exceed;And, full of vigour as of speed,Forestalls the dayspring's earliest gleam,Nor fails with evening's latest beam."
"Which, ere a double pulse can beat,Is here and there with motion fleet,As Ariel's wing could scarce exceed;And, full of vigour as of speed,Forestalls the dayspring's earliest gleam,Nor fails with evening's latest beam."
To all nations he is welcome, and by all the poets has been celebrated with fond eulogium.—Translator.]
THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE NIGHTINGALE.